Patreon alternative site.

[Eezi]

I recently started up a Patreon page, after you publish your page it goes under review for someone at Patreon to check if it isn't against any of there TOS. My page has been on "Currently under review" for 9 days. I contacted support a few days ago and haven't heard back from them.

I've started looking for alternatives and with the changes at Subscribestar there doesn't seem to be any good ones.

 

[HiEv]

I recently started up a Patreon page, after you publish your page it goes under review for someone at Patreon to check if it isn't against any of there TOS. My page has been on "Currently under review" for 9 days. I contacted support a few days ago and haven't heard back from them.

It's the holiday season. It shouldn't be that surprising that things take a bit longer this time of year.

I've started looking for alternatives and with the changes at Subscribestar there doesn't seem to be any good ones.

Yeah, I keep hoping

You must be registered to see the links

is going to open up. They've been teasing us with an "opening soon" for six+ months now, so it's getting a bit frustrating.

That said, I do want them to do this right, so if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes.

 

[Agent HK47]

Yeah, I keep hoping

You must be registered to see the links

is going to open up. They've been teasing us with an "opening soon" for six+ months now, so it's getting a bit frustrating.

That said, I do want them to do this right, so if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes.

Well, they have been pretty open about their state of progress and their mindset about how to do things going forward, and have been all the way. In my mind they are on the right track, they just seem to have underestimated how long certain processes take.

Also, Subscribestar is not dead yet. They are currently bringing new payment partners on board, who are much more accepting of certain types of controversial content. Well, at least this is what they claim on their twitter, and I don't see any reason to doubt them, until they give me a reason to do so.
Finally, Jordan peterson and certain other people, including Notch (the creator of Minecraft) have stated that they are interesting in creating a similar platform of their own, with focus on free speech and personal expression.

I hope to see all 3 of these sites rising up strong in the coming year, because Patreon needs a solid slap in the face to wake up and get down from their high horse.
The more options we have, the better it is for everyone. Well, everyone, except maybe Patreon themselves, but does anyone really give a fuck about that?

 

[HiEv]

Well, they have been pretty open about their state of progress and their mindset about how to do things going forward, and have been all the way. In my mind they are on the right track, they just seem to have underestimated how long certain processes take.

Yeah. I knew back (11 months ago) when they quoted that they'd be opening in "spring 2018" that that was a ridiculously naive estimate. At the time I quipped that "spring 2018" probably actually meant "summer 2018". Seeing it pushed to "winter 2019" is a bit depressing though.

Also, Subscribestar is not dead yet. They are currently bringing new payment partners on board, who are much more accepting of certain types of controversial content. Well, at least this is what they claim on their twitter, and I don't see any reason to doubt them, until they give me a reason to do so.

Again, I don't think that this is something that they can do as quickly as they think they can.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

Finally, Jordan peterson and certain other people, including Notch (the creator of Minecraft) have stated that they are interesting in creating a similar platform of their own, with focus on free speech and personal expression.

Well, Jordan Peterson is going to have to avoid some of his earlier pitfalls (such as opposing anti-discrimination legislation) if he doesn't want to get deplatformed wherever he goes.

Notch is cool, but even he will have to deal with the fact that "free speech" and "personal expression" are becoming code words among some groups for being able to express hate speech without consequences, despite the fact that that's not what those terms actually mean.

The banking industry has finally woken up to the fact that they need to be aware of their part in supporting certain social movements that harm society, because they have to live in that society. Yeah, they're blundering about a bit, and hitting some targets that aren't actually harming society, but in general I applaud what they're trying to do.

I hope to see all 3 of these sites rising up strong in the coming year, because Patreon needs a solid slap in the face to wake up and get down from their high horse.

I dunno. There's more and more evidence that the pressure ultimately came from the payment processors, not from within Patreon itself. It's hard to blame them when you take that into consideration.

The more options we have, the better it is for everyone. Well, everyone, except maybe Patreon themselves, but does anyone really give a fuck about that?

I agree that more options generally is better, and I'm not entirely a fan of what Patreon has done, heck, I'm even less of a fan of the way they went about it, but Patreon still does a lot of good for other people, so I still appreciate that.

Regardless, I think eventually the market will straighten itself out, but it sure is taking a while.

 

[Eezi]

It's the holiday season. It shouldn't be that surprising that things take a bit longer this time of year.

Yeah that is definitely true, but at the same time I've contacted people who have created their page around the same time as me and they reported it took no longer than 24 hours. So it makes me wonder if Patreon perhaps just has it out for NSFW creators.

I've been on "Currently under review" for 11 days with a unanswered support ticketed for 4 days. Now that it's new years i imagine i'll have to wait minimum a few more days. Which is a bit insane imo, 2 weeks to review a page that takes 2 minutes to read, no matter what time of year that's way too long i think.

