Apple to Soon Take Up to 30% Cut from All Patreon Creators in iOS App

Patiently waiting for a mandatory 30% fee on every transaction made with iOS banking software. Maybe that'll put a definitive stop to forcing mobile "apps" with jailbreak detection on customers and have banks think twice before crippling the functionality of their websites.

Please Apple, make this happen.

Just do what we all do to dodge this, have the Account management and purchasing abilities sit inside an embedded browser window that opens up from a button push in the app. Yes it adds a little barrier but with Apple Pay it is a very small barrier and the juice is worth the squeeze.

Always hated apple for their putrid business practices. Add this to the pile.

What are you going to do about it? Use Android?

This means Apple is literally going to take nearly 3x in fees from Patreon's customers than Patreon is taking from their own customers.

My understanding is that the reason the number 30% is so magical is a historical anomaly. When software was physically distributed back in the day, 15% of the MSRP was reserved for the distributor and another 15% for the retailer. When these digital marketplaces were set up, the companies just said "well, we're the distributor and the retailer, so we'll keep both". Forgetting the fact that the cost to distribute and retail the software is literally pennies on the dollar of what it used to be.

I think the irony in this case is that this is a greed problem of their own making. When Steve Jobs announced that apps on the original iPhone would only be $1-$3, he set off the first enshittification crisis in the software industry. In 2008, Bejeweled cost $19.99 if you wanted to buy it on the PC. On the iPhone it was $0.99! This artificially low anchor price is what kicked off the adoption of ad and subscription driven software models in the first place.

Should be 50% at least.

While its true that creators often share "extras" in return for support, it's crazy to call the support itself a "digital good." I can only assume they mean it is digitally good for their business.

how is this legal

I thought that already happened :)

But from past threads in a Linux Forum, seems this only applies to people using the Apple IOS App for Patreon. Not sure if using Apple Laptops.

But if you use Patreon's WEB Site directly, the fee cannot be collected by Apple.

That was my take anyways.

Sad, mean, and pointless

Isn’t this what Epic just sued and won over?

I think it’s not that simple. These are not my words and I cannot only post the link [0] as the author uses the referrer to hide his articles from HN, but here’s the text:

Once again, Patreon is going to strong-arm all of us into "charge at the moment of sign-up" instead of "charge on the first of the month." They have wanted this for years, and once again they are saying that Apple has given them cover to demand it. Here's what I wrote when they tried to pull this shit a year and a half ago and then chickened out:

Patreon has two billing models, monthly (bills on the first of the month, or whenever they get around to it) and daily (charges you the moment you sign up.)

For several years now, they have been trying really hard to get creators to switch to daily billing whether they like it or not, with a series of intrusive nags and dark patterns. E.g., the "Settings" tab always has an "unread" alert on it reminding me that I have not made the "recommended" change.

Now they're going to force everyone to switch, and they're blaming Apple for it. And, to be clear, fuck Apple, but also fuck Patreon, this is their choice and it's going to mean that I can no longer use their service.

Here's a support request I just sent them, again, after clicking 15 levels deep into their FAQ before finding the thing that might contact a human. Since the email alerting me of this change came from a "noreply" address because of course it did.

Feel free to send your own:

---

Subject: Subscription billing is unacceptable

You recently sent mail saying that you're going to force me to switch from monthly billing to subscription billing.

Subscription billing is unacceptable for my Patreon. It does not work.

I sell monthly memberships to a physical nightclub. The memberships begin on the first of the month. I fulfill and mail the physical membership cards on the first of the month. If you make me switch to daily billing, that means I will have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis instead, and I simply cannot do that.

If you force me to switch from a monthly cycle to a daily cycle I will have no choice but to stop using Patreon.

To be clear: I do not give a shit about the iOS app. Not one fractional fuck is given. If the solution to this problem is that people cannot sign up for, or access, my Patreon from the iOS app, that is 100% acceptable to me.

I know for a fact that none -- zero, 0% -- of my patrons have signed up using the iOS app. I know this because I had to warn them away from it, due to the 30% Apple Tax, and all of them complied. All of them. The iOS app is utterly meaningless to me and to my patrons.

(Also you are blaming this on Apple's bullying, which is simply not credible. You've been nagging me to change to subscription billing for years, with the little red error icon appearing everywhere. This is your decision. You are transparently using Apple as an excuse.)

---

I said this same thing to you a year and a half ago, the last time you tried to pull this nonsense. Second verse, same as the first. Last time, support replied that they "completely get why this change would be upsetting" and "will bring my feedback to the team." Uh huh.

Patreon's absolutely awful level of service and support has been a huge problem for quite some time, but I am really not looking forward to having to figure out how to implement recurring monthly billing on my own.

Patreon, YOU HAD ONE JOB.

[0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/patreon-is-lying-again-and-...

When the App Store first launched I think 30% was pretty fair fee for Apple to collect, but that was a long time ago, and before IAP/Subscriptions. Apple might still be entitled to some percentage but they've expanded to cover more and more things (like this Patreon change or Kindle back in the day) and now we have moved far, far beyond the pale.

Apple (perhaps like all corporations but I'm focusing on Apple) is a greedy company that has massively lost it's way. Tim Cook support fascists and/or anything to improve the bottom line, especially if it increases "services" [0]. Alan Dye (thank god he is now busy screwing up Meta) shipped the worst UI revamp I've seen in a while from a company Apple's size and the iOS/iPadOS/visionOS/macOS software is all in dire straits. And they managed to do all of this while alienating developers left and right and playing chicken with governments around the world [0] instead of relaxing their hold on their platforms.

But who cares? The stock price went up. /s

I was overjoyed to see Alan Dye leave (and Jony Ive) and hope that we don't have to wait too much longer to bid Tim Cook adieu. Whoever takes over next has a lot of work ahead to dig out of the hole Tim Cook dug for Apple.

Tim Cook might be the best thing for shareholders but he has been horrible for product quality (software and hardware) and for democracy.

[0] Pay no attention to how much of services revenue came from the Google search deal with the majority of the rest coming from casinos for children and adults alike.

[1] Like the EU DMA, which, I have publicly and privately voiced my dislike of parts of it but Apple has no one to blame but themselves. By keeping a white-knuckle grip on their revenue they forced governments across the world to pass laws (often bad IMHO) that fragment and confuse the entire iOS market.

I call this the Apple "idiot tax" - 'cos you have to be an idiot in letting Apple exploit you (the developer and the user) this brazenly.