You can now support Raidbots directly on the site itself, get 10% higher limits than when using Patreon, and have more flexible options for managing your subscription (choose 1, 3, or 6 month periods).
If you haven’t supported Raidbots before, getting started is super easy. Just head to your account page, choose your plan, and enter your credit card details. You’ll be charged immediately and have access to all the goodies (skipping the line and higher limits in Top Gear).
If you’re already a patron, the process is pretty similar — click the “Switch to Raidbots Premium” button on your account page and go through a very similar process:
If you’re paid up on Patreon for the month, you won’t be charged until the beginning of the next month (same cycle as your Patreon payment) but you’ll get the higher limits immediately. If you’re a new patron that hasn’t been charged yet (the Raidbots Patreon campaign only charges at the start of a month), you’ll be charged when you switch and be good to go.
Payment processing is handled by Stripe which may look familiar as they’re used all over the web:
If you’ve used Stripe’s Remember Me on another site, you may see your credit card info already filled in and you’ll likely get a text message to confirm it’s your identity. Raidbots does not store any of your payment information directly as that would be a security nightmare for me — Stripe handles all of this:
Why is Raidbots Switching? Is Patreon Support Going Away?
There are no immediate plans on dropping Patreon support although it may happen in the future. Patreon will become more of a secondary/legacy method of getting rewards. It’s a fantastic site and has helped immensely in getting Raidbots off the ground but it’s come time for something a bit more flexible.
The main issue is that Raidbots has always been a weird fit for Patreon. There are issues synchronizing account status between Raidbots and Patreon that require a lot of complex code that doesn’t always work. Jumping back and forth between the sites can be confusing. When there are problems, it’s not always clear if the issue is with Raidbots or with a Patreon pledge. If Patreon decides to make changes (like they almost did a couple months back) that folks are unhappy with, I’m left trying to figure out what to do.
Hopefully the new stuff is just better.
You get more direct control over your account, fewer hoops to jump through, clearer info on how/when you are charged, and fewer surprises about how it all works. I can also offer a bit higher rewards to you since these subscriptions don’t have to take Patreon’s 5% cut into account.
There are also a bunch of boring improvements on my side — better information and features for handling stuff like taxes, way better developer APIs to make the code far more reliable and maintainable, and just more options for handling changes in the future.
I have decided for the initial rollout to handle all subscription changes immediately as it’s simpler to build — if you upgrade or downgrade your plan, it will take effect immediately and either you’ll pay a prorated amount for upgrades or get account credit on downgrades. This is a different approach than many websites but I believe it provides more flexibility and clarity for you — it’s definitely simpler for me to implement and I think it avoids some nasty billing surprises. I’ll be paying close attention to feedback in case I’ve guessed wrong on this one.
