May Patreon Pledge Report

​A project I did in May was to repledge all my Patreon earnings to other cosplayers on Patreon. I asked my patrons to recommend cosplayers and I pledged to them for the month. My patrons still got daily content and mailed rewards, I just made the choice to not technically earn anything for May! Read about the full experience, including stats, below.

While I was happy to support TWELVE other creators on Patreon, I also learned a lot from all these accounts and wanted to share some fun stats I put together. Only my patrons and those I pledged to know who I supported last month, so the stats in this post will remain anonymous.

I mostly pledged in the lowest tier available for these creators, so the data I've collected is based on general content available in the patron only feed. I did not get any physical rewards.

Things I really liked from the creators I supported:

• Tutorials
• Photo Shoot Content
• Charge Upfront
• Off Site Membership

Let me elaborate a bit!

Tutorials
Some creators offered content as part of the patron feed. Which means you could sign up one month and see all the past month's content. I think this is a genuine way to operate Patreon. I like to think of it as a blog you're subscribing to. You'd want to be able to see old content when you signed up!

Other creators who offered tutorials opted to send them directly to patron messages each month.

Some other tutorial stats:
67% of creators I supported offered tutorials somewhere in their tier levels.

Seemingly only 25% of creators put out a tutorial in the month of May. Noted, this could be because of being sent out via messages or other form I didn't have access to.
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And a whopping single creator offered tutorials in the lowest level tier available!

Photo Shoot Content
This area differs from creator to creator. Most creators offered new photos throughout the month one by one. These eventually made their way on to social media making the photos early access rather than exclusive.

A few creators lumped a set of photos from a photo shoot into one post. This is especially true for creators who do multiple shoots per month.
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Selfies seems to be the most exclusive content available on the patron feeds. This includes in cosplay, out of cosplay, and work-in-progress selfies.

Charge Upfront
While this feature isn't yet available for all creators, it's nice to know that artists have the option to not get scammed by people just looking for some quick, free content. Just over 50% of the creators I supported had charge up front enabled. 

While the process of switching to charge up front is a difficult decision, because the creator loses a month of pledges, it does seem more worth it in the long run and you're more free to post directly to the patron feed rather than getting creative with your reward delivery system.

Off Site Membership
I'm always fascinated by this reward because it's just a little extra you can give your patrons. Off site membership offered by these creators consisted of private instagram feeds, and a lot of exclusive snapchat access.
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I love the idea of getting access to the patron feed, but then also getting access to something on a public social media platform, that only you can see. In a way, it seems pretty cool!

Extra Fun Facts
For the month of May, creators posted an average of 17 times on the patron only feed. It ranged from zero posts, to 35 depending on the creator. This does not include any off site content the creator may have shared.

Of these tiers, an average of nine posts per month are posted in the lowest tier offered by creators. It ranged again from zero to 27 posts! This does not include posts that are public for everyone, or any off site content.

It's really interesting to see the different approaches creators take to their Patreon and the rewards they offer. As a creator myself, it was also really cool to compare my own content and work on self improvement!

If you're interested in checking out the changes I made, head over to patreon.com/breezeeweezee. I hope this article enlightened you a bit regarding Patreon and the elusive hidden content that creators always talk about. Don't be afraid to dip your toes in and support one of your favorite creators today!

Interested in becoming a creator? Read my Patreon series and follow the free workbook by reading this this blog post.