Patreon’s published figures describe a creator platform built around recurring membership, direct relationships, and community. Its about page reports more than 300,000 creators, more than 10 million fans paying for memberships each month, and more than $10 billion earned by creators since 2013. The figures below bring together Patreon’s platform figures, Creator Census findings, and State of Create 2025 survey results, with each measurement period and audience kept distinct.
Contents
- Platform scale and creator earnings
- Who creates on Patreon
- Formats, channels, and creative work
- Promotion, membership value, and income
- Fans, connection, and community
- Creator and fan audience profiles
Platform scale and creator earnings
Patreon’s current about-page figures present the service at substantial scale. Patreon says it has more than 300,000 creators, more than 10 million fans who pay for memberships each month, and more than 100 million free memberships. The same source says creators have earned more than $10 billion since 2013. These are cumulative or current platform totals as described by Patreon, so they should not be read as an average creator income or as a single-year total. (Source: Patreon about page.)
An earlier Patreon fact sheet gives a separate snapshot. It lists more than 200,000 creators supported by more than 6 million active patrons and says creators had earned more than $2 billion by mid-2020. It also lists more than 200 employees, a Series E funding total of $256 million, and a founding year of 2013. Jack Conte and Sam Yam are identified as Patreon’s co-founders. (Source: Patreon fact sheet.)
| Patreon measure | Reported figure | Measurement context |
|---|---|---|
| Creators | 300,000+ | About-page platform total |
| Fans paying monthly | 10 million+ | About-page platform total |
| Free memberships | 100 million+ | About-page platform total |
| Creator earnings | $10 billion+ | Cumulative since 2013 |
| Creators | 200,000+ | Earlier fact-sheet snapshot |
| Active patrons | 6 million+ | Earlier fact-sheet snapshot |
| Creator earnings | $2 billion+ | By mid-2020 |
The two snapshots are useful for scale and history, but their dates and definitions differ. The earlier fact sheet’s active-patron figure is not interchangeable with the about page’s monthly paying-fan figure, and the cumulative earnings totals cover different points in time. The older figures are reported here as historical Patreon statements, not as independently verified measurements.
Who creates on Patreon
Patreon’s Creator Census included more than 13,000 earning creators from 113 countries using 18 languages. Patreon said the census covered its more than 250,000 active creators, while the respondent figures describe the census sample rather than every creator on the platform. (Source: Patreon Creator Census.)
Experience levels were mixed. In the census, 56% of respondents described themselves as closer to a seasoned professional, while 44% said they were closer to just starting out. The work was usually individual: 80% worked alone, 11% were part of a team, and 8% worked solo while partnering with a team of non-creators. The categories are presented as reported, so the three percentages should be treated as the survey’s rounded response groups.
Team structure varied by creative field. Among podcasters, 39% worked in teams. Among visual artists, 94% worked as a team of one. That contrast points to different production patterns: podcasting more often involves shared work, while visual art was overwhelmingly represented by solo creators in this census. (Source: Patreon Creator Census.)
The census also found that Patreon was meaningful to creator finances. On average, creators made more than 40% of their income on Patreon. This is an average across the census population, not a claim that every creator received that share or that the figure represents a median. (Source: Patreon Creator Census.)
Community identity appeared in a minority of creator pages. Twenty-five percent of creators used a custom name for their community, rising to one third of podcasters. Creators with custom community names saw 4% to 8% higher monthly retention on average. The retention comparison is an average association reported by Patreon; it does not establish that naming a community alone caused the difference. (Source: Patreon Creator Census.)
Formats, channels, and creative work
State of Create 2025 shows creators working across several platforms. Among creator-survey respondents, 82% used YouTube, 79% used Instagram, 75% used TikTok, 19% used Spotify, 18% used Patreon, and 9% used Apple Podcasts. These figures describe use among survey respondents, not platform market share.
Short-form video was the most common listed creative format at 67%. Other formats included long-form video at 39%, photography at 26%, writing or blogs at 22%, visual art at 21%, livestreaming at 20%, podcasts at 19%, physical creations at 17%, music at 15%, live shows at 7%, digital creations at 7%, and game modding at 4%. Because respondents could use multiple formats, the percentages are not intended to add to 100%. (Source: State of Create 2025.)
The Patreon Creator Census adds a platform-specific view: video was the most popular primary medium on Patreon, used by more than one third of creators. Taken together, the two reports show both breadth and concentration: creators use many forms of work overall, while video was the leading primary medium in the Patreon census. (Source: Patreon Creator Census; State of Create 2025.)
