Patreon is finally trying to establish a network effect

Patreon has a lot of competition these days. Back when it launched in 2016, it was one of the only companies that gave creators a way to get direct financial support from their fans. But today, there are similar sites like OnlyFans, Fansly, and Fanfix, dozens of link-in-bio companies with subscriptions and tipping features, and major platforms like YouTube and Twitch offering first-party extra-content memberships. That means Patreon has to work harder to keep creators’ interest–and it seems keen to do just that.

Today, it announced several new tools aimed at improving discoverability and allowing creators more flexibility for selling digital products (a smart move, considering it’s something OnlyFans has seen major success with: 60% of OF’s revenue now comes from selling standalone digital products rather than subscriptions).

“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,” Patreon wrote in a company blog post. “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.”

The “discovery experience” it’s referring to comes in two parts. First, it’s rolled out a dedicated Recommendations tab on each individual creator’s page. They can use that tab to shout out other creators they like, and/or whose content may interest their audiences. Patreon says it’s seen success with this feature already: since the tab came out two months ago, pose reference creator AdorkaStock has seen 28% of her first-time paid monthly memberships come from other creators’ recommendations.

This feature is a way for Patreon to build a kind of creator-curated “algorithm” (for lack of a better word) where, instead of driven by machine, similar content is hand-selected by users. Someone who subscribes to, let’s say, a crochet creator who sells handmade patterns, may not know how to find others in the crafting space. This tool allows creators to recommend what they consider high-quality content to their followers, likely in their same niche–and, if adopted by enough people, it could build a self-sustaining network of creators supporting one another’s work.

The second discoverability feature Patreon’s introducing is a revamped search tab called Explore, which lists popular content categories and highlights numerous creators within those categories that users can browse through. It’s not clear how Patreon chooses which creators are featured, but it says selected creators “on average […] saw an increase in free and paid memberships,” and mentioned that it plans to keep improving Explore.

One thing worth paying attention to: Patreon mentions 18+ creators several times in the course of discussing these new discoverability features. That’s interesting, since it’s had a somewhat contentious relationship with creators making adult-oriented content. Now, though, it says it’s putting resources into “expand[ing] access for search and explor[ing] improvements to 18+ creators.”

As for digital products, Patreon is adding the ability for creators to charge a one-time fee to access single posts and other types of content on their pages. This means they can choose to offer things like a single text update or a single art/writing piece, video, class, or more for purchase without the buyer having to subscribe.

It’s got a case study lined up here, too: “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,” the platform says.

Also during testing, it saw over 45% of purchases from this feature come from people who were new to the creator’s Patreon community. That means this is drawing in people who might not be willing to shell out for a monthly subscription, but still want to access creators’ works.

Patreon’s also offering a new discount tool called Autopilot that offers lower-priced first-time subscription fees for people who are already subscribed on a creator’s free tier, and can offer discounts to creators’ stores, “lower[ing] the barrier of entry for fans who want to see what your work is all about.”

All of this combined shows Patreon is actively trying to find new ways for creators to get more subscriptions and more standalone purchases–a vital move if it wants to keep creators close, and keep its own revenue coming in.