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Some end-of-year business transparency for any journalist thinking of going indie. Tl;dr: no oneās getting rich quick. But also, @SubstackInc has nothing to be ashamed of. 1/god knows
Substack first: 12 subscribers (10 annual, 2 monthly). Very little business data there, you have to go to payment processor Stripe. Gross earnings: 744 USD, converted to 544.58 GBP. Net earnings: Ā£470.69. Fees: Ā£73.89.
*REAL % cost to creator: 13.5%*
*REAL % cost to creator: 13.5%*
This will vary based on annual v. monthly subs. Stripe offers no breakdown of fees, but we know Substack takes 10%. The rest is payment fees. No numbers on currency conversion, but itās ok looking at base market rates. When you pay a $70 annual sub, I see about Ā£45 ($61). 3/
Patreon now. 18 monthly patrons. Gross earnings: Ā£300.93. Net earnings: Ā£248.54. Fees: Ā£53.39, including Ā£22.83 to platform, Ā£25.7 for payment processing, Ā£3.86 for currency conversion. Payouts are Ā£1 each via Paypal, Iāve done just one. *REAL % cost to creator: 17.7%* 4/
That figure is not at all what I expected and pretty shocking since Iām on an 8% plan. (I was even on the 5% plan for a bit). Payment fees more than double platform fees. When you pay Ā£5, $6.50 or $6 monthly, I often donāt even see Ā£4. 5/
(Note: you would have been charged more bc of sales tax. Patrons contributed Ā£19.70 in sales tax to the UK, Denmark, Ireland, the US, Portugal and the state of Washington.) 6/
Thread continues here bc I'm bad at Twitter: https://twitter.com/iroughol/status/1344249453226713092?s=20
