Free Patreon Fee Calculator

Last updated: 2026-10-23

Quick answer: Patreon changed its pricing on August 4, 2025, and every fee guide written before that date is now wrong for new creators. Anyone who published a creator page after that date pays a single 10% platform fee; creators who published before it keep legacy rates of 5% (Lite), 8% (Pro) or 12% (Premium) — and unpublishing a legacy page lands you on the 10% plan when you republish. On top of the platform fee sits 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing on every pledge, a 2.5% currency-conversion fee when a patron pays in another currency, a payout fee ($0.25 per US direct deposit, or 1% via PayPal, min $0.25, capped at $20), and — from November 1, 2026 — Apple's 30% fee on subscriptions bought inside the iOS app (dropping to 15% after a year of continuous billing). This free Patreon fee calculator models all of it: enter up to three membership tiers (patrons and price each), pick your plan, billing period, iOS share and payout method, and it returns a per-tier breakdown, your monthly or annual net, the web-only comparison that shows exactly what iOS costs you, and the annual-billing saving from collapsing twelve charges into one. Everything runs in your browser; your numbers never leave your device.

How to Use the Patreon Fee Calculator

1. Enter your membership tiers: how many patrons at each price. Three tiers cover most creators (a $3 entry tier, a $5 core tier, a $10 premium tier is the classic shape); leave a tier at 0 patrons to ignore it. Processing is charged per pledge, so the patron count matters as much as the prices — 100 patrons at $5 cost $30 in fixed processing, while 10 patrons at $50 cost $3.
2. Pick your plan: New (10%) if your page was published after August 4, 2025, or your legacy tier (Lite 5%, Pro 8%, Premium 12%) if it was published before. The legacy-vs-new split is the whole story of the August 2025 change — the calculator keeps the two unmistakable by labelling every legacy option with its date cutoff.
3. Choose billing: monthly or annual. Annual billing collapses twelve monthly charges into one annual charge per patron, so the $0.30 fixed processing fee is paid once a year instead of twelve times — the single biggest lever on processing cost, shown as its own savings line.
4. Set your iOS share — the percentage of patrons who subscribe inside the Patreon iOS app — and the iOS fee rate (30% in the first year, 15% after a year of continuous billing). Apple's fee replaces Patreon's payment processing on iOS-app purchases, but the platform fee still applies, so iOS pledges are charged Apple + platform, not Apple + platform + processing.
5. Tick currency conversion (2.5%) only if a meaningful share of patrons pay in a currency other than your payout currency, and pick your payout method (US direct deposit $0.25 per payout, or PayPal 1% with a $0.25 minimum and $20 cap). Click Calculate Patreon fees and read the per-tier table first, then the totals, then the web-only comparison.

Why Use Our Patreon Fee Calculator?

• Legacy vs new, unmistakable — the plan selector labels every legacy tier with its August 4, 2025 cutoff, and the results show the legacy saving (or cost) in dollars: a creator on Lite 5% keeps $25 more per $500 of pledges than a new creator on 10%, before processing. No guide that still quotes '5–12% depending on plan' without the date is safe to price from.
• Per-pledge processing, not a blended percentage — processing is 2.9% + $0.30 per pledge, so a $1 tier loses 33% to processing alone while a $50 tier loses 3.5%. The per-tier table shows this directly: 100 patrons at $5 pay $44.50 in processing (18.9% all-in with the 10% platform fee), while 10 patrons at $50 pay $17.50 in processing (13.5% all-in with the 10% platform fee). Tier pricing is a fee decision, not just a value decision.
• Web vs iOS, in dollars — a $5 pledge bought on the web keeps $4.06 after the 10% platform fee and processing; the same pledge bought inside the iOS app keeps $3.00 after Apple's 30% plus the platform fee (processing is replaced by Apple's fee). At 60% iOS share on $4,200 a month, iOS costs roughly $630 a month versus web-only — the comparison line puts that number on screen instead of leaving it as a percentage in a help article.
• Annual-billing saving, calculated — 100 patrons at $5 on monthly billing pay $534 a year in processing; on annual billing they pay $204. The $330 saving is the $0.30 fixed fee paid once instead of twelve times, and the calculator shows it as its own line whenever annual billing is selected.
• Payout fees included, not footnoted away — US direct deposit costs $0.25 per payout; PayPal costs 1% (min $0.25, capped at $20) with a $10 minimum payout. Small at any working volume, but the reason a creator's first payout can look a few dollars short of the dashboard balance, and the reason the calculator's net matches the bank deposit rather than the dashboard.
• 100% in your browser — your patron counts and prices never leave your device; no sign-up, no account.

