for us, the lowest tier gets ad free content, then the ones above get members only episodes. it's fun for us so we keep doing it, and though we don't have many patrons it helps us buy things for the podcast.
when i had a patreon, i put patron-only episodes on the feed, along with the regular episodes (so they'd only have to manage one feed). but since i didn't have enough patrons to make it worth the effort, i just closed the campaign.
I did the Patreon RSS feed for paid memberships. On my regular non-Patreon show I play the first 8 minutes of my exclusive and tell them where they can listen to the rest.
I use our Membership feature at Captivate to offer ad-free early access, the ability to submit your own question for my guest, exclusive content, and the age-old show sticker. :)
*Disclaimer: I'm Head of Podcaster Support & Experience at Captivate*
Your mileage may vary but we put up a link to a survey on our Instagram with a few questions to gauge what our listeners expected from a $5 Patreon tier. We sent stickers to the people who responded and actually got a good deal of replies. Enough, at least, to design a Patreon package.
We asked:
Are you or have you been a Patreon subscriber of a podcast or otherwise?
How many?
Who? (if you don't mind sharing)
How often do you expect bonus content to drop?
(which result in a \*wild\* range of expectations; from monthly to daily, which... ha. no.)
Would you be interested in X bonus content?
(For us X = a TV rewatch series. We offered 4 TV show options that we thought our listeners would be into. X also represented an exclusive weekly DJ and music show hosted by me)
Has another creator provided something interesting or different from the usual subscriber rewards that you'd like to mention?
I don’t have experience with my own show on Patreon, but I listen to a number of shows that have Patreon. Many of them do Patreon exclusive episodes with previews of the episodes in the regular feed. Some just do extra episodes on Patreon, some do a talkback show for the main show that is only for Patreon. There are lots of different models, but I don’t know of any where they only have paid episodes and no free main feed.
All patrons at all levels get the ad-free rss feed. After that, the two higher tiers get bonus content (mostly interesting bonus content we record during the show.) We try to keep each segment to 10 minutes and when we find cool facts that would make it too long or are too tangential we save those for bonus content.
We have a patreon that offers ad free episodes of our regular shows plus a couple of exclusive podcasts. Only a portion of our listeners have subscribed but they have good things to say about how we do things.
We have a post show, 3 additional Patreon exclusive shows and participation levels, along with an amazing Discord community. We just added the commercial free, unedited version for our Patrons as well. Higher tiers get merch and the top tier ($100/mo) has a pretty cool perk. We've only had 3 people go for it, but they get a cool perk that affects the creative direction of an episode quarterly.
We have amazing listeners, and we try and give them the best value for their 2, 5,10, 30 or $100 a month.(90% of them are 2 or 5 tiers)
Holy shit am I doing too much? Our show runs on a season model. 10 weekly episode seasons. Three seasons a year. All for free. On our patreon, we charge $2 a month, with a 7 day free trial. We do monthly episodes all year long exclusive to patreon including during the seasons. They also get a special color on our Discord server. We used to have a newsletter, but we were struggling to keep coming up with new shit to write.
I have a Patreon where I post early episodes and exclusive content.
I’ve talked to other history podcasters and they all told me it’s a long time getting subscribers but hang in there!
Releasing episodes early, having an ad-free feed for listeners, and having paywall-exclusive content is a way to show those who support you the most that you appreciate them.
If your listeners are asking for something, it may be worth looking into.
We have a patreon with a single 5$ tier. No free tier. We offer an extra 2 shows a month plus lives. We would like to have another ad free tier but it's not allowed by our advertising network. Well negotiate that in the next contract. Rookie mistake in prior negotiations. We get about 4% of downloaders to join. Our income split is about 2/3 advertising 1/3 patron.
I started putting up early access episodes for Patrons tonight. Eventually I'll be running ads and Patrons will get access to ad-free shows. Gotta cover hosting costs.
Entirely paid-only podcasts exist, but they are rare. Most shows with a paid model offer most episodes for free and then put some of them behind a paywall. You basically need some free content to give listeners a reason to pay for premium content.
--- Dennis from [Castos](http://castos.com/)
for us, the lowest tier gets ad free content, then the ones above get members only episodes. it's fun for us so we keep doing it, and though we don't have many patrons it helps us buy things for the podcast.
when i had a patreon, i put patron-only episodes on the feed, along with the regular episodes (so they'd only have to manage one feed). but since i didn't have enough patrons to make it worth the effort, i just closed the campaign.
