Patreon Statistics 2022: Users, Creator Earnings & More
The Internet has come a long way since the 90s. Users understand that the best way to continue receiving useful and unique content is by supporting creators.
And that’s when Patreon comes into the scene: it serves as a platform where creativity, uniqueness, and other projects are rewarded by patrons.
It’s a win-win situation where people get exclusive content by becoming Patreon hosts of the projects they really like.
That’s why it’s imperative to learn more about the whole Patreon world, and there isn’t a better way to do this than by checking some cool statistics on our site.
Continue reading this blog post to learn more about:
- Relevant Patreon Statistics in 2022;
- Comprehensive analysis of Patreon’s top statistics and overall data;
- Everything you need to know about the Patreon company, creatives, and fans.
Patreon Stats Highlights
Firstly, let’s understand how Patreon works. Patreon is a membership platform where fans perform monthly payments to their favorite top creators.
They can be artists, podcasts shows, video content, and whichever content that fans might be interested in.
The projects created by the people can go from writing novels, uploading pictures, and more.
Patrons contribute to keeping the content coming, so creators on Patreon earn a revenue by having more fans subscribed to their Patreon Pages.
Website Traffic of Patreon Monthly Membership Platform
According to Semrush, the main Patreon page for web browsers is the 269th most visited website in the whole world.
Unlike other websites, Patreon’s average traffic doesn’t come from paid search. Instead, it has more than 6.1 million users in terms of organic traffic every single month.
This average greatly exceeds the overall total number during the previous year (2021), when Patreon was barely among the top 500 when it comes to website traffic.
Competitors Arising
The massive popularity of Patron, as well as the earning potential of a wide number of creators, has created a “boom” of similar platforms looking to offer more features to fans and users.
One of them is
BuyMeACoffee, which directly offers better monthly payouts for the people that decide to create content on their platform.
We can just expect the number of competitors to go up in the years to come.
Patreon Downloads
Although Patreon’s website has proven to have a high average of visitors, their mobile app has also reached outstanding peaks of monthly downloads.
According to Apptopia, Patreon’s iOs and Android mobile app was downloaded for almost 500,000 users in a single month back in 2021.
What’s more, the average number of downloads has substantially increased from month to month, which confirms a continuous Patreon’s growth.
Patreon Users
Now, let’s talk about the people that make this possible: the fans. Patreon hosts are the ones that sustain this platform by showing support to their favorite creators.
Patrons contribute to the non-stop content generation of creators on Patreon - there isn’t one without the other.
Thus, it’s imperative to check relevant data and statistics related to patrons and the community.
User Growth
During the first weeks of March 2020, Patreon started to experience unprecedented growth that would change the platform forever.
The average number of creators and patrons grew up to 40% in just a couple of weeks, as stated in Patreon’s Pandemic Analysis.
As of 2022’s Q1, there are more than 6 million individual patrons supporting creators on the platform. If we compare this data to previous years, we can safely state that the number of patrons has tripled over the last 4 years.
Patreon Revenue
According to Backlinko, Patreon had an annual revenue of $160 million in 2021. That number itself doubled the average amount earned in 2020, which was around $80 million.
Naturally, this estimated amount depends on the total earnings by the revenue generated by creators, since Patreon takes an 8% cut of these earnings.
How Does Patreon Make Money?
Patreon makes money by charging a fee to creators. The fee goes from 5% to 12%, depending on the creator statistics and general information.
That being said, Patreon creators are the true stars of the show when it comes to the website making money directly from the users that create the content that patrons are paying for.
Revenue Growth
As the Patreon community continues to grow, more creators on Patreon are getting paid. Thus, the revenue of the company increases its average percentage depending on monthly payments received from patrons.
If we compare the estimated earnings of 2018 (around $30 million), we can safely say that the platform can continue doubling its annual revenue every year that passes while more creators continue to join the community.
Patreon Creators
Patreon is sustained by the money paid by patrons, but the creatives are the ones who attract people to the platform.
It is a cycle that perfectly complements itself: content creation is taken to a premium level where patrons can support their favorite project by paying a determined monthly subscription.
According to Statista, there are around 200,000 creators on Patreon as of 2022’s Q1. 90% of these creators have at least one patron, but it is also important to mention that only 0.3% of creators have more than 2,000 patrons.
Annual creatives earnings have increased from $1 billion in 2020 to the astonishing number of $2 billion during all 2021.
Nonetheless, the number of creators hasn’t exponentially grown if we compare September 2020 (180,000 creators) with September 2021 (200,000 creators), but surely the number of monthly payouts and overall earnings have indeed increased considerably.
Creator Earnings Growth
Graphtreon shows us a progressive increase in creator’s revenue on Patreon during the last years.
The platform went from performing monthly payouts of $12.6 million back in January 2020 to $23.6 million in September 2021.
If things continue this course, we can predict that the $2 billion mark collectively earned (excluding hidden earnings) by creators last year can continue increasing during 2022 and 2023.
Who Makes The Most Money on Patreon?
