Updated · Sep 08, 2022
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Patreon is one of the pillars of the creator economy.
It’s the great equalizer: it enables you to monetize your most avid fans in ways you aren’t able to on other platforms.
Patreon is not the only game in town, though; it’s not for every content creator, either. Yet, this crowdfunding platform has proven to be no flash in the pan.
Almost a decade after its launch, it has enjoyed incredible success.
As you’ll see in a few, numbers don’t lie. What’s more, they spell promising growth for the company in the future.
Let’s check them out:
Do you want to know how popular Patreon is and what it promises creators?
Check out these figures:
(Source: Influencers Club)
It may sound impressive, but the platform accounts for about 0.1% of the 200 million-strong creator economy.
But Patreon doesn’t go head-to-head with the heavyweights like YouTube, Instagram, and Tiktok.
Instead, it serves as an additional vehicle for monetization directed at creators’ rabid fans that would pay for premium content.
The subscription-based crowdfunding platform is open to creators of every hue, with notable exceptions like politicians. It permits mature themes but doesn’t try to compete with OnlyFans.
Outside of straight-out pornography, as well as doxing, violence, hate, and crime, practically anything goes on Patreon.
(Source: Patreon)
This is based on the company’s hypothetical scenario used for calculating how much a creator could earn on the platform.
The formula assumes two things:
But membership tiers are just one of the many variables you should consider when estimating your page’s earning potential. The others are:
(Source: Patreon)
When divided evenly among all platform users, the ratio of creators to patrons would be 32 to 1.
If so, the average Patreon income would probably not be enough for anybody to make a living.
(Source: Patreon)
Patreon has been on a roll since the pandemic broke out. And its growth hasn’t shown any signs of plateauing.
The company has been doubling its annual payouts for two years now, starting at $500 million in 2019. If the trend continues, it will cross the $4 billion milestone before 2023.
This crowdfunding platform has undoubtedly come a long way.
So let’s take a look at these key stats accentuating its past successes and revealing what the future may hold for it:
(Source: Statista)
There were peaks and valleys throughout this span. During this period, the platform saw its most considerable quarterly growth in March 2020, when 34,196 more creators joined it.
Not coincidentally, it was the month when the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Source: Graphtreon)
All creators approximately got $24,234,442 on January 1 and $26,013,786 on July 31. These figures excluded hidden earnings, so the amount the company paid out is likely much larger.
How high could it go by the end of 2022?
In 2021, Patreon’s estimated monthly payouts went up by 6.49% from August to December. So, this number may reach $27,702,081 by the year’s end if the company repeats its past performance.
(Source: Craft.co)
Primarily, the company lets creators use its platform on commission. The Patreon cut percentage ranges from 5% to 12% of creators’ earnings.
That year, Patreon’s slice of the pie was worth $55 million.
These payouts doubled in 2020 and 2021. So, it’s reasonable to believe that its revenue increased at the same rate over the past two years too.
(Source: Investment U)
After raising $155 million (and more than $413 million overall) that month, the company was valued at $4 billion. This was three times higher than the $1.2 billion Patreon value when the previous funding round transpired.
These indications of tremendous growth have sparked talk that Patreon might go public in 2022 or 2023.
So, what sort of creators gravitate toward Patreon?
Let’s have a look at the stats that define the platform’s user base.
(Source: Patreon)
The platform has provided an avenue to monetize content without relying on ads.
For example, movie and TV show reactors upload their full-length videos on Patreon instead of YouTube due to copyright concerns.
Gated content creators are another case in point.
(Source: Patreon)
Considering the diversity of the platform’s user base, other breeds of Patreon creators naturally get discovered through other mediums.
Visual artists find 21% of their supporters from DeviantArt, while gaming creators use Twitter to get 18% of their audiences.
Meanwhile, writers and podcasters source the majority of their patrons from Facebook.
(Source: Patreon)
On the contrary, 43% think that they’re just in the first half of their creative journey.
It’s a testament to Patreon’s openness to all. The fact that the company charges no upfront fee further eliminates any barrier to entry.
No wonder hundreds of thousands of creatives of different experience levels find the platform appealing.
(Source: Patreon)
Actually, 8% of them fly solo and choose to outsource various tasks like managing patron interactions to non-creators.
Curiously, visual artists are the most likely to handle everything alone. In fact, a whopping 94% of them do.
(Source: Patreon)
In comparison, the money Patreon creators get from subscriptions on other platforms accounts for just 7%.
Proof that it has realized its co-founder Jack Conte’s vision. Despite the stiff competition, Patreon continues to be the goose that lays the golden eggs for a plethora of creators.
(Source: Patreon)
Patreon thinks that this is more of a correlation than causation. Another proof that a personal touch yields positive results on the platform.
(Source: Patreon)
Frequent promotion translating to growth and success is supposed to be common sense. That’s why it’s quite a revelation that only 7.3% of Patreon users do it daily.
If you don’t have the time, doing it weekly can still result in 31% more Patreon earnings.
(Source: TechCrunch)
Although the inaugural Patreon Creator Census revealed that 30% are neutral toward them, it’s interesting to learn that 43% are strongly against it. Leading the pack of dissenters are visual artists (68%) and writers (50%).
Many factors might have colored the naysayers’ perception of crypto. It could be the survey timing, for Patreon conducted it when the bitcoin price was in free fall.
