DEV Community: Pennygood

Patreon's Nov 1 billing switch: a checklist (per-creation deadline is Oct 15)

Pennygood — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:44:32 +0000

I'm Kir, and I run Pennygood, a small monthly-support site. Patreon's Nov 1 billing change has a real deadline on **Oct 15, so here is the checklist I wrote for creators, straight from Patreon's own help pages.

If your Patreon page launched before Sep 27, 2022, you may still be on first-of-the-month or per-creation billing.
Everyone has to be on subscription billing by Nov 1, 2026.
First-of-the-month: you can switch yourself in Billing and payouts.
Per-creation: ask Patreon Support by Oct 15. If you don't, Patreon switches you in November and pauses your billing until you review your new prices.

Settings → Billing and payouts → "Billing schedule" tells you which model you're on.

I run a small monthly-support site, so I read Patreon's update closely. Here is what it says, in order, with the dates that matter. Everything below comes from Patreon's own pages, linked at the end.

Who this affects (and how to check in 30 seconds)

Patreon says the change is driven by Apple: Apple's requirement that all creators use subscription billing takes effect on November 1, 2026, and Patreon needs it to keep its iOS app in the App Store.

It only applies to the two legacy billing models: first-of-the-month and per-creation. If you launched your page on or after September 27, 2022, you're already on subscription billing and nothing here applies to you.

Open Settings.
Go to Billing and payouts.
Look at the top, under "Billing schedule". That's your model.

Key dates: your checklist

Today: check your Billing schedule. While you're in Settings, also note your plan name under "monetization".
By Oct 15, 2026: if you're on per-creation, send your request to Support.
Find Patreon's multiplier email (per-creation). Your multiplier was sent to your account email.
At least one month before your switch: post to your members (per-creation).
Before Nov 1, 2026: if you're on first-of-the-month, switch yourself.
November: if you were switched automatically, review your prices and resume billing.

Old billing vs new billing

First-of-the-month

New members: charged when they join and then on the 1st, or nothing when they join and then on the 1st.
Existing members: charged on the 1st of each month.
Payouts: withdraw anytime, or auto-payout on the 5th.

Per-creation

New members: charged when you publish a paid post, up to their limit if they set one.
Existing members: charged for each paid post, up to their limit.
Payouts: withdraw anytime, or auto-payout on the 5th.

Subscription billing

New members: charged when they join, then monthly on that same date (join Apr 12, next charge May 12).
Existing members: still charged on the 1st.
Payouts: unchanged. Withdraw anytime, or auto-payout on the 5th.

If you're on per-creation billing

You can't make this switch on your own. Patreon's Support team has to do it with you, and you need to reach out by October 15 so they can schedule it.

Go to Settings → Billing and payouts.
In the Billing schedule section, click "Get started".
Read the overview and click "Send request".
You'll get a confirmation and an email saying Support will be in touch.

If you miss October 15, Patreon switches you automatically in November and emails you when it's done. Your billing is paused: members aren't charged until you review your new tier prices and resume. Members aren't charged later for the paused months.

How your new per-creation prices are set

Patreon multiplies your per-creation price by the highest number of paid posts you published in a single month over the last three months. Patreon's own example: if you published up to 3 paid posts a month, a $5 per-creation tier becomes $15 a month.

Per-creation price × your multiplier = new monthly price. Patreon's example: $5 × 3 = $15 a month.

Monthly limits stay. If a member set a limit lower than the new price, they're only charged up to that limit. In Patreon's example, a member capped at 2 posts on the $5 tier pays $10 a month.

The limit holds as long as the member doesn't edit their membership and you don't raise the price for existing members. If you reprice later and want to keep those limits, apply the new price to new members only.

Patreon asks you to tell your members at least one month before the switch, and it provides a message template on its Help Center page.

If you're on first-of-the-month billing

This one is a few clicks. Patreon recommends doing it before November 1 so you pick the timing.

Go to Settings → Billing and payouts.
Click "Switch to subscription billing now".
Click Save.

Your existing members keep being charged on the 1st, unless they cancel and re-join after their access ends, or move from monthly to annual. Only new members are charged on the day they join.

If you deliver benefits on a schedule, Patreon suggests two ways to keep doing it:

Batch delivery: weekly or twice a month, to whoever has paid since the last batch.
End-of-month delivery: pull the list of everyone who paid that month and deliver at the end of it.

After switching you get the Benefit Eligibility Status tool: Creator studio → Audience → Benefits.

