Patreon

$629M in 2025 podcast creator revenue, up 33% year over year, marks Patreon’s expanding role as a paid-membership platform beyond its Apple payment dispute.

Who they are

Patreon is a creator-membership platform co-founded by CEO Jack Conte, appearing in coverage as an infrastructure provider for paid creator communities, particularly podcasts, and as a mobile platform operator navigating Apple’s in-app payment rules.

The recent arc

Recent coverage shifted from the 2024 fight over Apple’s 30% iOS fee to evidence of Patreon’s podcast scale and product expansion. In April 2025, Patreon reported more than $472 million in 2024 revenue, up 35% year over year, alongside podcasting deals with Sony Music and Wondery; it also planned livestreaming tests across its app and web service.

The Apple dispute moved into implementation in May 2025, when Patreon updated iOS so users could subscribe on the web as well as through Apple in-app purchases, following Apple’s approval of Spotify’s external-payment update. By April 2026, Variety coverage put the podcast business at 7.6 million paid memberships across 47,000 podcasters and $629 million in creator revenue for 2025, up 33% year over year.

The tension

The central tension is between Patreon’s direct creator-payment model and Apple’s control of iOS commerce. Apple’s 2024 requirements threatened to subject iOS memberships to its 30% fee and push creators toward subscription billing, while the later web-subscription update shows Patreon seeking room outside that toll; Spotify’s approved update is the relevant parallel.

Why it matters

If podcast memberships and creator payouts continue growing, Patreon could become more central to how podcasters convert audiences into recurring revenue, while livestreaming broadens the types of paid creator interaction it can host. The durability of that trajectory still depends in part on whether mobile payment rules permit Patreon and creators to retain a direct relationship with subscribers rather than cede economics and discovery to app-store gatekeepers.

Related: Apple · Jack Conte · the App Store · After Apple's threats, Patreon memberships via its iOS app will be sub · Apple approves a Spotify iOS app update that lets US customers use oth