Apple forces Patreon to pay 30% of new memberships sold through iOS
Patreon is warning users that channel memberships bought via its iPhone app will shortly be subjected to Apple's 30% in-app payment fees.
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Patreon is a service that lets content creators have members who pay a subscription to receive exclusive content. Up to now, it has been able to do this via its iOS app without incurring Apple's regular fees.
In a blog post -- and now also emails to its users -- Patreon has announced that it is about to be forced to pay the 30% fee.
"Unfortunately, Apple is requiring us to switch over to their in-app purchase system for all iOS transactions or else risk being kicked out of the App Store altogether," writes the company, "and their in-app purchase system is not built with our same level of creator-first flexibility."
This is not the first time that Patreon has warned users the change is coming. It initially announced in December 2023 that Apple would be applying the fee to new memberships from November 2024.
"Before we go any further, we want to be crystal clear about one thing: Apple's fee will not impact your existing members," says the company. "It will only affect new memberships purchased in the iOS app from November onward."
As the November date approaches, Patreon has issued advice to its creator users on managing the change. Central to this is that if a creator on Patreon chooses to do nothing, the service will default to automatically increasing prices in the iOS app to compensate for the fee.
However, Patreon is also giving creators the option to keep their membership prices as they were, and instead absorb the fee. "We don't recommend this, because it means you'd earn less per membership on in-app iOS transactions," says the company, "but ultimately we believe it's important to give you agency to make your own decisions."
Patreon is now presenting creators with this option for increasing fees or absorbing Apple's charges
There's no change for existing memberships. Plus the change will only affect new members who sign up via the iOS app -- and previously Patreon CEO Jack Conte has said only "tiny portion of pledges" are made this way.
There's no obvious reason why Patreon hasn't always had to pay the App Store's regular 30% in-app purchase fee for its memberships. In 2021, Conte even said publicly that he didn't know why it was exempt.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I have thought from the very beginning that Apple demanding 30% of sales through apps just because they sold the app is wrong, greedy and corrupt. They have no business whatsoever demanding money from Patrion or any other vendor just because someone uses an app that at one time passed through their system. They have nothing to do with that sale and do not deserve a cent.
This is why Apple is getting hammered with antitrust charges. If they had been less greedy in the past they would not be getting in trouble now.
I’ve probably misunderstood you, but would that mean if an app was free (or very cheap) and had in app purchases than Apple would get nothing (or very little) for their services.
I'm not a crypto fanatic. I learned enough crypto to help put Patreon out of business.
I'm also ok with charging that 30% in-app purchase on games since the content is a part of the app and is still being downloaded via apple and not the app owner's servers.
This is different though and i *despise* nickel and dimeing iOS users like this. Once you've downloaded the Patreon app no further content is downloaded via Apple's servers except for app updates. I have no idea why anybody at Apple thinks it's okay to take a 30% commission on a Cameo message to my grandma from Steve Guttenberg just because i requested it in the app and not on the Cameo website? A 30% cut on magazine subscriptions? nope nope nope. the content doesn't go through apple so they don't have a right to it.
The could do that, but if they're going to use Apple's infrastructure to take people's money, then Apple should be compensated for that. I don't know why that's so hard for people to understand.