Before you click switch

It's permanent. Once you switch, you can't go back to your old model.
Don't unpublish your page during the move. If a page on a legacy plan is unpublished, even briefly, it moves to Patreon's standard 10% plan when it's republished.
Your platform plan doesn't change because of the billing switch. You can check it under Settings → "monetization".
Decide how to handle Apple's fee. Apple's App Store fee on eligible in-app purchases is 30%. By default, Patreon raises your prices in the iOS app only; you can instead keep prices the same everywhere and absorb the fee.

What your patrons will notice

Billing dates: existing members stay on the 1st. New members are charged on the day they join.
Limits: per-creation members with a monthly limit are charged up to that limit.
Paused months: if your billing was paused, members aren't charged for that time later.
iPhone: US fans on iOS can still choose web checkout, which avoids Apple's in-app fee.

A new charge date is also a moment when some cards get declined. If a patron's card gets declined, see why supporter payments get declined.

Tell members early, in one short post, before anything changes on their side.

FAQ

Do I have to switch if my page launched after Sep 27, 2022?

No. Pages launched on or after September 27, 2022 are already on subscription billing.

What happens if I'm on per-creation and miss October 15?

Patreon switches you automatically in November and pauses your billing until you review your new prices and resume.

Will members be charged for the paused months?

No. Patreon says paused months aren't charged later.

Can I go back to per-creation?

No. Switching to subscription billing is permanent.

Does my platform fee change?

Switching billing doesn't change your plan. Unpublishing your page would move it to the standard 10% plan when you republish.

Do existing members' billing dates change?

No. They stay on the 1st, unless they cancel and re-join or move from monthly to annual.

Will iPhone patrons pay more?

Only if you keep the default iOS price increase. US fans can also pay through web checkout.

If you also want something simpler

If you'd like a simple monthly page outside Patreon too, that's what I'm building with Pennygood. It starts from $3 a month and takes 8%, so you keep 92% before Stripe processing. By default, supporters also cover the fees, so you get the full amount they chose, and they can turn that off.

Payouts go via Stripe to supported countries (the US, Canada, the UK, the EEA and Switzerland). Sign up with email or Google: start your page.

Sources (read Oct 12, 2026)

Patreon for Creators, "Reminder: All creators must be on subscription billing by November 1" (Oct 1): https://www.patreon.com/PatreonforCreators/posts/reminder-all-be-170931602
Patreon Help Center, "How to move from per-creation to subscription billing": https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/27992352573069-How-to-move-from-per-creation-to-subscription-billing
Patreon Help Center, "How to move from 1st-of-the-month to subscription billing": https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/27992332293517-How-to-move-from-1st-of-the-month-to-subscription-billing
Patreon Help Center, "Subscription Billing FAQ": https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/8779192853261-Subscription-Billing-FAQ
Patreon Help Center, "Creator fees overview": https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/11111747095181-Creator-fees-overview
Patreon pricing: https://www.patreon.com/pricing

Originally published at pennygood.me.

How often to ask your followers for support without annoying them

Pennygood — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 14:48:05 +0000

I'm Kir, and I built Pennygood: simple monthly support pages, from $3/mo, for people who do useful work but don't think of themselves as "creators". This piece is about how often to ask for that support without burning your audience — written for makers who already have (or are about to put up) a support page.

Asking more often works. The cost isn’t annoyance — it’s that people who’ll never give tune out.

You need a cadence, three places for the link, a warm first message, and a clear rule for what actually annoys.

Short answer

How often should one person ask? About one fresh real ask a month. Permanent placements don’t count as nagging.
What should live permanently? Bio link + pinned post. Optional: a sign-off line and an in-person QR.
What belongs in the first announcement? What you do, what the money is for, one exact amount (from about $3/mo is fine), and an easy way out.
What actually annoys people? Asking again without saying what the last support bought.
Who to ask first when the page is new? People who already know the work. A short one-to-one note to a small warm list beats a cold blast.

Most people were never asked

Half of Americans don’t remember being asked to give anything.

That share held between 45% and 55% across all of 2025, according to GivingPulse — a weekly survey GivingTuesday ran with 5,309 people over the year.

Among the ones who did remember being asked, 87% gave money.

If you have a support page and you’ve already talked yourself out of mentioning it twice this week, sit with that.

You are almost certainly asking less than you think. The fix is not to ask louder.

Stop treating the ask as a post you have to work up the nerve for. Treat it as furniture: it sits there, costs nobody attention, and once a month a real ask joins it — attached to something that actually happened.