Creator tenure was also distributed across career stages in State of Create 2025. Forty-one percent of creator-survey respondents had been creators for under five years, 38% had been creators for five to nine years, and 21% had been creators for 10 or more years. This split describes the survey population and does not imply that newer creators outnumber older creators across the whole creator economy.
Promotion, membership value, and income
Promotion frequency was associated with different average earnings in the Creator Census. Seventy-nine percent of creators promoted their Patreon at least once a month, and 43% promoted it at least once a week. Creators who promoted daily earned 75% more than monthly promoters on average, while weekly promoters earned 31% more than monthly promoters on average. These are reported comparisons between promotion groups, not guaranteed returns from a particular posting schedule. (Source: Patreon Creator Census.)
Exclusive content was the most popular member benefit in the census, with early access to content also among the top benefits. Those findings describe what creators reported offering or what members valued in the census context; they do not provide a percentage for either benefit. (Source: Patreon Creator Census.)
State of Create 2025 reports several income-per-fan comparisons. Patreon says creators’ median annual income per fan is 40 times bigger on Patreon than on TikTok. It also reports $52 in average annual income per fan on Patreon and $110 in average annual income per paying member. Median and average are different measures, and “per fan” is not the same denominator as “per paying member,” so these figures should not be combined into a single rate. (Source: State of Create 2025.)
Patreon’s State of Create 2025 also says 86% of creators would recommend being a creator to others. That is a sentiment measure among the report’s creator respondents, rather than an income or retention statistic. (Source: State of Create 2025.)
Fans, connection, and community
Patreon’s reporting emphasizes connection as a measurable part of the membership experience. In a Patreon Discovery article referencing State of Create, 90% of fans said they felt connected to creators they care about on Patreon, compared with 49% who said they felt connected to creators they care about on Instagram. The two percentages refer to reported fan feelings in the cited comparison; they are not a measure of how many users subscribe or pay. (Source: Patreon Discovery article referencing State of Create.)
State of Create 2025 reports that 94% of fans felt a deep sense of community with other fans on Patreon. Among core fans, 86% were likely to join a dedicated online community, 80% were likely to pay creators, and 87% said they were likely to engage with other fans. These are stated likelihoods and feelings, not counts of completed memberships or actions. (Source: State of Create 2025.)
Patreon says discovery features were driving more than $200 million to creators per year in its Discovery article. That is a yearly amount attributed to discovery features by Patreon, and it is distinct from the cumulative creator-earnings totals reported on the about page. (Source: Patreon Discovery article.)
The same report says 56% of the creator economy’s potential value comes from direct-to-fan activity. “Potential value” is the report’s framing, so the figure should not be interpreted as a current share of all creator revenue. It does, however, indicate how Patreon characterizes direct relationships within the broader creator economy. (Source: State of Create 2025.)
Creator and fan audience profiles
The creator survey in State of Create 2025 was dominated by respondents with 10,000 to 100,000 fans, who represented 43% of the sample. Another 32% had 1,000 to 10,000 fans, 24% had 100,000 to 2 million fans, and 1% had 2 million or more fans. These reported groups sum to the full survey distribution and show that the sample included both emerging and very large audiences.
Creator respondents were 19% Gen Z, 57% Millennials, 20% Gen X, and 2% Boomers. The listed age-generation groups do not account for every respondent in the rounded figures, so they should be read exactly as reported rather than expanded with an inferred remainder. (Source: State of Create 2025.)
Fan respondents had a different profile: 17% were Gen Z, 52% Millennials, 22% Gen X, and 7% Boomers. Their reported platform use included YouTube at 71%, Instagram at 53%, TikTok at 50%, and Patreon at 14%. The creator and fan samples therefore show broad use of large social and video platforms alongside a smaller reported share using Patreon directly. (Source: State of Create 2025.)
Fan engagement with creative work was frequent. Thirty-five percent engaged multiple times per day, 34% daily, 16% a couple of times per week, 8% once a week, 6% once a month or less, and 3% did not actively engage. Their preferred formats included short-form video at 42%, music at 37%, long-form video at 30%, video games at 24%, podcasts at 23%, livestreams at 19%, writing or blogs at 15%, physical creations at 14%, photography at 13%, live shows at 12%, visual art at 11%, digital creations at 7%, and game mods at 7%. Multiple preferences may be represented, so these format percentages are not a single-choice market split. (Source: State of Create 2025.)