Patreon Just Raised $60M, Now YouTube Is Gunning For It with Fan ‘Sponsorships

Patreon announced yesterday that it had raised an additional $60 Million to expand its fan-to-creator patronage site. Now Google's YouTube is gunning for the startup, which has become a popular revenue tool for many of its creators, with it's own Patraon-like fan "sponsorship" tools.Based on old-school patronage, Patreon enables fans and sponsors to support musicians and other creators. Patrons pledge to support creators on a recurring basis for each work created in exchange for early or exclusive access.Over the last few months, YouTube has been rolling out its own support-a-creator option, dubbed "Sponsorships," which lets fans pay creators a monthly subscription fee in exchange for exclusive perks. Until yesterday, "Sponsorships" was only in beta for gaming channels. Now, the fan subscription model is available to all gamers and in beta for select musicians and other creators. The Amazon owned Twitch platform's Partner's Platform has let fans reward gamers since 2011. But YouTube has not had a similar broad offering, forcing many musicians, comedians and vloggers to use Patreon, which says it will process $150 million in payments to creators this year.$4.99 Per MonthFor now, Patreon offers a more robust set of monetization options for creators. At launch, YouTube only offers a single patron's tier of $4.99 per month in exchange for custom emojis and badges, as well as the option for sponsors-only live chat messaging. But YouTube is already considering more options, according to The Verge, whose sources point to "Sponsorships" rolling out to the broader YouTube creator community in the coming months.

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