This article outlines details about how multi-currency on Patreon works, how we’re converting prices into new currencies, and the audience and patron experience.
You can skip ahead by clicking the links below:
- Key things to know about currency conversion
- Converting your tier price
- Earnings and Exchange Rates
- Your dashboards
- The Patron Experience
- Frequently Asked Questions about currency conversion
Key things to know
- Audiences who visit your page have your tiers priced in their choice of supported currencies. Patreon converts your tier prices into the audience’s preferred currency. Visit this help article for more information: Patreon's supported currencies
- When receiving a pledge in a different currency than your payout currency, Patreon charges you a 2.5% currency conversion fee.
- Existing patrons who are already paying in your payout currency are not required to change anything at all.
How we convert your tier prices
When a new potential patron visits your page, Patreon will automatically convert your tier prices to their local currency, where supported. Audiences not in one of the supported currency regions will have tier prices in your payout currency.
To determine the prices to display in other currencies, we use current and historical exchange rates to arrive at an average exchange rate for each currency. After using that average rate to convert to a new currency we add a buffer of 2-7% (depending on the volatility of each currency's historical exchange rate) to protect creators against potential currency fluctuations. We then round up to the nearest 50 cents, except for CZK, DKK, HKD, HUF, NOK, PLN, and SEK, where we round up to the nearest whole number so that we show patrons a price with round numbers. The resulting price is what we display on your page.
Patreon updates the price books if the exchange rate for any of our supported currencies has changed significantly; however, we aim to keep changes to a minimum to maintain stable pricing. Our goal is to update the Price Book every 6-12 months, depending on when large exchange rate fluctuations occur.
Preview tier prices
You can preview your tier prices in other currencies in the Membership tier editor by clicking the Preview button at the top of your Tier editor or Membership page.
Previewing your page in different currencies
You can preview your public page and tiers in any of the available currencies. Here's how to do that:
- While logged in to your creator profile, click on the My Page button from the left sidebar navigation
- Then click on the Page Controls or "..." button
- Click the Edit Tiers link from the submenu to get to your Membership tier editor
- Click on the Edit tier button for any tier you'd like to preview tier prices for
- Under the Monthly price section of the tier editor, click the Preview in different currencies button
- A window will populate with your tier price and a list of all supported currency conversions
Earnings and Exchange rates
Creators receive their portion of patron payments in their own currency based on the average exchange rate from the day before the payment was successfully processed.
Patreon charges creators a 2.5% currency conversion fee on all patron payments made in a currency other than your payout currency. This fee will be reversed on any payments that are refunded to patrons. All fees will be calculated based on your payout currency.
For example, let’s say your payout currency is Euros and a patron pays in USD. You set your tier price at 5 EUR, and that gets converted to $6 USD for patrons in the US, inclusive of the 4.5% buffer and rounding up to the nearest 50 cents. When a patron signs up, their $6 gets converted to Euros in order to put it in your creator balance using the previous day’s exchange rate. Let’s say it gets converted to 5.40 Euros. We then calculate the 2.5% currency conversion fee and Patreon’s platform fee on the 5.40 Euros.
To make your earnings easier to track, creators who use this feature will also have access to a new CSV download in their Payout dashboard. This will be a detailed earnings report at a transaction level which will include a breakdown of the patron payment, creator share, currency conversion rate, and more.
Your Dashboards
To make your earnings easier to track, all of your Payouts and Insights dashboards will show amounts in your payout currency, regardless of your patron’s pledge currency.
The patron Relationship Manager will display the patron’s currency in their pledge amount. This is also detailed in the individual patron information, but each patron’s Lifetime Value and the amount you receive is shown in your currency. Similarly, when you download your CSV report from Patron Relationship Manager, this will show amounts in your payout currency.
For more currency detail, you can download a CSV in your Documents page in your Payouts with a row per patron payment breaking out basic earnings information, plus:
- Patron amount and currency charged
- Patron tax amount/currency
- Daily exchange rate
- Creator earnings
- Currency conversion fee
To download this CSV, click on the Payouts link from the left sidebar navigation, and then click on the Documents tab from the menubar. From here, you can download your Payouts CSV.
The Patron Experience
Existing patrons who are already paying in your payout currency are not required to change anything at all. Their pledge remains stable. However, if they prefer to switch to another currency, they have the option to do this by editing their membership from their Active membership page.
Click here for more information on the patron experience: Patron currency settings on Patreon
Frequently Asked Questions
How is my tier price converted into other currencies?
Our goal is to create a stable experience for your patrons where prices are not fluctuating with every move of the exchange rates. Most currency exchange rates are determined by the foreign exchange market, or Forex (FX), and those rates fluctuate on a moment-by-moment basis.
In order to determine the prices to display in other currencies, we’ve used current and historical exchange rates to develop a conversion table. When we convert a tier price to a new currency, we add a 4.5% buffer to protect creators against potential currency fluctuations and then round up to the nearest 50 cents so that we show patrons a price with round numbers
We will evaluate exchange rates on an ongoing basis. If significant exchanges in rates cause our converted prices to be unfair to creators or patrons, we will update our converted prices.
What happens to the difference once it’s rounded?
The rounding difference goes to the creator.
Who pays currency conversion fees?
Any patrons you currently have that pay you in a currency that is not your payout currency are likely paying a currency conversion fee charged by their bank or credit card company. If they are located in a region where we support that currency, switching to their local currency will help them avoid those fees. When a patron joins your membership in their own currency, if it is different than your payout currency, you will pay a 2.5% currency conversion fee on that transaction.
This fee is to cover the cost of Patreon handling the currency conversion. Currency conversion fees are commonly charged by any company converting currency such as payment processors, banks, or other platforms that process payments as part of their business, for example, Etsy, or PayPal.
I’m not in the US and Paypal/Payoneer already charges a conversion fee. Will I be subject to both fees?
For creators in the UK and EU who are interested in switching their payout currency, in order to avoid being subject to additional conversion fees on your balance, we'd recommend waiting to opt-in until we roll out the ability for creators to change their payout currency to GBP and EUR. We expect this to be available in the next couple of months.
Will I be notified if a current patron changes their currency?
To avoid inundating creators with notifications, we do not notify you when a patron changes their currency. You can check the currency choice of your patron in Patron Relationship Manager by downloading the .csv available to you.
How will my audience and patrons find out about newly available currencies?
We recommend letting your audience know about the ability to pledge in their local currency where supported. We’ve compiled some suggested messaging you can use to share a post with existing patrons, as well as some suggestions for how to message this across your social media.
We also recommend letting your audience know about the ability to pledge in their local currency when supported. You can bulk message patrons from your Relationship Manager. Here's our guide to help you send a mass message to patrons: How to message my patrons
