Patron announced on Tuesday on its blog that it will allow creators to gift limited-time subscriptions to their followers and other ways to monetize their platforms.
The gifting feature will go live on a new, dedicated Promotions tab on the back end and be part of several other tools for discounted products and automated offers. According to the company, “Gifting is one of the all-time most requested tools for creators on Patreon — and now it’s in the works.”
Patreon also introduced another update where creators can sell individual posts and collections to fans. I can imagine this update being beneficial as it will allow fans to make a one-time purchase and get a preview of your work before paying for a membership.
Shareable clips are another feature that’s in the works. Creators will soon get the option to auto-generate small audio and video snippets of their Patreon posts as teasers to give fans a quick look at their work. These teasers can be shared off-platform, too. To generate hype among fans, creators will also get access to a countdown clock to have their fans count down to their next release.
Patreon realizes that the creator economy is undergoing a major shift and is trying to accommodate that. Just last year, it launched free membership options so that fans of creators can still support their work without costing them a penny. Patreon has recently been trying to put creators at the forefront of everything on the platform. The blog post it put out said to creators, “You’ve been playing by platforms’ rules, but we want to help you play by your own.”