Creators Have Made $100M on Patreon
2016 was the best year, in the history of humans, to be a creative person. Over the last 10-15 years, the pipelines to audiences have been unlocked and free distribution channels have bloomed. If you have something to say, then fucking say it, because in 2017, no one can stop you.
The problem that has lingered for creators — and the problem that Patreon is now solving — is rebuilding the financing mechanism for the creation and distribution of what we call “art,” but is often deemed “content” these days by the tech community.
Last year, Patreon hit a huge milestone: $100 million in dollars paid (not pledged, but actually paid) to creators.
And by the end of 2016, creators were making twice what they were making at the beginning of the year. Our creators are doubling their incomes, annually, and they are establishing ongoing, reliable salaries, which not only fuel their creative endeavors, but legitimize their efforts as respectable, value-generating operations that contribute to society and enrich humanity.
No advertisers, no “native ad units,” no financing gymnastics that incentivize clicks instead of beauty. Just fans paying creators to make the work they love. It’s a simple and beautiful model.
When my co-founder and I launched Patreon, I posted a music video of an original song called “Pedals:”
It now has more than 1,991,000 views. It has 27,000 likes. 3,000 comments.
It cost over $10,000 to make that video. And three months of my life.
Below is my analytics dashboard for that particular video over its full lifetime on the web:
That’s 5 million minutes watched, leading to $963 of income.
5 million minutes of human enjoyment.
And, over three years, I’ve been paid less than a thousand bucks…total.
This devaluing of art and creators is happening at a global scale. I’m one of millions. It actually makes my heart sink when I think of the magnitude of the web’s systemic abuse of creative people.
So let’s be clear about it, because the debate is over: the attention economy, as a financing mechanism for the creation and distribution of art on the web, sucks. It doesn’t work, and it won’t fund the next generation of creative minds.
And we, the listeners, the watchers, the readers — we will be the losers if we don’t fix the system. We will miss art that could have been.
On Patreon, though, fans are paying more on a monthly basis than consumers pay for Netflix, Spotify, or Amazon Prime. And because Patreon only charges a 5% fee and minimizes credit card fees, creators take home 92% of the dollars spent. In the world of the internet creator, this minimal fee structure stands out as truly creator first, and truly unique.
Because of that, creators are flocking to Patreon to earn their well-deserved salaries: 35 creators made over $150,000 each on Patreon in 2016.
These people are legitimate, inspired, worthy creators: nominated for Grammy’s (congrats again, Jacob Collier and Pentatonix), appear on national television (Issa Rae), are best-selling authors (N.K. Jemisin, John Green, and Amanda Palmer), are award-winning journalists (CANADALAND and The Rubin Report), founders of media companies (Sarah Lacy and Kinda Funny), have become household names (hello, Neil deGrasse Tyson), and even interviewed President Obama (way to go, SmarterEveryDay!).
Though some folks have pegged Patreon as “crowdfunding,” we don’t think of ourselves that way. We’re membership and community management powered by consumer payments and hierarchical pricing. So, before concluding this post and wishing everyone an exciting 2017, I’d also like to announce a new feature that I’m hoping will clarify whether or not we self-identify as a crowdfunding platform. By the end of January, the infamous “public earnings number,” one of the last remaining signals of “crowdfunding” on Patreon, will be optional for all creators on the platform:
Imagine if LinkedIn displayed your salary right below your name.
Or imagine if doctors were forced to plaster their annual income on their signage outside.
Our creators have been asking us to make the public earnings number optional for years, so we’re rolling out a product update that respects their right to financial privacy. They’re running a private business, after all. If they IPO, they’ll share their numbers.
So happy 2017, creators! It’s the fucking best time ever to be making art. The first phase of the web gave us reach, and the next phase of the web is going to pay us for it. There’s a lot to look forward to.
