Today, Patreon announced important changes coming to its iPhone app. To comply with Apple’s App Store rule, the company will have to switch to the iOS in-app purchase system starting this November to avoid being removed from the App Store, which is what led to Fortnite being removed from the App Store a few years ago.
According to the company, Apple will start charging a 30% fee for all new memberships purchased in the Patreon iOS app. While this could be reduced to 15% after a year, Patreon is communicating that creators might need to raise their prices on iPhones so they don’t lose revenue. That said, existing members won’t have to deal with this change.
Based on creator feedback, Patreon says it built an optional tool that can automatically increase prices in the iOS app to offset the costs of Apple’s fees. The company says: “While the automatic price increase is the default option, you also have the choice to keep your prices the same and pay the 30% fee from your earnings. We don’t recommend this, because it means you’d earn less per membership on in-app iOS transactions – but ultimately we believe it’s important to give you agency to make your own decisions.”
The platform reiterates that prices on the web and the Android app will remain the same. It also recommends that creators send a Help Center article to subscribers so they can understand that this is not on the creator’s end but on Apple’s.
Besides that, Patreon has started a 16-month-long migration process to bring all creators onto subscription billing by November 2025. Otherwise, Apple told the platform that if creators use unsupported billing models or if the platform disables transactions in the iOS app, the company might have its app removed from the App Store.
Unlike Epic Games and Spotify, Patreon isn’t advocating against these changes but instead fostering clear communication between its user base and the general public.
Over the past few years, Apple has reinforced its fees for in-app purchases. Even Facebook must pay this fee for its ads. BGR will continue to follow Apple’s tweaks to in-app purchases inside and outside the App Store globally.
