Ask a creator what Patreon takes and you'll hear one number: "8%," or lately "10%." Both incomplete. Patreon's cut is a stack of fees — platform fee, payment processing, sometimes currency conversion, sometimes Apple — and on a $1 tier the stack can reach 42.9% of the payment. Here's every fee and the math for what lands in your balance.
Two fees apply to every membership payment. First, the platform fee: 10% on the standard plan, or 5%, 8%, or 12% on legacy plans (more on that split below). Second, payment processing: 2.9% + $0.30 per charge for creators whose payout currency is USD. Patreon calculates the platform fee on the payment excluding sales tax, but processing on the total including any tax collected from the member.
Run it on a $5 tier at 10%: platform takes $0.50, processing takes $5 × 2.9% + $0.30 = $0.445, so $0.94 total. You keep $4.06 per member per month — an effective fee of 18.9%, nearly double the headline 10%. At $25 the effective rate falls to 14.1%, because the fixed 30 cents matters less against a bigger payment.
Patreon moved new creators to a standard 10% platform fee. If you published your page after August 4, 2025, that's your plan. Pages published on or before that date keep legacy pricing — 5% (Lite), 8% (Pro), or 12% (Premium) — but only while they stay continuously published. Unpublish your page, for any reason, and you're moved to the standard 10% plan when you republish. Patreon's own guidance is to use the pause tool rather than unpublishing if you want to keep legacy rates.
Two adjacent details. The Founders rate — 5% for creators who joined before May 7, 2019 and never upgraded — still exists. And separately from fees, Patreon is migrating all creators off per-creation billing to subscription billing by November 1, 2026 — a billing-model change, not a fee change, though it lands in the same settings page.
Processing is charged per successful charge at a rate that depends on payout currency (2.9% + $0.30 is the USD rate). Legacy plans have a second rate: tiers at $3 or less pay a micropayment rate of 5% + $0.10, because a flat 30-cent fee on a $1 pledge would be brutal. On the standard plan that rate is gone — 2.9% + $0.30 applies regardless of amount.
One quiet detail: when a member owes sales tax or VAT, processing is calculated on the tax-inclusive total. Where local law requires it, Patreon also collects VAT or GST on the platform fee itself. Neither shows up in headline percentages; both nudge real costs above sticker rates.
The fixed $0.30 component — on a $1 tier it's 30 cents on the dollar before percentages even start. Effective total fee by tier price, USD, no tax, conversion, or iOS mixed in:
| Monthly tier | Standard 10% | Legacy Pro 8% | Legacy Lite 5% |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1 | 42.9% | 23.0% | 20.0% |
| $3 | 22.9% | 16.3% | 13.3% |
| $5 | 18.9% | 16.9% | 13.9% |
| $10 | 15.9% | 13.9% | 10.9% |
| $25 | 14.1% | 12.1% | 9.1% |
| $50 | 13.5% | 11.5% | 8.5% |
Notice the U-shape at $3 on the legacy columns: the micropayment rate bends the curve down, then the switch to 2.9% + $0.30 above $3 bends it back up at $5. On a legacy plan, $3 is a surprisingly efficient price point; on the standard plan the curve only flattens as price rises, and $1 tiers are close to unsellable.
Enter your plan, tier price, and member count — the calculator adds platform fees, processing, Apple's iOS cut, and currency conversion the way Patreon does.
Patreon Fees Calculator →Since November 2024, new memberships started inside the Patreon iOS app run through Apple's in-app purchase system, which takes 30% of the price. Patreon skips its own processing fee on those transactions, but the platform fee still applies. It's the most expensive way to acquire a member: at a $5 tier with 10% platform, an iOS member costs $1.50 to Apple plus $0.50 to Patreon — you keep $3.00 instead of $4.06.
There's an American exception: after the Epic v. Apple rulings, US fans can complete purchases through Patreon's mobile web checkout, which skips the 30% entirely. Wherever you link to your page, sending fans to the browser instead of the app changes your revenue per member.
Currency conversion: 2.5% of the full payment (tax included) whenever a member pays in a currency different from your payout currency — refunded if the member refunds. Payout fees: when your balance transfers out, Patreon deducts a transaction fee that varies by method and currency. Direct bank transfer adds nothing extra from Patreon; PayPal and Payoneer may add their own conversion or withdrawal costs. Your balance already reflects platform, processing, and conversion fees.
For the other half of the membership math, pair the fee math with the churn rate calculator, and use the creator earnings calculator to weigh membership income against ad-supported platforms, where the RPM calculator sets the baseline.
Depends entirely on when you published. Pages published after August 4, 2025 pay the standard 10%; pages continuously published on or before that date keep legacy pricing at 5% (Lite), 8% (Pro), or 12% (Premium).
Platform plus processing together run 13.5% to 18.9% on a $5–$50 tier at the standard 10% plan, and worse on cheap tiers — 42.9% at $1. Add 2.5% for foreign-currency members and 30 percentage points of Apple's fee for iOS-app memberships.
The platform fee excludes sales tax; processing is calculated on the total payment including any tax collected from the member. Where required, Patreon also collects VAT/GST on the platform fee itself.
The fees come out of the creator's share — deducted from what would otherwise be your balance, not added to the patron's price. Patrons see the tier price plus any applicable sales tax.