How To Start A Patreon For Art - My Advice For Building A Successful Patreon Account

I love running a Patreon community and it's also one of my largest income streams, so today I'm sharing how to start a Patreon as an artist!

There are soo many things you could offer to your audience on Patreon to be able to monetise some of your beautiful art skills, let me know in the comments if you give it a go 😊

Have a look at my Patreon to join our community or just take a peek:

Other artists' Patreon accounts I show in this video:

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⭐ My Skillshare classes ⭐

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(I've since bought a new tablet though - I'm using a Microsoft Surface Pro 9 in this video!)

Where to find me:

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💻 Gear I use as an artist & creator

🖼️T-shirt and prints shop

🎵 Where I licence my music from:

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*Some of the links provided in this description are affiliate links*

A big thank you to my partner for filming and editing this video! Find his hiking channel here:

00:00 What is Patreon?
00:36 How it works
01:09 How big does your audience need
to be to start?
02:00 How do you know what
benefits to offer?
02:48 How do you decide on
tier prices?
03:43 How do you build an
enticing Patreon page?
05:29 How do you actually
get Patrons?
06:12 What if
no-one joins?
06:29 Mimi's general tips
07:48 Mimi’s ideas for
Patreon Benefits

[MimimooIllustration]

Have you guys thought about starting your own Patreon? Or maybe you already have one? Let me know 🥰

[riddhidraws]

me: starts watching video
Mimi: first you need an audience

*smashes phone into the wall* 😭

[joyneasleystudios]

I am in the process of a Patreon launch now! Thank you for the wonderful tips.

[xXdnerstxleXx]

The conversion rate really depends on the rewards and the type of social media you use. After restructuring I went from 1 in 600 to 1 in 200.

[agneziazefanya]

I need this OMG!! And i just realize that you wore the same sweater as your profile picture 🥰

[willcartoons]

I don’t even have 1000 followers. I have roughly 400 each for IG and Twitter. Should I not even bother with Patreon?

[petesmith]

So tell me…what is so scary about telling us the costs involved. What is Patreon’s cut and when do they take it.

[sketchboardjoy]

Launching a Patreon tomorrow just to try it and because I want to mail people my stickers. So this was helpful and honestly it's been so fun to set up, even if no one signs up! 💕

[journalsai]

It's a perfect timing ! omg! I am literally setting up my Patreon account and a bit confused 😂 thank you so much for this, guess God gave me a clear answer now 🤭

[b.knotty]

I freakin this! I have so many interests and hobbies and have decided to just post them all under “studio vlogs” and was thinking of long term better ways “to get my stuff out there” and patreon came to mind. Your video and Leigh’s video was SUPER helpful. Thank you for 🧡

[PolarisCastillo]

4:59 my Patreon doesn't give me any option to add photos in my About section, just a video intro. Was this feature removed? I don't really want a video, but I have several nice photos I had taken I'd love to use in this area.

[SheilaJoy]

thanks for the video, Mimi! It's an absolute dream of mine to launch a Patreon, but the thing holding me back is how much time will be needed. I work full-time and just don't have the capacity for one now, but I'm hoping that as my audience grows and my life situation changes I'll find the time and motivation. Would you be able to film a video going into the day-to-day of running a Patreon and how much time/energy goes into it? Maybe you've touched on this already? Thanks!

[AA_Studios]

Thanks for the tips! I am struggling with my Patreon, and these were helpful! I recently made a post offering high quality Lego thumbnails if people join my Patreon, so I hope it works!

[MS-dwzu]

Very informative video. Love it. If we wanted to do a blog post, can it be done directly on patreon or how does that work? I've seen it done by many, but I'm not sure how I would have to go about it.

[nickd]

Very insightful video! Thanks for creating it. I’ve run my art Patreon page for 5 years now but it’s starting to feel like it’s plateauing at 200 patrons.

I’d certainly be interested in a video about growing a Patreon page after a few years and how your approach might change.

[thecurlybunny]

Thank goodness I found this video! I’ve been struggling with my Patreon recently and I realized I made too many promises which stressed me out every week plus balancing doing full render commissions.
So I had to remove some benefits so I can work with what I’m strong at. Then I saw that some of my patrons left and it discouraged me.
This video reminded me to keep pushing and keep getting better.
I can’t wait to start sending out stickers, posters, and other things.

Thank you so much for making this video 🫶⭐️💕

[drawalongwithme]

Hi Mimi, I’m sure you get loads of questions and this may never get answered, but maybe someone else here can help with this one.

What advice do you have for images, for example Tier images or any others in Patreon really? I’m asking because it’s a bit frustrating to illustrate something really cute and upload it only to find it appears cropped or blurry in Patreon.

The Patreon guidelines for images are a bit confusing and not super helpful, and I wonder if for Tier images specifically whether they need to be designed in a vector format or if one can just create a Procreate canvas for example that works for this platform. Thanks! 😅

[DarlaBaltazar]

So insightful, thanks Mimi. Just wanted to let you know, I've been following you for a few months, and have been enjoying your content. It's been encouraging and motivating me a lot, and I'm not even an illustrator, but an independent musician, yet I still find that we have a lot in common as creatives who are trying to make a living out of our art through the internet. So keep at it! I'm immensely blessed by what you do.

[Kenjismusic]

I hope this new hobby will cure my depression... i might propbably put music i made and 3d printing tutorials on it :)

[TammyPowley]

This is one of the best videos about Patreon. So many of them just tell you want is already mentioned on the Pateron page. Thank you for sharing your own experience.