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Andrew is a long-time online creator with over 1,800 people supporting his work across two Patreons. He is a full-time podcaster, editor, and helps people manage Patreons and Podcasts. He recently launched an online course all about successfully planning, launching, and growing a Patreon.
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Offering your fans a free trial of your Patreon could be a great way to convert curious potential customers into paying Patrons.
Exciting update: As of 2024, Patreon has officially offered support for free trials on their platform! Nearly a decade had past in which Patreon did not offer this highly-requested feature, and it's a great idea for both creators and fans.
According to Patreon, "creators who use Subscription billing can enable Free trials. Creators whose work is categorized as Adult content must complete ID verification before Free trials are available to them."
Below was my original article in 2023 about how to offer free trials without an official integration by Patreon.
Option 1: Make a post on Patreon public
While the whole point of Patreon is to gate-keep content behind the paywall, Patreon does let you make any post public, so that those who aren't pledged to your Patreon will be able to see it. Of course, your paying Patrons will be notified about this post and see it as well.
This can be a great way to give fans a trial of what you offer on Patreon. Let's say that you make 50 bonus content posts per year on your Patreon. Each year, make one or two of these posts 'Public' so that your non-paying fans can see it too. Then, let your fans know you are offering this content free to everyone for a limited time.
What's great about this idea is that your fans will be brought to your Patreon page to see the content, and then once they're on your page, they're more likely to pledge to your Patreon on the spot! In addition to seeing your content, they'll be presented with the opportunity to pledge.
Check out a real example of a public post below. You're able to see the content as a non-paying fan, and there's a big 'Become a Patron' on the right side:
Option 2: Offer a refund to a Patron
This second method of offering a free Patreon trial is to offer someone a refund after they pledge. This method is a bit of a hassle, but it's the only other solution we have until Patreon offers official support for trials.
With this method, a fan would pledge to your Patreon as they normally would. However, after they pledge you would visit your account's Patreon Relationship Manager, look up this new fan, and then process a refund on their most recent payment.
To put this into a promotional scenario: You could tell fans that for the next two weeks, you will be automatically refunding every new Patron their first month's pledge if they pledge within this timeframe. You would also have to tell them that the refund does not cancel their membership. In other words, they'll be charged for future months unless they cancel their membership themselves.
While there's a little extra work on your end, this could be a great way to let fans have full access to your Patreon free of charge. I would expect that several of these fans would stay pledged even after their "free trial" because either A) They like the content they're seeing and/or B) They forget to cancel their subscription! So long as you tell them up front that their credit card will be charged for future months following their free month, there's no shame in gaining new Patrons because they forgot to cancel their membership.
We don't know when Patreon will roll out real support for free trials, so these two solutions are the best options at the moment.
If you want more help planning, building, launching, and maintaining a Patreon, check out my new online course that takes you through everything you need to know!
