So sometime over the weekend my YouTube channel hit 100K views. This was a pretty awesome milestone for me.
I’m considering exploring avenues like Patreon for monetisation. I’m curious to hear people’s experience with the platform. Or other options for monetising tutorials that I should consider.
We use Patreon for our latest game. Like almost every other place it’s really up to you to get traffic there because they aren’t going to get it for you. If you can get enough traffic and enough people that believe in what you’re doing then you can probably do ok with it.
Their tools leave a bit to be desired, with a few bugs here and there. And their system of charging patrons is… not so good. We use a monthly support system but they do offer a per-release system as well. If you go monthly then it’s set up in a way that will have you scratching your head after a while.
I’ve already started typing up a huge response with more information but then decided not to post it since it goes into a lot more detail than you might be asking about right now. So if you want more info, just ask.
I’m curious about all the information you can provide. As per usual I’m teetering on the edge between being a hobbyist with a day job, and trying to make some sort of business out of games. At this stage I’m simply aiming to make myself a little less reliant on the whims of my employer.
I’ve personally found tutorials to be a far easier audience to reach, and typically more rewarding and enjoyable, then actual games.
In short, depending on how you plan to “reward” your patrons will determine whether the experience I’ve had fits your situation. We do a monthly support system and it has some serious drawbacks. I have no experience with the “per-creation” reward style.
My current thoughts on rewards were something like
I’m leaning more towards per creation rather then per month. My track record currently doesn’t bode well for releasing new content every month, so I wouldn’t feel comfortable with asking people to pay monthly.
Yeah the monthly update thing is… difficult. It adds to the stress knowing that people are waiting every month for something super cool, that’s for sure. Some of my updates should take longer than a month, but I find myself scrambling in crunch mode all month long to meet the “deadlines”.
Still not 100% positive we’ll be sticking with Patreon. We have some awesome patrons on there that support us month after month, but then that sort of even adds to the stress, because “all these people are waiting on me!!!” We’ll see.
Anyway, yeah if you’re doing per-creation then that’s not something I can offer much advice on, but I’d love to hear your thoughts and an update down the road if you end up doing it.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
The other option one of my YouTube subscribers has pointed me at is something like Udemy. Again I’m not sure that I wish to commit to the content level required for an entire structured course.
Then again, if I want to do this as more then just a hobby making and keeping commitments to create content will have to be a thing.
I donate directly from an icon by the tutors on their YouTube when I download their tutorials. The donations are paid via Google Wallet or whatever they are calling it now. I don’t donate much but at least for one of those that I donated to, others donate in sufficient numbers that the tutor is producing new tutorials.
Pretty much the reason why I don’t use Patreon.
You are always on pressure to deliver regular updates. That is something I like about selling games or assets. You are on your own pace creating something. And once you put it on sale, you can lean back and collect money. Ok you still need to support your games/assets and update them if necessary. But less stressful than having a ton of people waiting for new content each month IMO.
If you get paid per update, it is a bit easier. But you still need to deliver regularly if you want earn something.
Unless you’ve already established a community prior to setting up your Patreon. Bay 12 Games had their community for years prior to getting theirs up. Of course it may have simply been the fans wanted an automated system.
That’s how ours is. We have a community of users going back almost 15 years. The majority of them support us through ways other than Patreon but a small portion of them are patrons on there. It helps.
Yeah, fun funding is not available in the country I launched the channel in. YouTube is being very precious about letting me use fan funding, despite moving country. In fact google services as a whole has just been horrible to change country and currency with.
But thanks for the tip. It is an option I am actively pursuing.
I like this part I quoted below between the +++++. I won’t mince words and call what they are saying a lie. It includes a small fee to cover the cost of processing the transaction plus a whopping 5% very large profit. However, it’s the only practical way to donate to the Blender folk that I watch tutorials from occasionally.
Even worse though is the eBay donation Ponzi scheme where eBay obscures the fact they take a large cut of every donation you make using their business as a proxy. It’s as if I, when I donate my monthly amount to HSUS.org and HSI.org and ALS.org and so on, say, “Hey, by the way, donate 20% of what I gave you to eBay for being such conscientious chaps.”
So give that, Google at least isn’t misrepresenting that it’s charity to donate to those ‘channels’; they are misrepresenting that 5% ‘small fee’ (ahem, very large fee) is all profit for Google.
+++++
Most of your voluntary payment goes to the creator. YouTube takes a small fee to cover the cost of processing the transaction. That fee varies by country:
Country Approximate fee per Transaction
Australia AUD $0.23 + 5%
France, Spain EUR €0.15 + 5%
Japan JPY ¥22 + 5%
Mexico MXN $2.70 + 5%
United Kingdom GBP £0.12 + 5%
United States USD $0.21 + 5%
For example, if you made a $10 Fan Funding voluntary payment in the US, YouTube’s fee would be $0.71, and the creator would receive $9.29:
+++++
5% seems like a VERY small portion, in light of most portals are charging 30%+. Maybe I misunderstood the point.
@Kiwasi - to get Patreon to be meaningful, you need a VERY large audience. I researched it for podcasters, and even folks who have 10k+ subscribers, listening to weekly content, they were lucky to get even a dozen patreon donators, resulting in a handful of dollars. Monetizing is hard - you might need a mix of approaches.
Gigi
You completely ignored that they say it’s for administrative fees when in truth it’s profit. 5% is actually a very large. The average McDonald’s makes a nickel for every ten dollars of sales of real tangible products, extracted with much real work and real expense, not misrepresenting exactly what that 5% profit actually is, as Google does. It is not a minimal fee to cover operating costs.
5% isn’t a big deal. Many internet sites range up to 30%. The extra consumer confidence I get from using an established service is worth it. I would hardly expect anyone to trust me if I asked for credit card numbers myself.
Correct. There is something to be said for using a method that consumers trust versus setting up your own “donate” button. As with everything else in business there’s a cost attached to it.
You ignore that YouTube & Google are misrepresenting what the 5% charge is, which they do to make ‘donating’ seem more palatable to you and more generous of them for having organized it but make no mistake that 5% is profit.
Now the Apple App Store and such have never tried to misrepresent the 30% they charge other than it is their cut of the your profits. However, if Google comes clean and admits the 5% is profit then it will decrease donations and make themselves look like Warren Buffer panhandling after a day of picking stocks.
And 5% profit which they misrepresent as administrative fees.