Does asking again actually cost you anything?

Yes. Somebody measured it.

Mette Trier Damgaard and Christina Gravert ran a large field experiment on a charity’s mailing list. Reminders worked. Donations went up.

In the authors’ words, reminders also “substantially increase unsubscriptions from the mailing list.” The paper is in the Journal of Public Economics (2018): “The Hidden Costs of Nudging.”

What it costs: in their welfare model, people who were never going to give lost $2.35 per reminder. They pay by quietly leaving.
What it gains: donations rose. The charity’s net benefit per reminder was $0.18.

That’s a charity emailing a list, not you posting to people who know you. Don’t transfer it whole.

The shape is the useful part. Asking again works. What it spends is the attention of people who will never give — not the goodwill of people who would. Both are true at once. That’s why “just ask more” and “don’t be annoying” both feel wrong.

So what is the actual number?

There isn’t a magic ratio. Be careful with anyone who hands you one.

The ratios that fill the first page of results — 80/20, 4-1-1, 5-3-2 — come from brand-marketing blogs, then get recycled by fundraising software for nonprofits with donor databases. None of the ones checked cite a study. None of them are about one person.

Short answer: — about one fresh real ask a month. Permanent placements are not asks, and they don’t spend anyone’s patience.**

What one person can keep up: a real ask, written fresh, about once a month. No campaign. No countdown. No thermometer.

One post attached to something that happened this month, with the link at the end.

Three places the link can live

Build these first. They change what a post has to do.

Bio + pin. Your link in the bio, plus one pinned post. Someone who decides to support you at 11pm shouldn’t have to scroll or message you for the URL.
Sign-off. One line at the end of things you already make — the newsletter, the video description, the monthly update. At the end, where it’s easy to stop reading.
In person. If the work happens in a room, a park, or a street, a small card with a QR handed over right afterwards is the highest-converting ask you have. It never touches your feed.

Once the link is findable without you, a post stops being The Ask. It becomes an update that happens to end with a link. That one you can write without the knot in your stomach.

What to say the first time

The announcement is the one post where you do explain yourself. It’s shorter than you expect.

What you do.
What the money is for.
One exact amount.
An easy way out.

“I run the Saturday reading group for the kids on my block. I’ve put up a page where people can chip in $3 a month, which covers the books and the printing. If it’s not for you, nothing changes — you won’t hear about it from me again except in the monthly update.”

The exact amount does more work than the wording around it. “Any amount helps” makes the reader decide two things instead of one.

The way-out line is what makes the ask cheap to ignore. That is the whole game.

If you want the math on why a small monthly floor can be enough — materials, fuel, pet food — not “income,” see Is $3 a month enough? (https://pennygood.me/articles/3-dollars).

Short answer: — the same four parts work as a short WhatsApp to about ten people who already know the work. You don’t need a public blast first.**

The thing that actually annoys people

It’s not frequency.

It’s asking again when you never said what happened to the last money. That’s when someone stops reading you as a person doing something and starts reading you as a person with a hand out. That switch is hard to flip back.

Short answer: — post the receipt before you post the ask. What came in, what it bought, one photo. Then one line with the link.**

“Four people, $12, two bags of dog food and the deposit at the vet.”

Now the ask is evidence. People who’ll never give still got something out of reading it — which is why they stay.

What if my audience is two hundred people who all know me?

Then cadence isn’t your problem. If the page is brand new, start even smaller.

A public post at that size reaches a fraction of those people on a good day. The ones who’d actually support you are the ten or twelve who have watched you work in person. Message those people one at a time.

For a brand-new page, once the bio and one real photo exist, three early posts beat daily begging:

Who you are.
One concrete proof (project, animal, need + photo).
A soft ask with the link.

Public stranger cadence — the monthly real ask and the permanent placements above — matters more once people who don’t already know you start following.

What this adds up to

Six people at $3 a month is $18. And $18 is the ceiling, not what lands.

A platform cut and card processing come off it. How much depends on the platform and the country you’re paid in.

Nobody should tell you this is income. It’s the month’s materials, the fuel, the pet food — the amount that quietly decides whether you’re still doing this in March.

If you landed here from a campaign tool and you’re weighing recurring gifts on an ongoing page against a dated fundraiser, GoFundMe monthly donations covers that model — and when a simple personal page fits better.

What it doesn’t do is the hard part. The page takes an evening. Deciding to mention it every month for a year is the actual work.

