Announcement ✦ Merch

Hello everyone! I have a very important announcement to make and I've been thinking about this for a while, so please know that this decision was not just made spontaneously or lightly. Unfortunately, I have come to the decision to no longer offer merch items here on Patreon. I'm so terribly sorry about this.

I want to be fully transparent about why I am removing merch as a benefit:

• Patreon charges me 3% of ALL my pledges every month just to be able to offer merch as a benefit. This gets charged even when there are no merch items created and shipped in a specific month. Many folks don't qualify for merch because you have to pledge for three consecutive months to receive it, and lots of people just want to pledge for a month or two, but I am still paying that 3% on their pledges. And even if a person does qualify for a print, if they don't have their shipping address on their profile (and many don't), then they won't get their item, but I still pay the 3%. So from a financial perspective, this just no longer makes sense. This 3% fee is the primary reason I am cancelling the merch program.
• That said, on top of the 3% fee, I also have to pay a fee for every single print to be generated and shipped. This is currently $6.33 per print in my currency, which is over $2 higher than it was when I first set up my merch program in December 2020. I've noticed that they've kept increasing the cost consistently and I've just been ignoring it, but I can't ignore it anymore.

If the merch program was set up where I could only pay the cost for each item to be created and sent, I'd be keeping it. But the 3% every month is starting to really impact things, especially when so many people don't end up receiving the merch items that I'm paying to offer to them.

It breaks my heart that it has become too expensive to continue offering this benefit. Merch will be ending immediately.

With this announcement, I do want to remind you all that I do have a large merch store on my website. If you ever want a shirt, hat, beanie, coffee mug, throw pillow, print, sticker, etc., you can shop here at any time. And if you are pledged at the two highest tiers, you can get your own personalized 20% off coupon code that can be used at any time, multiple times, with no restrictions, for the entire time that you are pledged at those tiers.

Thank you so much for understanding. 💛

✦ KL