I hope a good alternative appears soon.

 

[HiEv]

Yeah that is definitely true, but at the same time I've contacted people who have created their page around the same time as me and they reported it took no longer than 24 hours. So it makes me wonder if Patreon perhaps just has it out for NSFW creators.

If you mark your page as NSFW then it has to be checked manually by a human. Non-NSFW pages go right through as long as no red flags are automatically detected. It's not so much that they "have it in for them", as it's a lot easier to break the rules and it takes a human to verify it. (Something which they have been in short supply of at times.)

I've been on "Currently under review" for 11 days with a unanswered support ticketed for 4 days. Now that it's new years i imagine i'll have to wait minimum a few more days. Which is a bit insane imo, 2 weeks to review a page that takes 2 minutes to read, no matter what time of year that's way too long i think.

The issue isn't how long it takes to review your page (and possibly your software/art), it's how long it takes to review all of the other pages and the like that are ahead of you in the queue.

Also, keep in mind that out of the last 11 days, only 4 were non-holiday business days.

That said, it's possible something on the page is holding things up. You should probably read through the "

You must be registered to see the links

" thread. Another developer I know got his page suspended for "implied nudity", so while you may think your page is fine, it could be that something you're unaware of is holding things up.

One last possibility, is if you use Gmail that your response may have gone to your "Promotions" folder. You might want to check that, and possibly your spam filter on other email services, just in case.

Good luck!

 

[Snarkfu]

Anyone have any idea what payment providers porn sites use?

It's a multi-billion dollar industry, someone is willing to deal with adult content but I've never managed to figure out who it is.

 

[W65]

Anyone have any idea what payment providers porn sites use?

It's a multi-billion dollar industry, someone is willing to deal with adult content but I've never managed to figure out who it is.

Being such a big industry, the payment processors probably feel pretty comfortable that nothing illegal is going on--I'm sure the industry is rife with abuse and actor exploitation problems, but that's the kind of thing I think they'd be comfortable looking the other way on, or at least have been in the past.

(Yeah, that's kind of a naive argument for me to make, but it probably covers the porn folks who are closest to the industry center. I'm sure lots of shady "amateur" or whatever porn sites run around owned by the same big players in the industry, but I'm willing to chalk that up to good-old-boy relationships.)

(Um, and of course I'm speaking out of my ass with no actual knowledge of who owns what. Just a disclaimer.)

But when you start dealing with fantasy porn, you suddenly have questionable-age characters, incest, dogfucking, and furries to deal with. That's my guess as to the sort of things that sites think processors aren't going to like.

That makes me wonder, though: there are furry porn sites that charge money. Who handles their payments? There's nothing inherently illegal about furry (::shiteatinggrin::) but it just feels like the kind of thing that payment processors would turn up their noses at having to be around. That might just be bad associations in my own mind.

 

[HiEv]

Anyone have any idea what payment providers porn sites use?

It's a multi-billion dollar industry, someone is willing to deal with adult content but I've never managed to figure out who it is.

There are several out there. Just Google "

You must be registered to see the links

" for a list. A few examples:

You must be registered to see the links

(this is who Sponsorion is using)

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

(Note: I'm not endorsing any of these, merely listing a few I'm vaguely familiar with.)

---

Being such a big industry, the payment processors probably feel pretty comfortable that nothing illegal is going on--I'm sure the industry is rife with abuse and actor exploitation problems, but that's the kind of thing I think they'd be comfortable looking the other way on, or at least have been in the past.

Heh... Tell that to Payza, which got shut down by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US early last year for money laundering. See here for the story:
BehindMLM: "

You must be registered to see the links

"

 

[W65]

There are several out there. Just Google "high risk merchant account providers" for a list. A few examples:

eMerchantBroker (this is who Sponsorion is using)
Verotel
Soar Payments

(Note: I'm not endorsing any of these, merely listing a few I'm vaguely familiar with.)

Oh! I get it. It's not that they don't exist, it's just that you have to pay a lot more to deal with them, so they get treated like they don't exist for many practical purposes. Is it that kind of thing?

It's like automatic weapons in the USA a while back. It wasn't that they couldn't be purchased, it was just that you had to pay some kind of tax stamp and go through a bunch of hurtles. This is going off of half-remembered decade-old stories from people who might not have known what they were talking about the first place, so I might have my story totally wrong.

 

[HiEv]

Oh! I get it. It's not that they don't exist, it's just that you have to pay a lot more to deal with them, so they get treated like they don't exist for many practical purposes. Is it that kind of thing?

Yeah, generally they collect higher fees to cover the higher risk, so only those who have to use them, actually use them.