Finish the bio and photo first — how to write your Pennygood page. Then write the announcement and put the link in your bio.

Then leave the ask alone until the end of the month, when you’ll have something to report.

If a plain monthly page sounds useful for you or someone you know, you can make one here. Default amounts are $3 / $6 / $12 / $25. The fee is 8% (you keep 92% before Stripe). By default, supporters cover the fees, so you get the full amount — supporters can turn that off. Payouts go through Stripe Connect; availability depends on your country.

How my $3/month support platform makes money (8% fee, and what I still can't do)

Pennygood — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 17:20:51 +0000

I'm Kir, and I built Pennygood: simple monthly support pages, from $3/mo, for people who do useful work but don't think of themselves as "creators". This is how the thing makes money, written up for other indie makers figuring out pricing for a payments product.

When you build anything that touches other people's money, the first question you get is "what's the catch?" So I decided early to make the business model boring and fully visible.

The whole model in one line

Pennygood keeps 8% of every transaction. That's it.

No monthly fee for creators
No setup cost
No premium tier that ranks some pages above others
If no money moves, we make nothing

Creators keep 92% before Stripe processing. Stripe charges its own fee on each payment, separately from our 8% (2.9% + $0.30 is the standard fee for US cards; international cards and currency conversion cost more).

Who pays the fees: supporters, by default

This was the design decision I went back and forth on the most.

On a $3 payment, fees hurt. Stripe's fixed $0.30 alone is 10% of it. So by default, supporters cover the fees, and the creator receives the full amount the supporter chose.

But it's a default, not a trap: supporters can turn it off. If they do, the 8% platform fee and Stripe's fee come out of the payment. With Stripe's standard US card fee, the creator receives roughly:

$3 → about $2.37
$5 → about $4.16
$10 → about $8.61

Builder lesson: on micro-payments, the fixed part of card processing matters more than your headline percentage. Do the math on your smallest price point, not your average one.

Why 8% and not 0%

Some platforms charge 0% on basic tips (Ko-fi, for example) and make money on premium features. That works if you have a big user base or an adjacent product to monetize. I don't, and I didn't want to invent one.

So the reasoning was:

Honest beats clever. A clear 8% that covers everything is better than a 0% headline with costs hidden somewhere else.
Sustainable beats cheap. A support platform that shuts down is worse for everyone than one that charges a fair fee.
Still competitive. Patreon's pricing page lists 10% for new creators (checked October 2026).

The 8% pays for the stuff nobody sees: servers, email delivery, moderation, fraud prevention, compliance, support, and building the next things.

What we don't do

We don't sell data.
We don't run ads.
Supporters choose their own amount.
The only revenue is the transaction fee.

If 8% turns out not to be enough to run a sustainable business, I'd rather learn that honestly than paper over it with complexity.

The part I'm least happy about: payouts

Payouts go through Stripe Connect, and right now that means creators can only get paid out in the US, Canada, the UK, the EEA and Switzerland.

That hurts, because a lot of the people I built this for are in Latin America and Africa. Today we can't pay them out, and I don't want to pretend otherwise. People in other countries can join a waitlist, and we'll tell them when payouts open up.

Builder lesson #2: if you build on Stripe Connect, check payout country support for your actual target users before you write the landing page. "Stripe works in lots of countries" and "Stripe can pay out your users in their country" are different statements, and I had to correct my own copy because of it.

What I'd like to hear from you

If you run a payments or marketplace product: how did you decide who absorbs processing fees? And if you've gotten payouts working in LatAm or Africa without a pile of entities, I'd love to hear how.

If you, or someone you know, does useful work that friends would happily back with a few dollars a month, you can make a page here.

Ko-fi vs Patreon fees on a $3 gift, and why I built a third option anyway

Pennygood — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 23:13:47 +0000

I'm Kir, and I built Pennygood: simple monthly support pages, from $3/mo. Before building it I had to work out where Ko-fi and Patreon actually fit and where they don't. This is that comparison, including the parts where my own product loses.

If you're an indie maker, an open-source maintainer or anyone who wants a support button, you've probably looked at Ko-fi and Patreon. They charge fees differently, and they're built on different ideas of what supporters are paying for.

The short answer

Patreon: pick it for recurring memberships with tiers and gated content for an audience you already have.
Ko-fi: pick it for a low-friction tip jar, an optional shop or commissions, and a 0% platform fee on one-time tips if you set it up right.
Something else: look elsewhere when supporters are backing who you are and what you do rather than buying access to content.

