omiart

New Patreon charge system.

Added 2016-10-24 11:25:35 +0000 UTC

So they finally implemented a feature that allows to charge patrons upfront. What should I do?

This change is permanent so once enabled there's no way back to the old system. Seems fine to me – it prevents people from removing pledges by the end of the month and coming back few days later, also these annoying bots.

The only drawback from this is that the upfront charge counts as a payment for the current month. For example if you pledge at the end of January you are going to be charged for January as soon as you pledge and regular monthly payment for February few days later. This is not cool when some people pledge high amounts of money like $100 while not being aware of how it works, so they will end up being charged $100 after few days again.

So:

CURRENT PATRONS pays their monthly pledges as usual
NEW PATRONS pays the initial pledge and the regular monthly payment
CURRENT PATRONS WHO RAISED THEIR PLEDGE are charged the difference immediately
CURRENT PATRONS WHO LOWERED THEIR PLEDGE aren't getting the money back
Patrons who pledged before the option was enabled count as current patrons – they pay their first pledge on the beginning of the next month

More info here.

This makes sense to me. It just needs to be clearly stated at the top of the page so people will know that they should pledge on the beginning of the month to avoid being charged twice. Good design of the tiers would also be cool. I mean, lower pledges should give previews of the higher ones, so people can pledge $1 and see if they want to pledge higher or stay at the current level.

For example:

$5 offers high res of SFW pics and low res previews of nude versions – you can tell if you want them as well
$10 offers high res versions of both and previews of the folders with additional versions – you can see what's inside them, what kind of edits they are, how many of them are usually there and finally – if they are worth the price – if you decide you want them too you raise the pledge again etc.

This is just an example, I'm not going to change my prices of course.