 

[OhWee]

Looks like Subscribestar is back in business - although they are taking baby steps at the moment:

You must be registered to see the links

From the Subscribestar blog:

You must be registered to see the links

Dear Friends,
We are at the point when we start getting back to our normal operations. Starting this Monday, we will begin charging live accounts of the existing subscribers in order to restore money flow to our content creators. Simultaneously, we will enable a few selected profiles to accept new subscribers.
Started with smaller size accounts, we will progress towards the bigger ones, just to keep the load under control while testing everything along the way.
After we done with the processing of all existing billings, we will get back to the long list of applications that are waiting in line for the review and approval. And right after that, we will enable all profiles to accept new subscribers and receive donations. At the same time subscribers, who joined the “free tier” with $0 subscription price may change the subscription tier to ones with real USD values.
Always yours,
SubscribeStar.com Team

 

[Infidelisoft]

I have a SubscribeStar page, but it's kind of hard to believe they'll be able to resume normal operations without increasing the costs. These "high risk" payment processors usually charge exhorbinant fees between 15-20%.

 

[Brazzoth]

Why does f95zone or any member create a platform for adult game support or try to convince a big porn platform like pornhub to make something comparable, when I see the taboo and fetishes on a regular and monetized porn site, all the banned content on patreon are available on those site, so what's the f***** big deal with 3D and drawing porn! All thoses SJW and politics are already into some weird sh*t in secret, so don't tell me it's for morality, that's more moral than a real video with real actors...

 

[TowerCrow]

I have a SubscribeStar page, but it's kind of hard to believe they'll be able to resume normal operations without increasing the costs. These "high risk" payment processors usually charge exhorbinant fees between 15-20%.

I hear the fees can go up to 30-35%.

 

[Brazzoth]

I hear the fees can go up to 30-35%.

I just saw that if you're using cryptomoney they're getting no fees, only coingate and your bank can put fees.
and for the credit card, it's 5% of service fees and 3% of processing fees plus $0.3 on average, so if you're earning around $2300 you will only get around $1800

I really think that F95Zone should promote Subscribestar since Mr.Dots and a few others has moved, you have no contraint on this site compare to patreon, if everyone move on it, we should be in a better position of earnings and content creation!

 

[TowerCrow]

The problem with crypto is that no regular adult game player actually uses crypto. The barrier for entry is too high atm.

 

[Brazzoth]

I guess but Coingate seems easy to use, you just need an account and can convert your cash into crypto, people that want to keep playing those games has to think about it, I had to forget about a lot of game idea because of patreon, the high demand of the content is also the banned one, I don't where we're going but let's hope... we adapt

 

[OhWee]

The Subscribestar math on the $2300 looks a bit off. So I made a couple of assumptions here:

460 Subscribers x $5 each = $2300

$5 * 2.9% + .30 = .445 per transaction; $ 460 subscribers = $204.70

$2300 * .95 (5% service fee) = $2185.00

minus $204.70 = $1980.30

This ASSUMES that all of your subscribers are only donating $5 a month. If a subscriber should donate say $10-$20 instead, that mitigates the 30 cents per transaction a bit, thus increasing your income a bit.

Anyways, Based on these numbers, Simply multiplying by .9 or .86 (10%-14% for total fees) should give you a decent ballpark for your income after the transaction and service fees. 90%, or even 86% (if everyone is donating the minimum $5) is better than getting no money at all...

Most developers aren't going to earn $2300 per month out of the gate, particularly on a new platform. Assuming $500 in subscriptions (100 subscribers), the math works out to about $430.50 if everyone donates $5.

OF COURSE, then there's the government's cut (taxes) but that varies from juristiction to juristiction.

I find it interesting that Subscribestar isn't charging fees for cryptocurrency. They do ask for donations though. I suspect that the 5% service fee will find it's way here eventually, so I'd consider this an 'intro' price. Possibly a transaction fee as well (at least one of the coin platforms listed mentions a transaction fee.).

Looking at the Coingate portal, looks like a 1-3% fee...

You must be registered to see the links

For those that fear the crypto, hopefully that's an 'opt in' and not an 'opt out' or 'no choice' situation.

As mentioned, looking at Mr. Dot's Dating My Daughter page, that has a Subscribestar link but (of course) not a Patreon link. Melody still links to Patreon, however, with no Subscribestar link as of yet (at least not on his website page).

Anyways, it'll be interesting to see how many developers succesfully make the move off of Patreon. I think a number of us here have high hopes for Subscribestar, but we shall see...

 

[Infidelisoft]

SubscribeStar has just, without announcing their plans, moved all adult project to a separate ".adult" domain to "better cater to adult content creators". Exactly the same website but with an increased service fee they didn't mention at all.