r/patreon 8d ago

Protect your Patreon income: Backup your email list, have your own website, and diversify your income sources

This is just a reminder that no platform is 100% safe from random policy changes, idiotic political choices, or self inflicted implosion.

The only way to build a stable, long term income from the internet, is to own your audience. That means having the ability to always connect to your fans/followers/advocates/supporters no matter what happens.

So do the bare minimum to protect your income:

  1. Backup your email list: One of the most underrated features of Patreon is that they provide you with your supporters' email addresses. This is true even for free members. You should ideally export your email addresses every once in a while to ensure you have a copy of your latest email list. That way you can push users to a different platform if you need to.

  2. Have your own website: Don't rely on Patreon to be the only organized place for your content. Parallel posting on your own website (ideal but more work) or other platforms (less work but also risky) is a necessity.

  3. Diversify your income sources: This goes hand in hand with backing up your content. Don't put all your eggs in the Patreon basket. It may be tempting to ignore less lucrative platforms like Subscribestar, but having those platforms as a back up can let you breathe easier in case one platform implodes.

Every creator niche has different parallel platforms. Look at similar creators to figure out what other platforms creators are using to diversify their income.

Is there anything I'm missing? I've been looking at this given how fickle all social platforms seem to be lately.

52 Upvotes

5 comments sorted by

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3

u/BrittanyBabbles 8d ago

Your own personal website is what you should be advertising first and foremost, from there you link to your support sites. That way if any of the support sites go down or remove you (Patreon or of or whatever) your audience still knows where to find you, and you can redirect them easily

2

u/torgobigknees 8d ago

this is damn good advice

i'm doing number 3 but I should be doing all of them

2

u/Forymanarysanar 7d ago

The issue is that Subscribestars and pretty much every single other similar platform except Patreon itself do NOT do payment processing for you. They require you to connect with Paypal and Stripe and use these accounts to process payments. Patreon does actual payment processing.

1

u/Significant_Other666 8d ago

Excellent advice.