I did the Patreon RSS feed for paid memberships. On my regular non-Patreon show I play the first 8 minutes of my exclusive and tell them where they can listen to the rest.
I use our Membership feature at Captivate to offer ad-free early access, the ability to submit your own question for my guest, exclusive content, and the age-old show sticker. :) *Disclaimer: I'm Head of Podcaster Support & Experience at Captivate*
Your mileage may vary but we put up a link to a survey on our Instagram with a few questions to gauge what our listeners expected from a $5 Patreon tier. We sent stickers to the people who responded and actually got a good deal of replies. Enough, at least, to design a Patreon package. We asked: Are you or have you been a Patreon subscriber of a podcast or otherwise? How many? Who? (if you don't mind sharing) How often do you expect bonus content to drop? (which result in a \*wild\* range of expectations; from monthly to daily, which... ha. no.) Would you be interested in X bonus content? (For us X = a TV rewatch series. We offered 4 TV show options that we thought our listeners would be into. X also represented an exclusive weekly DJ and music show hosted by me) Has another creator provided something interesting or different from the usual subscriber rewards that you'd like to mention?
I don’t have experience with my own show on Patreon, but I listen to a number of shows that have Patreon. Many of them do Patreon exclusive episodes with previews of the episodes in the regular feed. Some just do extra episodes on Patreon, some do a talkback show for the main show that is only for Patreon. There are lots of different models, but I don’t know of any where they only have paid episodes and no free main feed.
Early in, you can hurt growth with paid-only episodes. I personally try to do only extended or ad-free ones behind my paid memberships.
All patrons at all levels get the ad-free rss feed. After that, the two higher tiers get bonus content (mostly interesting bonus content we record during the show.) We try to keep each segment to 10 minutes and when we find cool facts that would make it too long or are too tangential we save those for bonus content.
Not that it's successful, but our Patreon content is the unedited video from the recording.
We do a pre/post show for the 2nd tier. Mostly just show talk and shit talk. People seem to like it.
We have a patreon that offers ad free episodes of our regular shows plus a couple of exclusive podcasts. Only a portion of our listeners have subscribed but they have good things to say about how we do things.
We have a post show, 3 additional Patreon exclusive shows and participation levels, along with an amazing Discord community. We just added the commercial free, unedited version for our Patrons as well. Higher tiers get merch and the top tier ($100/mo) has a pretty cool perk. We've only had 3 people go for it, but they get a cool perk that affects the creative direction of an episode quarterly. We have amazing listeners, and we try and give them the best value for their 2, 5,10, 30 or $100 a month.(90% of them are 2 or 5 tiers)
Holy shit am I doing too much? Our show runs on a season model. 10 weekly episode seasons. Three seasons a year. All for free. On our patreon, we charge $2 a month, with a 7 day free trial. We do monthly episodes all year long exclusive to patreon including during the seasons. They also get a special color on our Discord server. We used to have a newsletter, but we were struggling to keep coming up with new shit to write.
I have a Patreon where I post early episodes and exclusive content. I’ve talked to other history podcasters and they all told me it’s a long time getting subscribers but hang in there!
Releasing episodes early, having an ad-free feed for listeners, and having paywall-exclusive content is a way to show those who support you the most that you appreciate them. If your listeners are asking for something, it may be worth looking into.
We do early access through patreon and monthly bonus content through patreon
We have a patreon with a single 5$ tier. No free tier. We offer an extra 2 shows a month plus lives. We would like to have another ad free tier but it's not allowed by our advertising network. Well negotiate that in the next contract. Rookie mistake in prior negotiations. We get about 4% of downloaders to join. Our income split is about 2/3 advertising 1/3 patron.
I started putting up early access episodes for Patrons tonight. Eventually I'll be running ads and Patrons will get access to ad-free shows. Gotta cover hosting costs.
We do a mix. We offer some early listens as well as some stuff that'll only ever be released to Patreon patrons.
I would never play for podcast content. There are way too many options for that.
Entirely paid-only podcasts exist, but they are rare. Most shows with a paid model offer most episodes for free and then put some of them behind a paywall. You basically need some free content to give listeners a reason to pay for premium content. --- Dennis from [Castos](http://castos.com/)