Patreon, Inc.
| Private | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
| Industry | Internet Creator economy |
| Founded 📆 | 2013 |
| Founders 👔 | Jack Conte Sam Yam |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | , , United States |
Area served 🗺️ | Worldwide |
Key people | Jack Conte (co-founder and chief executive officer) |
| Products 📟 | Membership platform Digital content sales Online community tools |
| Members | |
Number of employees | |
| 🌐 Website | www |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
Patreon, Inc. is an American online platform that provides membership, publishing, community and digital-commerce tools for content creators. It was founded in 2013 by musician Jack Conte and technology entrepreneur Sam Yam.[1] The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California,[2] and Conte serves as its chief executive officer.[3]
Patreon enables creators—including podcasters, video producers, musicians, writers, artists and game developers—to offer free or paid memberships to their audiences. Creators can publish posts, distribute exclusive material, host video, communicate through chats and comments, and sell digital products. Patreon earns revenue by charging creators a percentage of successfully processed membership and one-time purchases, in addition to payment-processing and other transaction-related fees.[4]
History
Founding and early development
Conte developed the idea for Patreon after observing a large difference between the popularity of his online music videos and the advertising income they generated. In early 2013, while financing an elaborate music video, he devised a system through which viewers could pledge money for each new work he released. He approached Yam, a former university roommate with software-development and start-up experience, to build the service.[1]
Patreon launched in 2013 with Conte and a small number of other creators. Conte's supporters pledged several thousand dollars for each new video, helping attract additional creators to the platform.[1] Its name refers to the historical practice of patrons financially supporting artists and other creative workers.
In June 2014, Patreon announced a US$15 million Series A investment round led by Index Ventures. At the time, the company described itself as a subscription-based funding service intended to help artists earn recurring income from their audiences.[5]
Acquisitions and expansion
In March 2015, Patreon acquired Subbable, a subscription-funding service established by brothers Hank Green and John Green. The acquisition transferred participating Subbable creators to Patreon after Amazon announced that the payment service used by Subbable would be discontinued.[6]
Patreon subsequently expanded beyond payment processing by adding tools for gated content, audience management, merchandise and online communities. In 2018, it acquired the membership-service company Memberful and the creator-merchandise company Kit. In 2023, it acquired Moment, a platform for ticketed online events.[7]
In 2019, Patreon introduced multiple service plans aimed at creators with different business requirements. The plans included additional features such as analytics, membership management, merchandise support and assistance from Patreon employees.[8] Later that year, the company raised US$60 million in a Series D funding round led by Glade Brook Capital. The round brought the company's reported total funding at the time to US$165 million.[9]
In April 2021, Patreon raised US$155 million in a Series F investment round led by Tiger Global Management. The financing valued the privately held company at US$4 billion.[10]
In September 2022, Patreon announced that it would dismiss 80 employees, representing approximately 17 percent of its workforce. It also closed offices in Dublin and Berlin, while retaining operations in the United States and Porto, Portugal. Conte said the company was changing its plans after expanding rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic.[11]
Platform and business model
Creators establish pages on Patreon and may offer one or more membership levels. Membership benefits can include access to posts, audio, video, podcasts, downloadable files, private discussions, live broadcasts and other material. Creators may also offer free memberships, which allow users to follow their work without making an immediate payment, and may sell individual digital products separately from recurring memberships.[12]
Patreon's original model focused primarily on facilitating recurring or per-creation payments between creators and supporters. The company later developed its own content hosting, discovery, publishing and community features. Conte said in 2026 that this expansion was partly intended to reduce creators' dependence on social-media platforms for reaching their existing audiences.[3]
For creator pages published after 4 August 2025, Patreon applies a standard platform fee equal to 10 percent of successfully processed membership and one-time-sale revenue. Additional charges can include payment-processing, currency-conversion and payout fees, as well as applicable taxes. Creators who continuously maintained pages published before the change may remain on legacy plans carrying platform fees of 5, 8 or 11 percent, depending on the plan and included services.[4]
Users and creator payments
In August 2025, Axios reported that more than US$10 billion had been paid to creators through Patreon since the platform's establishment. The company had more than 25 million paid memberships, with over US$2 billion flowing to creators annually.[7]
Patreon has distinguished between the number of individual users and the number of memberships because one user may join several creators' communities. The company reported more than 300,000 creators, over 10 million fans paying for memberships each month and more than 100 million free memberships on its public company-information page.[12] In June 2026, Conte stated that the number of free memberships had grown to approximately 185 million.[3]
Security incident
In September 2015, Patreon disclosed that an unauthorized party had accessed a development database containing user information. Material subsequently published online reportedly included nearly 15 gigabytes of source code, password information, private messages and records concerning donations. Patreon stated that complete credit-card numbers were not stored on its servers and advised users to change their passwords as a precaution.[13]
Fee controversy
In December 2017, Patreon proposed changing its payment system by adding a service charge to each individual pledge made by a member. Critics argued that the fixed component of the charge would have a disproportionate effect on supporters making small pledges to multiple creators. Some creators reported losing members after the proposed change was announced.[14]
Patreon withdrew the proposal before it took effect. Conte acknowledged that the company had underestimated how the change would affect creators and their supporters.[15]
Content policies
Patreon maintains community and commerce policies governing material offered through the service. Its guidelines prohibit content and conduct including credible threats, harassment, doxxing, non-consensual intimate imagery, sexual exploitation, hate organizations and certain forms of violent or illegal activity. Adult-oriented creators are required to place qualifying pages behind an age restriction, while sexually explicit material is not permitted in publicly visible previews.[16]
The company's enforcement of its policies has periodically generated debate among creators, particularly concerning adult material and activity occurring outside Patreon. In 2017, Patreon clarified and tightened its restrictions on pornographic material, prompting concern from some adult-content creators who had previously used the platform.[17]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Cohen-Peckham, Eric (12 February 2019). "The founding story of Patreon". TechCrunch. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ "Terms of Use". Patreon. 27 May 2026. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Patel, Nilay (22 June 2026). "Patreon CEO Jack Conte on supporting artists in the AI slop era". The Verge. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Creator fees overview". Patreon Help Center. 12 June 2026. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Buhr, Sarah (23 June 2014). "Patreon Raises $15 Million Series A, Revamps Site To Focus More On Content". TechCrunch. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Buhr, Sarah (16 March 2015). "Patreon Acquires Artist Subscription Competitor Subbable". TechCrunch. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Fischer, Sara (5 August 2025). "Exclusive: Patreon crosses $10 billion creator payment milestone". Axios. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Robertson, Adi (19 March 2019). "Patreon launches Pro and Premium tiers to compete with Facebook and YouTube". The Verge. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Cohen-Peckham, Eric (16 July 2019). "Patreon raises $60M Series D, targets international growth and more customization". TechCrunch. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Armental, Maria (7 April 2021). "Patreon's Valuation Triples to $4 Billion as Platform Draws Creators, Fans". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Clark, Mitchell (13 September 2022). "Patreon is laying off 17 percent of its workforce and closing offices". The Verge. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "The story of Patreon". Patreon. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Goodin, Dan (1 October 2015). "Gigabytes of user data from hack of Patreon donations site dumped online". Ars Technica. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Constine, Josh (7 December 2017). "Patreon's new service fee spurs concern that creators will lose patrons". TechCrunch. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Kafka, Peter (13 December 2017). "Patreon has changed its mind about a new payments plan that everyone hated". Vox. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ "Community Guidelines". Patreon. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
- ↑ Kelion, Leo (25 October 2017). "Porn-makers challenge Patreon's crowdfunding ban". BBC News. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