At a glance

Built for

Patreon: creators with audiences and perks
Ko-fi: creators and artists; a tip jar plus a shop
Pennygood: everyday people doing good work (volunteers, carers, NGO freelancers)

Platform fee (typical)

Patreon: about 10% for new creator pages
Ko-fi: 0% on one-time tips (with Contributor/Standard mode off). 5% on memberships, shop sales and monthly tips. Ko-fi Gold ($12/mo for new users) can bring the platform fee to 0%.
Pennygood: 8% (creators keep 92%)

Payment processing

All three charge it on top of the platform fee (Stripe and/or PayPal)

Tiers and perks

Patreon: they're the core product
Ko-fi: optional
Pennygood: none, and none expected

Discovery

Patreon and Ko-fi: limited, so you bring your own audience
Pennygood: a public page plus share tools (link preview, QR code, captions)

One gotcha with Ko-fi: new accounts often start with a 5% fee on tips until you turn Contributor off in Settings → Payment. Fees and toggles change, so check Ko-fi's help pages before you decide.

Fee math on a small gift

These are platform fees only. Card processing comes on top, so don't read them as bank deposits.

Patreon (~10%): ~$2.70
Ko-fi one-time tip (0%, Contributor off): $3.00
Ko-fi membership (5%): ~$2.85
Pennygood (8%): ~$2.76

Patreon: ~$4.50
Ko-fi tip: $5.00
Ko-fi membership: ~$4.75
Pennygood: ~$4.60

$10

Patreon: ~$9.00
Ko-fi tip: $10.00
Ko-fi membership: ~$9.50
Pennygood: ~$9.20

Honestly, a Ko-fi one-time tip at 0% beats my 8% on a single tip. Pennygood isn't "always cheaper". If an occasional coffee button is all you need, Ko-fi is probably the better and cheaper choice.

On small amounts, processing matters more than the headline percentage. The commonly cited card fee of ~2.9% + $0.30 means the fixed $0.30 alone is 10% of a $3 payment. Compare the whole path: platform fee plus processing in your country.

Is Ko-fi Gold worth it?

Gold costs $12/month. Against the 5% fee, it breaks even at roughly $240/month of fee-bearing income (memberships, shop and monthly tips, not 0% one-time tips). Below that, the free plan is cheaper. That's rough math for orientation, not a savings promise.

Patreon: memberships and perks

Patreon is built on an exchange: tiers, early access, behind-the-scenes posts, calls. Supporters pay monthly, and you produce and gate. That works for podcasters, YouTubers, artists and writers who publish regularly to an audience that already cares.

It gets awkward when your "product" is showing up every weekend to clean a beach, or quietly maintaining something people depend on. If there's nothing natural to put behind a $15 tier, you end up inventing content just to suit the platform.

Ko-fi: tip jar, shop, optional memberships

Ko-fi started as one-time "buy me a coffee" tips and grew into memberships, a shop and commissions. You mostly bring your own audience, and nobody pushes a membership model on you. For many makers, that's exactly the appeal.

When neither fits

Both tools are fine. They were just built for creators. They fit poorly when:

you don't produce gated content and don't want to invent perks
you don't have an online audience yet
supporters want a small monthly habit, not a membership ladder
you're a volunteer, carer or NGO freelancer, not a media brand

That last group is why I built Pennygood. Picture a designer making logos for NGOs on tiny budgets, a shelter volunteer, or someone running a free class in their neighbourhood. Their friends would happily give $3 a month, but there's nowhere simple to send them.

So the product is deliberately small. It's one page: who you are, what the money helps with, and a button for $3/month or more (or a one-time gift). There are no tiers and no content calendar. Payments go through Stripe Connect. The fee is 8%, and creators keep 92% before Stripe processing.

Which should you use?

Ask yourself one question: are people paying for what you produce, or backing who you are?

Paying for what you produce: Patreon for memberships and perks. Ko-fi for tips and a shop (watch the Gold vs 5% math, and turn Contributor off for 0% tips).
Raising for a crisis or deadline: a crowdfunding campaign like GoFundMe has a different fee setup, but it suits that job better.
Backing who you are, ongoing: a plain monthly page.

Prices change, so check each service's pricing page before you commit. This is a comparison, not a quote.

If the last case sounds like you, or like someone you know, you can make a page here. If Ko-fi or Patreon fits better, use that. I'd also like to hear from other builders how you'd reach people who do useful work but don't think of themselves as "creators".