Patreon is an American based membership platform that was created by Jack Conte and Sam Yam and has its headquarters in San Francisco, California, U.S.A. The platform provides business tools for YouTube videographers, webcomic artists, writers, podcasters, musicians, and adult content creators, and it helps them to run their subscription content.
They identify their subscribers as patrons, and they provide exclusive rewards to them, which allows them to earn a monthly income. They earn their funding from their work of art, which is bought by their fans or patrons. They earn their income from charging a commission of 5 to 12 % from their patron’s monthly income and also by charging payment processing fees.
Inception
Jack Conte was a musician, and he wanted to make a living from his YouTube channel, where he uploaded his music videos. So, he partnered with Sam Yam and decided to develop a platform called Patreon which helped struggling artists to create and upload their piece of art, in exchange for paying a fixed amount of money when one creates their art. They founded it in May 2012, and with one year gone, they got around $2.1 million from venture capitalists and angel investors, who invested their money in their company. In it’s Series A round, which is led by Danny Rimer, Patreon was able to collect $15 million in June 2014.
In it’s Series B Round, which is led by Thrive Capital, Patreon was able to raise $30 million in 2016, with the total being $47.1 million. In their first 18 months, more than 125,000 users signed up and started using their platform, and in 2014, users started sending more than $1,000,000 per month for the content created by the site’s creators.
Patreon brought Subbable, which is a similar platform like Patreon and was created by Green brothers, John and Hank Green. Subbable’s contents and creators like CGP Grey, Destin Sandlin’s Smarter Every Day, and the Green Brother’s CrashCourse and SciSchow channels were brought by Patreon.
The company faced a great risk when it was the victim of a cyberattack that published around 15 gigabytes of password data, donation records, and source code. This attack was very harmful to the company as millions of unique e-mail addresses and private messages of the users. The hackers asked the users for Bitcoin payments to protect their personal information.
Evolution
After the attack, Patreon adopted safety measures, and in July 2016 they made some changes for the creators working under adult-oriented, and they put those creators under the category of “Not Safe For Work” and asked their users to pay these creators through PayPal via Braintree, which is a PayPal’s subsidiary which allowed the creators to receive their payment more easily as compared to the earlier method of payment which was my credit card. Since it’s inception, it’s creators got more than $100,000,000 for their work.
The company started growing rapidly and had around 50,000 active creators, 1 million monthly patrons, and the creators received around $150 million in May 2017. Patreon adopted many improvements such as CRM system, Lens, a mobile app, and a service that is used to set up exclusive live streams, and it even ran a membership business in June 2017. It recently merged with Memberful, which is a membership services company in August 2018.
Awards & Achievements
It has no awards or achievements in its name to date. But, the company has grown rapidly since it’s inception. It had around 50,000 active creators, 1 million monthly patrons, and the creators received around $150 million in May 2017. The numbers have been on the rise since then.
Net Worth of Patreon in 2024
As of April 2024, It has a net worth of $5 billion. The platform has millions of creators and patrons in the current date, and it is paying millions of dollars to its creators. It has provided a very efficient platform for the creators to earn a living from their passion.
Patreon is an American platform that allows creators to earn money from their work of art. The platform has millions of creators and patrons in the current date, and it is paying millions of dollars to its creators. It has provided a very efficient platform for the creators to earn a living from their passion.
I’d like to donate to Destin, but it seems
there are others getting a piece of the pie.
How is that calculated ?