Podcasts find themselves among the main categories that attract patrons to the platform. That being said, Graphtreon provides full real-time insights regarding the top creators on Patreon.
The list has maintained itself relatively steady during all 2021, being the top 5 the following projects:
- True Crime Obsessed: crime podcast with over 49,000 patrons continuously increasing;
- The Tim Dillon Show: 39,000 patrons and more than $200,000 earned each month make this creator one of the biggest on the platform;
- Chapo Trap House: with over 37,000 patrons, Chapo Trap House constantly competes against the Tim Dillon Show in the third and second positions;
- DankPods: Although this podcast has 36,000 patrons, it only earns around $1,09 per subscription, so the earnings of these creators are not that high when compared to other creators;
- DarkCookie: this is a virtual adult novel video game that has managed to create an immense community around NSFW content.
Creator Categories
First of all, it’s important to mention that Patreon does not allow explicit content within their platform. Nonetheless, adult games and novels do have a space that some patrons and creators often explore.
That being said, the type of media heavily influences the earnings of a creator, being the most well-performing in the following categories:
- Video Content: 25.88% of creators upload videos to their pages;
- Podcasts: Patreon is the house of podcasts - just look at how many podcasts we have!;
- Music: 7.36% of creators show their music on Patreon;
- Games: video games are here to stay, and the community often acts as patron for some gaming projects;
- Other categories: writing, allowed adult content, and artists of all kinds are also allowed on Patreon.
Patreon Culture
Diversity is a matter that has been widely mentioned recently in tech companies, and Patreon is not the exception.
Being a platform that aims to help creators to achieve their goals, it makes sense for Patreon to adopt diversity practices that work around good company culture.
Diversity at workplace
In Patreon’s Diversity and Inclusion Analysis, the company states four important points:
- They want to increase racial diversity in leadership roles, which is a tangible problem in major tech companies;
- Their technical teams are constantly increasing the number of people of Asian descent hired, going from just 12% to 23% in just one year;
- Gender minority is also being addressed, since Patreon employees are 50% men and 50% women;
- They are working on future ways to hire and grow of nonbinary, trans, and agender individuals.
Finances
Now, let’s talk about something important: Patreon’s finances. We all want to know the numbers behind this million-dollar company, so without further ado, let’s get to it.
Patreon funding
Patreon has completed 7 Funding Round during the last years. Thus, the total funding amount has been set at $413.3 million provided by Tiger Global Management, Woodline Partners, and other popular lead investors.
Patreon Valuation
According to Forbes, Patreon’s total network is $4 billion as of 2022’s Q1. This stunning number dramatically increased when compared to 2020’s money valuation, which has “just” $1 billion.
On top of that, Patreon was only worth $660 million by the beginning of 2020, so its growth is even more impressive by taking a close look at all numbers.
Staff Salaries
There are around 200 employees working at Patreon at this moment. On average, a Patreon employer makes $69 per hour, which translates to $144,380 each year.
Employers in the engineering department can make up to $187,445 per year, while customer service representatives make around $57,000 per year.
In any case, the highest-paid employee on Patreon is a Senior Developer who makes up to $289,000 each year.
Other Interesting Facts about Patreon
Creators and patrons have found a common point with Patreon - some receive awesome content, and others produce it.
We have looked at the amazing numbers that both creators and patrons have to offer on this platform, but let’s take a look at those interesting facts that can provide us with valuable insights for the near future.
Interest in Patreon Over Time
Google Trends shows that creators and patrons are not looking for Patreon as often as they used to. This lack of interest might happen due to a couple of reasons.
First of all, Patreon’s competition is bigger than ever. There are other platforms where creators can take their ideas, and this doesn’t appear to have an end.
Secondly, some creators have accused the platform of taking way too much when compared to smaller sites. The truth is that Patreon will remain as the king of creative platforms during 2022 - no one has a doubt about it.
Patreon in 2022 and Beyond
Patreon wants to double its size by 2022. They are willing to hire aggressively while also scaling their product design and engineering goals.
That being said, we can only expect Patreon to become one of the leading platforms all over the Internet during this year.
Patreon has proven to be a reliable site where users all over the world can merge together to reach their goals.
These statistics show us the true potential of Patreon, a potential that hasn’t been fully reached yet.
For more Patreon and social platforms insights, check out our content here, at GrowFollowing.
Patreon Statistics FAQ
Who Started Patreon?
Patreon was founded back in 2013 by Sam Yam and the musician co-founder Jack Conte.
Their goal was to provide users with the possibility of making a living with their Internet content, such as YouTube videos.
Can I Pay With Crypto on Patreon?
As of today, you can’t pay on Patreon using crypto. Nonetheless, Patreon has confirmed that they are exploring the use of crypto in their platform for creators.
Who knows? Maybe sooner than later, you will be able to receive crypto and then Withdraw from Binance to Bank Account.
Karen is a senior technical writer and copywriter here at GrowFollowing. Her area of expertize are social media apps and new media.
Oliver is GrowFollowing founder and covers topics ranging from fintech to Internet.