Your work should be working harder for you

You know better than anyone that tied up in the title of “creator” is about a dozen other jobs: video editor, podcast producer, social media specialist, community manager… The list goes on. You deserve to work a little less, and earn a lot more. To make that a reality, you need more than just a platform. You need a partner.

We know sustainable businesses are built on direct, meaningful connections with your real fans. And as your partner, we want to help you spend more time creating for them — and for you — and less time managing that business. Today, we're introducing even more tools to take some of the hard work out of growing your community so you can focus on making what excites you.

Find more fans without even looking

Over the past few years, platforms have spent less time showing creators’ work to their followers and more time suggesting viral posts to a wider and more passive audience. That has made it increasingly difficult for creators to reach the people who want to see their work. Now more than ever, Patreon is focused on reinforcing the creator-fan relationship, which means building a discovery experience that brings creators closer to more of their fans, instead of farther apart.

Tap into word of mouth: When you join Patreon, you’re joining a network of creators that are here to help each other grow. With the new Recommendations tab, all creators (including 18+ creators) have a dedicated space on their page to shout out their favorite creators and share why their fans might love them too. When you recommend a creator they have the opportunity to reciprocate, sharing the love and inspiring fans to join even more creators' communities.

In the couple of months since the creator recommendations feature has been out in the world, creators have already seen effortless community growth. In August, Sarah Forde of AdorkaStock saw 28% of her first-time paid monthly memberships come directly from other creators' recommendations.

Let fans discover you: More than two thirds of all new paid memberships purchased on Patreon come from fans who already have existing memberships to other creators. That's because the real fans are already on Patreon — the ones that so many creators see as the most vibrant representation of their community. We want to make it easier for those people to find you so you don’t have to go looking for them.

The redesigned Search tab (now called the Explore tab) is where anyone can explore popular categories and find new creators that match their individual interests. In our initial testing we saw that, on average, creators featured on the Explore tab saw an increase in free and paid memberships. We’ll continue to improve this experience so fans can find more of the creators they want on Patreon. By the end of November, we’ll also expand access for search and explore improvements to 18+ creators.

Earn more without the extra effort

You’ve already made the episodes and videos and files and tutorials. You’ve done the hard work. Now sit back, relax, and let us keep the earnings going.

List posts and collections for sale: Creators can now offer different ways for fans to purchase their new and existing work, without necessarily committing to a monthly membership. In early testing, we saw over 45% of purchases on posts or collections came from fans new to the creator's Patreon community. Singer and music teacher Gracie Terzian has been selling individual music classes already included in her membership as one-time purchases, and in her first month of selling, she’s already seen a 20% boost in her monthly earnings on Patreon.

Automatically run promotions: You can find additional features that help you earn more from your real fans in the new Promotions tab. Your newest tool, Autopilot, gives you an easy and automatic way to encourage your free members to upgrade to paid memberships. Patreon will send an email to free members who seem likely to upgrade with a discount for their first month. Autopilot improved the rate of free-to-paid membership upgrades by an average of 19% in testing so far. Keep an eye out because we’ll be adding more features to Autopilot in the coming months.

Next to Autopilot, you can also explore shop discounts. Anything you list and sell through your Patreon shop will now be eligible for a discount, so you can lower the barrier of entry for fans who want to see what your work is all about.

Using both of these new tools, you can share a taste of your monthly offerings with free members and encourage them to become paid members. Every month, over 400,000 free memberships turn into paid memberships. To track your own numbers and see how these features are working for you, you can now also see total free member upgrades with new updates to your Insights dashboard.

Take control of your growth

Like any true partner, we’ll continue to listen to your feedback (keep sharing it here!) so we can release features that make your life as a creator easier while allowing you to focus on the parts of your business that inspire you. These hands-free tools have already boosted creators’ growth, and now, they can help even more creators reach their wildest goals.