fee receipts · 2026-06-04

What does Patreon take? The exact percentage at every pledge amount (2026)

The short answer is "8% on Patreon Pro." The accurate answer is "it depends on the pledge size — and after November 1, 2026, it also depends on whether your patron subscribed on iOS." Because Stripe charges a flat $0.30 per transaction, Patreon's effective take is not a fixed percentage. It is a percentage plus a fixed cost that eats a larger share of small pledges. This post shows the exact receipts at every common price point, both from the creator's side and the patron's side.

The three-layer fee structure

Every Patreon pledge passes through two or three fee layers before the creator is paid:

1. Patreon platform fee. Charged as a percentage of the pledge. Lite plan: 5%. Pro plan: 8%. Premium plan: 12%. The receipts in this post use Pro (8%) as the reference — it's the plan most mid-tier creators use. The plan itself also costs a flat monthly fee (roughly $4–$12/mo depending on plan), but that's separate from the per-pledge percentage.
2. Payment processing fee (Stripe). 2.9% of the pledge amount plus a flat $0.30 per transaction. For micro-pledges under roughly $3, a different rate applies (5% + $0.10), but that range is rare for subscription tiers. This flat $0.30 is the reason Patreon's effective take is higher on small pledges: on a $5 tier, it alone represents 6% of the transaction.
3. Apple IAP fee (iOS-billed patrons only, from November 1, 2026). 30% of the patron's subscription price, deducted before Patreon's fees apply. This is Apple's standard App Store in-app purchase cut, triggered by Patreon's transition to Apple IAP for iOS subscriptions. Web-billed subscriptions are not affected.

Creator receipts: web-billed patrons (Patreon Pro)

The table below shows how the $0.30 flat fee changes the effective percentage at each price point. The percentage column is the fraction of the patron's payment that does not reach the creator.

The takeaway: quoting "Patreon takes 8%" understates the cost on $5 tiers (actually 16.9%) and slightly overstates it on $50 tiers (actually 11.5%). The plan percentage alone does not tell you what you keep.

The patron-side question: how much of my pledge reaches the creator?

Patrons sometimes ask: "If I pledge $10, how much actually goes to the creator?" On web billing today, the answer is $8.61 — 86.1% of your pledge. The remaining $1.39 splits between Patreon ($0.80) and Stripe ($0.59).

After November 1, 2026, if you subscribe via the Patreon iOS app, that number changes significantly.

Creator receipts: iOS-billed patrons (from November 1, 2026)

On November 1, 2026, Patreon transitions iOS subscriptions to Apple In-App Purchase. Apple takes 30% of every subscription payment before Patreon receives any money. Patreon then applies its normal platform and processing fees to the original pledge amount.

On a $10 iOS subscription, the patron still pays $10. The creator receives $5.61 — a 34.9% drop from the $8.61 they receive on web, with no visible change to the tier price. The patron's experience looks identical on screen; the creator's payout is radically different.

Plan comparison at $10: Lite vs Pro vs Premium

The plan choice changes only the platform-percentage layer. Processing fees are identical across all plans.

At 100 patrons paying $10/mo, the switch from Pro to Lite saves $30/mo in platform fees — but the Lite plan's monthly cost is lower than Pro's by roughly $4/mo. The net per-pledge saving matters most at scale. Below roughly 15 patrons at $10, the plan fee difference swamps the per-pledge saving.

How much does Patreon keep vs how much does the creator keep?

A cleaner way to read the numbers: Patreon's pocket (platform fee only, not processing) and the creator's pocket for every $10 collected across the three plans.

• Patreon Lite: Patreon keeps $0.50, creator keeps $8.91, Stripe keeps $0.59.
• Patreon Pro: Patreon keeps $0.80, creator keeps $8.61, Stripe keeps $0.59.
• Patreon Premium: Patreon keeps $1.20, creator keeps $8.21, Stripe keeps $0.59.

Stripe's $0.59 cut is fixed regardless of Patreon plan. "Patreon takes X%" is technically Patreon's platform fee only — Stripe is a separate line item that Patreon passes through, not pockets itself.