Whatever the case, it doesn’t look like most crowdfunding platform creators are going to be crypto enthusiasts anytime soon.
Let’s find out which creators have been ruling the platform:
(Source: Graphtreon)
Since December 2021, this podcast hasn’t seen its monthly subscribership below 45,000. What’s more, on Feb 21, 2022, it peaked at 50,660.
Being on top is one thing; maintaining that status is another.
To offer more value to its supporters, True Crime Obsessed provides ad-free content. Plus, the pair of podcasters behind it gives pre-sale access and VIP meet-and-greet privileges during live shows to higher-tier fans.
(Source: Graphtreon)
Occasionally, this mod and shader creator for PC games would slip down to the 4th spot in its niche. But for the most part since February 28, 2021, Razed has sat on the throne.
Razed uses Discord for patron interaction, empowering their community to voice out feedback during each project’s development phase.
In addition, their top-paying subscribers enjoy early access to experimental features the general public may never see.
(Source: Graphtreon)
The Skyrim and Fallout 4 mod video maker has been even more dominant than the above figure suggests, though.
The last time another adult video creator overtook MxR Mods was on June 30, 2021. But since March 10, 2019, when it first reigned supreme, it has hardly looked back.
From July 2021 to July 2022, MxR Mods’ daily patron count ranged between 14,382 and 18,404. It was definitely good enough to tighten its grip on the top position in the adult video Patreon rankings!
(Source: Graphtreon)
By end-August 2022, the creator you have to beat is painter Andrew Tischler.
Judging by Patreon’s arbitrary formula, you could convert 0.15% of your entire fanbase into paying supporters. This means that to have 1,739 patrons, you’d need over 1,159,000 followers, to begin with.
(Source: Graphtreon)
This musical duo is made up of Patreon CEO Jack Conte himself and his wife Nataly Dawn. They have had this streak since May 2013.
The band releases fresh content weekly, including downloadable tunes, patron-requested covers, instrumentals, stems, and original demos.
Aside from sheer musicality, the secret to Pomplamoose’s enduring success is perhaps intimate community engagement.
These independent musicians love chatting with their fans on Discord and give video shoutouts to the most generous supporters.
At the time of writing, here are the biggest winners on Patreon:
(Source: Graphtreon)
As of now, True Crime Obsessed still hasn’t bragged about its earnings.
Our source estimated that the page might be making in the vicinity of $139,000 and $342,000 a month.
But this income data was unconfirmed, while Tim Dillon’s Patreon money is. So it definitely deserves recognition.
(Source: Graphtreon)
That’s about 1.1% lower than what they got at the turn of the year. Despite the dip, the page’s patron count grew by 18.9% since January 1. So the overall earnings steadily rose to $222,352 monthly.
Also, $5.18 per patron is way below the platform’s sample $7 average pledge. This means making six figures is doable even if your average patron pledges less than $6 a month.
(Source: Graphtreon)
As of August 2022, The Tim Dillon Show is the only one with confirmed monthly earnings of $200,000+. But the following podcasting pages were also doing exceptionally well for themselves:
To round out the top 10, here are the most successful Patreon creators not in the podcast category:
The lowest amount any of the other nine top Patreon earners made was $80,850 monthly. Not too shabby.
The creator economy is clearly super competitive.
And it’s bound to become fiercer as more players vie to win over the growing number of passionate creators.
Fortunately, Patreon has many things going. It has strong brand recall and occupies a niche it created for itself.
Will it continue to provide its users tremendous earnings to keep them from leaving?
Time will tell if it’ll be able to adapt to the ecosystem and meet the ever-changing needs of content creators.
But so far, Patreon has a rosy outlook.
If it plays its cards right, it can cement itself as the platform for monetizing the most loyal of fans.
In August 2022, there were over 8 million monthly active patrons.
When calculating how much platform users could earn, Patreon loves to use a $7 average monthly patron pledge as a basis.
However, it’s possible to rake in a 6-figure monthly income without hitting the $7 goal with enough paying supporters. As of this writing, The Tim Dillon Show, Patreon’s top earner, only received an average of $5.18 per patron.
Since day 1, Patreon has paid out more than $3.5 billion to all creators.
As of August 22, 2022, the company’s estimated monthly payouts (excluding hidden earnings) were $26,142,042.
Obscure platform users got paid peanuts. But the ten top-earning Patreon creators took home anywhere above $200,000 and no less than $80,000.
The company will pocket 5%–12% of your monthly earnings, depending on your chosen plan.
In addition, Patreon collects payment processing fees charged by Mastercard, Visa, Discover, American Express, and PayPal.
Patreon applies micropayment and standard rates to smaller and bigger transactions, respectively. The exact rate varies by transaction value and currency used.
For transactions in USD, for instance, Patreon’s micropayment rate per successful payment of $3 or less is 5% + $0.10. Whereas the standard rate per successful payment worth more than $3 is 2.9% + $0.30.
Of all the creators that don’t hide their monthly income, The Tim Dillon Show has the greenest bank account.
By August 2022, the page has earned $222,352 per month, which is surely one of the most intriguing Patreon statistics out there.
Romj Amon
Romj is a veteran copywriter who used to be a Jack of all trades. Now, he's trying to be a master of one: technology. He jumps down the rabbit hole to size the latest innovations up. As a content contributor for TechJury, he hopes to help you keep up in our fast-paced world with his discoveries.
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