Patreon

If you're looking to monetize your work or trying to find funding to expand your activities, Patreon allows you to get recurring income from posting your creations. It's also a dedicated space for fan communities and supporters where artists and their patrons can engage with each other freely and directly. 

For creators, the basic idea is that you build a tiered membership system and set different prices depending on the benefits you want to offer. The lowest tier can be as little as $1 and just unlock specific types of content, but the highest tier has no cap and can include things like a dedicated thank you post or mention on the channel, or even a dinner with you. You can customize the tiers to your liking so that you have full control over how your content is gated and who has access to what. 

Patreon supports posting text, images, audio, video, links, downloadable files, and even custom polls. Because the platform allows many different media formats, it's a perfect space for a wide range of creators. Whether you're a visual artist or a musician, you can use Patreon easily, and the platform lets you choose if you want to post something publicly or unlock it for a specific paid subscription tier only. You can also schedule your posts in advance and tag them to create specific categories or campaigns. This will also make navigating your posts easier for your fans.

In order to allow you to engage with your community, Patreon has built-in comments and chat features so that you can reach out to your supporters directly, and they can also connect with themselves on your page. You can set up group chats for specific tiers and chat with people who belong to them. This fosters fan engagement and gives you direct access to their feedback that won't get lost because of a social media algorithm, as it often happens on other platforms. 

To keep track of your performance, Patreon has an analytics dashboard to check which posts get more engagement, how the number of patrons changes over time, or which piece of content brought you the most sign-ups or cancellations. Access to such insights is crucial when you're wondering how to move forward, whether you should reshape your support tiers or just get a better understanding of your audience overall. You don't need to worry about setting up a complicated financial infrastructure since Patreon has a built-in payment system that can handle recurring payments, free trials, and one-off payments. 

If you're a patron, Patreon gives you a customized content feed from all the creators you follow or support. Whether you're using the platform's website or mobile app, it can show you notifications about new posts and even allow you to download content for offline viewing.  The platform is a great way to offer tangible support to people whose work you value.

You can download Patreon on iOS and Android mobile phones and tablets. Patreon also integrates with multiple third-party tools like Discord (for channels dedicated only to supporters), Mailchimp (for sending out newsletters), Vimeo (for hosting videos), WordPress (for reflecting Patreon tiers on your blog), and Zapier (for various types of automation)

Whether you're a creator or a fan, you can join Patreon for free, but the primary purpose of being on the platform is to pay for subscriptions to specific content. They can come in monthly payments, though some artists choose a pay-per-post option. These payments unlock exclusive content and allow you to earn revenue or support your favorite artist or educator. 

All public posts are available on Patreon for free, and you can browse them without any fees; it also doesn't cost anything to follow a content creator.  

If you're a creator, then Patreon offers various plans that take anywhere between 5% and 12% commissions on your monthly income, depending on the toolset you want. The more features you need, the bigger the commission Patreon will take. There are also payment processing fees that you should keep in mind.

Quora is a platform where you can ask and answer questions from the community about various topics. The platform focuses on providing informative, often long-form answers from experts in a given field. Quora is free to use, but it offers a subscription plan if you want access to exclusive content from specific contributors. You can use Quora on the web and on iOS and Android mobile devices. 

Medium is a publishing platform focused on waiting where people post their articles and can gain more reach and visibility through tags and content recommendations. If you're a curator posting on Medium, you can also earn money through their Medium Partner Program based on how people engage with your posts. If you're a reader, articles are often hidden behind a paywall, with a limited number of monthly posts available for free. You can access Medium on the web or through dedicated mobile apps. 

Reddit is a buzzing community platform where people post on various topics and engage in discussions with others about everything from the most recent movies to very niche subjects. It's a platform focused on community engagement, where posts get upvoted to gain more visibility or are downvoted as a sign of low-quality information. You can access Reddit through its website or download an iOS or Android mobile app. 

Discord is a voice, video, and text chat platform where you can join different channels covering a wide range of topics. Previously, the platform was used mainly by the gaming community. The channels on Discord can be private or public, and the platform offers many customization options. Discord has dedicated apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android and can also be accessed through the web.