What Patreon’s Growth Says about the Future for Creators
As a member of Patreon’s Data Science team, I love looking at our growth numbers to show how we’re making membership possible for all kinds of creators.
Many times, these numbers are focused on specific creators: a YouTuber launches and creates a membership-driven news network of more than 14,000 paying fans in a week, a musician transforms her community of fans into her “label” and triples her number of patrons as a result, or a famous animator starts a Patreon page and, in the first month, nearly doubles his goal of earning $5,000 monthly.
What’s even more interesting is that right now on Patreon, we’re seeing strong growth — and strong rates of growth — happening site-wide. Check it out:
- In only one year, we’ve doubled the number of both patrons and creators on Patreon. Now, there are more than 1 million monthly active patrons and more than 50,000 active creators on Patreon.
- We’re on track to pay creators more than $150 million in 2017 alone. As a reference point, we paid $100 million to creators in our first 3.5 years of business combined.
- Creators earn 50x to 10,000x more on Patreon from a direct fan membership than they earn from a fan’s advertising revenue cuts.
Crossing 1 million active patrons and 50,000 active creators is an incredible milestone, and our current high rate of growth makes me want to high five all my teammates and tap dance on the rooftop like Mary Poppins (despite the fact that I… uh… don’t know how to tap dance).
Our momentum shows that ongoing salaries for creators, fueled by subscription payments, are being established at an unprecedented scale. That’s because there’s a better way for fans to interact directly with their favorite artists, and for artists to connect with and provide exclusive content for their biggest fans. This is true for all kinds and sizes of creators, whether they’re making illustrations about Oceanography, podcasts about “juicy scoops” in entertainment, or videos about how to live in the wild.
An interesting role of data science at Patreon is diving into user behavior and figuring out what distinguishes these direct payments to creators. In the midst of advertising troubles on other platforms, many creators see that direct support from fans is a more reliable source of income than ad revenue. In fact, we looked at earnings from some of the biggest ad-supported platforms and found that per-fan views might only pay creators between $.10 to $.0005… per view… per fan! On Patreon, when a fan pays a creator $5 every month, that creator will earn 50x to 10,000x more than they would earn from advertising.
I’m routinely surprised by the growth creators see after they join Patreon and set their goals for monthly income or patrons. On average, creators meet or exceed their own income expectations within five months of launching. In addition, new creators double their incomes annually. By connecting directly with their fans, creators on Patreon are establishing a stable, ongoing source of revenue and gaining the peace of mind — and creative freedom — to build their careers as creators.
Despite the popular belief that the internet is a place that rips off artists, we’ve built Patreon to be incredibly creator-first — and that guiding principle is literally paying off for creators. We’re seeing new creators flock to Patreon faster than ever to create a sustainable salary for their art. And, their fans are stepping up, too: every 5.5 seconds, a creator gets a new paying patron. 5.5 seconds! Wait for it … wait for it … boom, another creator just got paid by a new fan.
Overall, each fan on Patreon pays about $12 directly to creators every month— that’s more than they pay for Netflix, Spotify, or Amazon Prime. Even better, creators take home 92% of the dollars pledged to them (since Patreon only charges a 5% fee and minimizes credit card fees). And creators don’t have to limit their imaginations either: “mainstream” creators (oh hey, PBS), niche creators (fund your pursuit of being the queen of shitty robots? why not?), and everyone in between can build a career on Patreon.
What’s next for Patreon? Well, we’re still on a mission to help every creator achieve ongoing income directly from their fans. We’re busy building new ways for creators to run their businesses and turn their passions into careers. And, we care deeply about helping creators connect in new and better ways with the fans who matter most.
As Patreon continues to grow, we’ve got the backs of the tens of thousands of creators who are shaping the world with their art. I look forward to keeping a pulse on our metrics with the rest of our data science team, and sharing when our incredible community of patrons and creators helps us blow through the next milestone.
At this rate, we’ll talk again very soon.
