The quick mental estimate most creators reach for is "gross pledges times (1 minus the platform fee)" -- $1,400 pledged, 10% platform fee, so about $1,260 lands in the bank. That estimate is not wrong about the platform fee. It is wrong about the other fee: payment processing charges a fixed dollar amount on every charge, not a share of revenue, and a percentage-only estimate has nowhere to put a fixed dollar amount. On the calculator's own default scenario, that gap is $139.60 -- real money, and it does not show up until you count charges instead of dollars.
Open the free payout calculator
Take the calculator's own defaults: 200 patrons at $3, 100 patrons at $5, and 30 patrons at $10, all billed monthly on the Standard plan (10% platform fee, ~2.9% + $0.30 processing on every charge). Gross pledge revenue is $1,400.00, across 330 total charges (200 + 100 + 30 -- one charge per patron under monthly billing). Here is what a flat-percentage mental estimate gets wrong:
| Figure | Mental estimate (gross × 90%) | Actual (calculator) |
|---|---|---|
| Gross pledge revenue | $1,400.00 | $1,400.00 |
| Platform fee (10%) | $140.00 | $140.00 |
| Processing fees | not counted | $139.60 (330 charges × ~2.9% + $0.30 each) |
| Total fees | $140.00 | $279.60 |
| Net payout | $1,260.00 | $1,120.40 |
| Effective take-home rate | 90.0% | 80.0% |
$139.60 too high, on identical gross revenue -- a 12.5% overestimate of the actual net payout. Of the $139.60 in processing fees the estimate missed entirely, $99.00 is the fixed $0.30 fee charged 330 times (71% of the processing bill), and only the remaining $40.60 is the 2.9% percentage rate a "roughly 3%" mental adjustment might have caught.
Two creators with the same $1,400 gross pledge revenue can owe very different processing fees, because the fixed fee scales with charge count, not with dollars. A creator with 330 small pledges pays that $0.30 fixed fee 330 times; a creator with the same $1,400 total spread across a handful of large pledges pays it only a handful of times. A percentage-of-revenue mental estimate cannot see the difference, because it never looks at how many charges produced the revenue. Billing frequency compounds the same trap -- switching from monthly to per-creation billing multiplies the charge count for the same pledge total, which the calculator's own per-creation-billing guide works through in detail.
The gap shrinks toward zero as the average charge size grows, because a fixed $0.30 fee is a rounding error against a $500 charge and a real bite against a $3 one. A creator with a few large pledges and monthly billing will find a flat-percentage estimate reasonably close. The trap is specifically many small pledges, a legacy plan's under-$3 micropayment charges, or per-creation billing splitting one pledge into several charges a month -- exactly the shape the calculator's tier and billing inputs are built to catch.
Because payment processing charges a fixed fee (about $0.30 on the Standard plan) on every charge, not a percentage of revenue, and a percentage-only mental estimate has no place to put a fixed dollar amount. On the calculator's own default scenario -- 200 patrons at $3, 100 at $5, and 30 at $10, all billed monthly on the Standard plan -- 330 charges each carry that fixed fee, for $99.00 that a flat 10% deduction never accounts for.
On that same default scenario, subtracting only the 10% platform fee from $1,400.00 gross gives $1,260.00. The calculator's actual net payout, after both the platform fee and processing fees, is $1,120.40 -- a $139.60 overestimate, or about 12.5% too high.
It depends on how many charges the total revenue is split across, which total revenue alone does not tell you. Two creators with identical $1,400 gross pledge revenue can have very different processing-fee bills if one has many small pledges (more charges) and the other has fewer, larger ones (fewer charges) -- a percentage-of-revenue estimate treats them as identical when they are not.
Both apply, but the fixed fee is the larger and more easily forgotten part. In the default scenario, processing fees total $139.60: $99.00 of that is the fixed $0.30 charged 330 times, and the remaining $40.60 is the 2.9% processing rate applied to $1,400 of revenue. A mental estimate that remembers "there's a processing fee, roughly 3%" still misses the $99.00 fixed portion -- 71% of the true processing-fee bill.
When you have very few, very large pledges, so the fixed per-charge fee is a rounding error next to the percentage fee -- one $500 pledge on the Standard plan pays $14.80 in processing (2.9% plus one $0.30 fixed fee), close to a flat percentage guess. The trap grows with patron count and shrinks with average pledge size, and per-creation billing (charging once per post instead of once a month) multiplies the charge count further -- see the calculator's own per-creation-billing guide for that case.
Yes. Patreon retired the three-tier legacy plan for new creators in August 2025 in favor of a single Standard plan, and it publishes no live feed a static page could read. The dollar figures on this page are current as of the date on this page and reproduce from calc.mjs's own DEFAULTS -- verify anything material against your own current Patreon creator dashboard and Patreon's own current help documentation.