Common Use Cases

• A new creator with 100 patrons at $5 a month: Gross is $500. Platform fee (10%) is $50; processing is $14.50 + $30 = $44.50; payout by direct deposit is $0.25. Net is $405.25 a month (18.9% all-in before the payout fee — the $405.50 figure most fee guides quote). The number that matters for pricing is the per-pledge one: each $5 patron nets $4.06 before the payout fee, so adding a patron is worth about $4.06 a month, not $5.
• A legacy Pro creator deciding whether to republish a page: On Pro 8%, the same 100 patrons at $5 net $415.50 before the payout fee — $10 a month more than the new 10% plan. Republishing would cost that $10 a month forever, plus lose any legacy billing setup. The calculator's plan selector exists for exactly this comparison: run it once on your legacy tier, once on New 10%, and the difference is the price of republishing.
• A creator with 60% iOS subscribers weighing a web-checkout nudge: Take 600 patrons averaging $7 ($4,200 a month), 60% iOS, new 10% plan. Web-only net is $3,478 before payout fees (platform $420 + processing $302); with 60% iOS at 30%, Apple takes $756 and web processing falls to $121, for a net of $2,903 — $575 a month lost to Apple's fee. After a year of continuous iOS billing the Apple rate drops to 15% ($378) and the loss roughly halves to about $287. The web-only comparison line turns 'nudge patrons to the web' from a vague tip into a priced decision: every patron moved from iOS to web is worth about $1.06 a month on a $5 tier.

Patreon Fee Calculator vs Alternatives

• The Patreon fee calculator at transferfees.io: The cleanest dedicated Patreon calculator: the August 2025 simplification, the same 100 patrons at $5 → $405.50 worked example, the $1-pledge 57-cent warning, and annual billing as the big lever. What it does not model is legacy tiers, the iOS fee, currency conversion or payout fees — the four lines this page adds, and the reason a creator with iOS subscribers or a legacy page gets a different answer here.
• The Patreon income calculator at kalkilapp.com: A three-tier membership estimator (entry/core/premium patron counts and prices) with a plan selector and annual net — the closest structural match to this page. Its plan table still shows the old 5/8/12% tiers without the August 2025 cutoff, and it does not split web vs iOS, annual-billing savings, or payout fees. Use it for a quick revenue sketch; use this page when the fee split itself is the question.
• The Patreon fees guide at keeptier.com: The deepest published receipt: every cut including conversion, payout and the November 2026 iOS fee, with a canonical $4,200-a-month, 60%-iOS, Pro-plan receipt. A guide proves the receipt once; this calculator recomputes it for your tiers, your plan, your iOS share and your payout method — and shows the web-only alternative next to it.
• Patreon's own creator-fees help page: The authoritative source for every rate on this page, including the payout-fee tables by method and currency. It is a reference document, not a calculator: it lists the rates and leaves the arithmetic to you. This page applies those same rates to your tiers; when the two disagree, trust Patreon's page and re-check the inputs.
• Your own spreadsheet: The most flexible option: refunds, mixed currencies, digital-product sales, multi-year iOS cohorts at 15%, all yours. The cost is keeping the August 2025 plan change, the November 2026 iOS fee and the payout-fee tables current when Patreon revises them. Use this calculator for the pricing answer today; keep the spreadsheet for the monthly close if you already have one.

Other calculators model one plan or quote one example. For the number that decides a tier price — legacy vs new on your actual tiers, web vs iOS in dollars, annual-billing savings, and the payout fee that explains the gap to your bank deposit — this page gives the full receipt in one calculation, free and private.

Frequently Asked Questions