Patreon vs. Sumu Fees for a Large YouTube Channel: A Case Study
Maybe you've heard of Asianometry, one of the most popular, and my personal favorite, YouTube channels.
Since it's incredibly difficult to earn a living wage from YouTube payouts, Jon, the creator of Asianometry, created a Patreon channel where he charges fans $6 for early access to his videos. He likely pays the 8% platform fee to Patreon, though he could be paying up to 12%, and pays 2.9% + $0.30 for U.S. payments and 3.9% + $0.30 for international payments.
Let's assume a 50/50 split in his fans in terms of international and U.S.-based to say, on average, Jon pays 8% + 3.4% + $0.30 per subscriber per month to Patreon and payment processing companies. Therefore, on a $6-a-month transaction, Jon is losing about $0.98 of his earnings per transaction, close to 17%!
So, despite Patreon marketing an 8% platform fee, creators who charge a low price for their content could lose around 17% of their earnings! So, if Jon wanted to make $72,000 a year for his content, he would't need 1,000 fans paying $6 a month; he would actually need about 1,200 fans paying $6 a month! That means about 200 of those 1200 fans are paying Patreon and payment processing companies—not Jon.
Instead, Jon should use Sumu and retain more of his earnings.
First, Sumu's platform fee is 4.9%, with 0% transaction fees in the U.S. and internationally. Therefore, if Jon were to use Sumu with 1,000 fans paying $6 a month, he would save almost $10,000 just from fees. Think about what you could do with $10,000, especially without having to do any extra work!
Also, Sumu rewards top creators with actual USDC back, up to $100s a month, and even gives creators ownership in Sumu itself. Therefore, as the company becomes more valuable, creators&pos; shares in Sumu similarly get more valuable! If Jon were to join as an early creator and the platform were to become as successful as Patreon, that $72,000 he was shooting for from his fans could be dwarfed by his actual ownership in Sumu. Plus, this ownership is of no cost to him; it is purely a reward for being on Sumu.
If you're a creator like Jon, whether as big as Asianometry or not, I encourage you to sign up for Sumu to retain more of your earnings and reap the rewards of a vibrant creator ecosystem built around the collective growth of all creators.
Note: Jon is not actually a creator on Sumu; I used his channel purely as a mock example. Although, maybe after seeing this, he will join 😊