Creator platform Patreon is taking issue with Apple’s new mandate that forces all creators to move to a subscription billing model, which now has a new transition deadline of November 1, 2026.
While the coming changes will only impact the 4% of creators who are still using Patreon’s legacy billing models, the company’s announcement stressed that Apple’s lack of consistency around its changing terms has made it hard for creators to build healthy, long-term businesses.
What Patreon is referring to is the mandate Apple announced in 2024 around subscription billing changes. It said that Patreon must move all its creators to subscription billing using Apple’s in-app purchase system by November 2025 or else Patreon would risk removal from the App Store. Apple made this decision because Patreon was managing the billing for some percentage of creators’ subscriptions, and the tech giant saw that as skirting its App Store commission structure.
To Apple’s credit, Patreon was given plenty of time to migrate its customers to Apple’s in-app purchases.
The company said it would switch creators to subscription billing in November 2024, and creators could choose whether to increase their subscription prices to cover Apple’s fees. In addition, creators could opt to delay changes until November 2025 if they needed more time. However, they wouldn’t be able to offer subscriptions in the app until they adopted Apple’s in-app purchases.
Last May, Patreon took advantage of newly loosened App Store guidelines resulting from the U.S. court ruling in Epic v. Apple to offer creators the ability to process web payments from links in Patreon’s app. At the time, Patreon told creators that the earlier November 2025 deadline was no longer in effect. This gave creators even more time to decide what to do about their subscription businesses.
The company says now that its decision to pause the transition for its creators may have added to the confusion given that Apple is now reimposing a transition deadline of November 2026.
While Patreon is complying with Apple’s decision, it’s clearly bristling at the idea that the tech giant should have a say in how creators run their businesses.
“We strongly disagree with this decision,” its blog post states.
“Creators need consistency and clarity in order to build healthy, long-term businesses. Instead, creators using legacy billing will now have to endure the whiplash of another policy reversal – the third such change from Apple in the past 18 months. Over the years, we have proposed multiple tools and features to Apple that we could’ve built to allow creators using legacy billing to transition on their own timelines, with more support added in. Unfortunately, Apple has continually declined them,” it says.
Creators can read more about the transition plan on Patreon’s website. It has also built several tools to support these changes, including a benefit eligibility tool to see who has paid or is scheduled to pay, tier repricing tools, and gifting and discount tools to offer payment flexibility. An option for annual-only memberships will be introduced before November 2026 as well.