Why the percentage answer keeps changing depending on who you ask

Patreon's own help center says "5–12% depending on plan." That's the platform fee, which is technically accurate but incomplete. Creators who say "Patreon takes about 15%" are quoting effective rate on a low price point. Both answers are describing the same fee structure from different vantage points.

The number that matters for your business is the total effective rate at your most common tier price — platform fee plus Stripe percentage plus Stripe flat, divided by the pledge amount. On a $10 Pro tier, that's 13.9%. On a $5 Pro tier, it's 16.9%.

What the iOS cut actually means in dollar terms at scale

A mid-list creator with $3,000/mo in Patreon revenue and a 60% iOS audience share — common for podcasters with an iPhone-heavy audience — illustrates the November 2026 shift:

• Before November 2026 (web billing for everyone): $3,000 × (1 − 0.108) − (patron count × $0.30). At 300 patrons averaging $10: $3,000 − $324 − $90 = $2,586 to the creator.
• After November 2026 (60% iOS-billed): iOS patrons (180 × $10 = $1,800): after Apple + Pro fees → $1,009.80. Web patrons (120 × $10 = $1,200): → $1,032. Total: ~$2,042. That's a $544/mo drop for the same nominal revenue, same tier prices, same patron count.

The only Patreon-provided escape valve is the web-only billing toggle: a setting in creator tools that directs iOS users to subscribe on the web instead. Existing iOS-billed patrons are not retroactively migrated — they continue on iOS billing until they cancel and re-subscribe on web.

KeepTier comparison: same pledge, no platform percentage

KeepTier charges creators a flat $9/mo and takes 0% of patron payments. The only per-pledge cost is Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30.

Because KeepTier is web-only Stripe Checkout — no iOS app, no mobile subscription surface — Apple's IAP fee is structurally absent. There is no toggle to enable and no retroactive-migration problem.

How to reduce what Patreon takes without leaving Patreon

Three actions reduce the effective rate inside Patreon:

1. Enable the web-only billing toggle. This redirects new iOS subscribers to the web checkout, eliminating the Apple 30% on future subscriptions. It does not affect existing iOS-billed patrons. Find it in Patreon creator settings under "Audience" → "Subscription billing."
2. Raise average tier price. Because Stripe's flat $0.30 is a diminishing cost at higher amounts, a $15 or $25 tier is more efficient than a $5 tier. A creator earning $1,000/mo from 200 patrons at $5 pays the $0.30 flat fee 200 times ($60/mo). The same $1,000 from 67 patrons at $15 pays it 67 times ($20.10/mo) — saving $39.90/mo on processing alone, at the same revenue.
3. Switch to Patreon Lite if you're on Pro. If you don't need Pro's features (advanced analytics, Discord integrations, priority support), Lite's 5% vs 8% saves $0.30/patron/mo at $10. At 100 patrons, that's $30/mo.

What Patreon does with its percentage

Patreon's platform fee funds the membership management platform: page hosting, patron billing history, pledge analytics, creator dashboard, audience messaging tools, and customer support. It also funds the brand and discovery layer — Patreon's explore page puts creators in front of users who may not otherwise find them.

Whether that discovery value justifies the fee depends on where your audience comes from. Creators with existing audiences who drive all their own traffic (YouTubers, podcasters, newsletter writers) typically find the platform fee a pure cost with no discovery return. Creators who rely on Patreon's search and recommend features may find the fee closer to justified.

Related questions answered

Further reading

• Patreon fees in 2026, every cut, receipts only — the complete deep-dive: all three plans, payout fees, currency conversion, and the Lite plan break-even calculator.
• The Patreon Apple tax, explained — what the November 1, 2026 iOS billing change is, why it happens, and what Patreon offers as escape hatches.
• How to set up Patreon tiers in 2026 — tier count, pricing at each level, and how the $0.30 flat fee should inform your minimum price point.
• How Patreon billing works in 2026 — when charges run, the anniversary billing model, and what happens to fees when a payment fails.

Calculations use Patreon Pro (8%) and Stripe standard US rate (2.9% + $0.30) as of 2026-06-04. Apple IAP fee of 30% applies to iOS subscriptions started after November 1, 2026. Patreon Lite at 5% and Premium at 12% use the same Stripe rate. All figures are per-pledge estimates — currency conversion fees (2.5% for non-USD patrons) are not included.