[rexaliquid]

> A big problem (that we arguably created ourselves) is a patron could pledge to a creator on the 25th of a month (granting a patron 5-6 days of access), get charged, and then get charged again on the 1st of the next month (granting the patron 30-31 days of patron-access). Pro-rating didn't seem like a right solution for the first charge since becoming a patron unlocked all the content immediately. So imo we should just (like a Netflix or any other subscription) have your first pledge grant you 30 days of access, whenever it was created -- and have this forever be your "anniversary date" of charge -- if you pledge Jan 25th, you'd be charged again Feb 25th.

You could keep your charge date on the 1st of the month, and just not charge for that first month if they are charged up front. Let creators choose the length of their grace period: 3 days, 10 days, two weeks. Creators get paid, don't feel pressured to provide refunds, and patrons get a little sign-on discount.

[CamperBob2]

Creators get paid, don't feel pressured to provide refunds, and patrons get a little sign-on discount.

This seems like the key. Instead of making any decisions about payment scheduling options, design your system to allow for all of them within reason, and give the creators a menu.

If you don't offer your users enough options, you will eventually be out-competed by a patronage service that does. Hardwiring your system to a model that happens to work for you simply ensures that this will happen sooner rather than later.

[PandaChi]

This is an interesting thought -- one of the other things we see creators do is physical rewards, which means there is a cost to them in fulfilling their pledges. Although I could see compatibility to your suggestion still b/c you just wouldn't get the physical good twice, one good would cover the period of the next month + the original grace period.

[rcthompson]

I think one essential consideration that's been lost in the discussion is that Patreon can be used in many different ways. For some creators, it may be a periodic direct exchange of money for goods and services. Each month a patron pays $X and receives $X worth of either physical goods or some kind of service. For other creators, Patreon is a tip jar, where the primary product is released elsewhere for free, and fans can use Patreon to give recurring tips/donations, and through Patreon they at most receive some bonus rewards that are generally not themselves worth the $X they paid, since they are mainly paying in order to donate to a project that is external to Patreon. This latter mode of use is the one I, as a patron, am most involved with, since I donate to multiple web comics. I'm sure there are other modes of use as well that I haven't thought of or seen.

The reason this is important is because a one-size-fits-all solution may not be possible. For the case of physical rewards in return for pledges, charge-up-front is completely unnecessary. The creator can just say that the rewards will go out after they receive payment on the first of the month, so someone subscribing in the middle of the month receives nothing until the month ticks over. For the donation case, charge-up-front is useful, but not for the reason you might think. The main point is to prevent freeloaders who pledge, view the exclusive content, and then cancel without paying a cent. In this case, creators would probably be fine with pro-rating the first monthly payment after charge-up-front, or even just skipping it entirely. It's all donations anyway, so the point is not to extract maximum value from each patron, it's to make sure each patron is paying an amount that they are comfortable with, so that they will continue to pledge long-term.

My overall point is that the platform that is Patreon is abstract and flexible enough to support a number of different business models, which may have different needs with regard to charge-up-front and other features. And to get an idea of the full breadth of those possibilities, I think you just need to interview a lot of creators, and I think you'll find that the usage patterns are more varied than you expect. At the same time, I'm sure there's value for patrons in having things like charge-up-front work the same way across different creators' Patreon accounts, so that they know what to expect when pledging.

[rexaliquid]

I think there is a real benefit for creators of physical rewards when they aren't obligated to fulfill or refund pledges that come in at the very end of the month. They can begin and end shipping earlier, and apply late pledges to next month's rewards.

And as a patron, I appreciate receiving my December rewards near the end of December rather than mid-January.

[zodPod]

This doesn't seem like a great idea. What if I just joined for the first month, grabbed all of the content, then dropped out? I mean, I love this idea for the Creators that offer premium content that I want but don't want to pay for but it seems like they'd get ripped off a lot.

[rexaliquid]

The problem that charging up-front was created to address was people pledging money, reaping rewards, then dropping out before paying any money at all. With this system, if someone signs up for one month, then drops, the creator still gets paid for that month.

Worst case: a patron could game the system and only pay half as much as other patrons for the same content. That would involve pledging and canceling repeatedly every other month. That is not a likely scenario, and still infinitely better than the previous worst case: patrons paying $0 for that premium content.