A Patreon that cut tiers and grew revenue

A Patreon that cut tiers and grew revenue

Context: a creator documented collapsing a 6-tier Patreon into 3 tiers, a decision-fatigue experiment with measurable output.

What was done:
— Reduced tiers from six ($2/$5/$10/$15/$25/$50) to three ($5/$12/$30)
— Migrated existing patrons to the nearest new tier, grandfathering price where lower
— Clarified deliverables per tier in plain language

Reported outcome over 4 months:
— Patron count roughly flat (within 3%)
— Average pledge rose from about $7.10 to $11.40
— Monthly Patreon revenue rose roughly 55%

Caveats: single creator, no control group, and the migration itself nudged some patrons upward mechanically. Choice-overload effects are real in the lab but context-dependent; this one case can't establish that fewer tiers caused the lift versus the clearer deliverables, which changed simultaneously. Self-reported.

Implications: aligns with choice-architecture research that fewer, clearer options can raise average commitment — but the two interventions (fewer tiers, clearer copy) are entangled here.

What we still don't know: which of the two changes did the work, since the case bundled them.