Patreon, the paid membership platform for creators, on Tuesday announced the release of new features designed to help creators monetize their free followers and unlock new revenue streams, including the ability to sell individual posts, a gifting feature that lets creators give fans limited-time subscriptions, and promotional tools for sharing clips on social media.
The new features reflect Patreon's efforts to expand beyond its role as a monetization platform. Last year, Patreon launched a free membership option, allowing fans to follow their favorite influencers without committing to a monthly subscription. The company revealed in a blog post today that the initiative has already attracted more than 30 million subscribers.
Now, Patreon is introducing one-time purchases of content like posts and collections, giving followers access to premium content without paying a membership fee. Previously, the company allowed one-time purchases of a range of digital products, including videos, podcast episodes and images.
Image credit: Patreon
The platform is also testing a gifting service that allows creators to offer time-limited subscriptions to their fans — for example, an influencer could gift a one-month membership to a loyal follower.
Additionally, Patreon is opening up its community chat section to both free and paid members and introducing features such as a countdown clock and live chat functionality to improve communication by promoting new and upcoming content, as well as a new tool that will automatically generate audio and video clips of Patreon posts to use as teasers on social media platforms.
The company says all of these new features will be available in the coming months.
Updated June 25, 2024 at 12:52 PM EST to correct that fans can gift subscriptions to friends. The tool only allows creators to gift memberships to their fans.