Patreon goes global

Figuring out how to accept currencies from all over the world is a complex problem, especially in a recurring billing product where users set their own prices. We were faced with a unique solution that hadn't been solved before.
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Patreon was also generally gun shy when it came to making changes to our core business model/billing after a major "fee-asco" that occurred in 2018 that generated bad press. We knew we had to get this right the first time. We did months of user research understanding what creators and patrons were looking for. We tested various multicurrency models with them. This eventual solution hit me on Christmas eve in a Tahoe cabin with my family as I bored them by talking about this project 😅. Alongside my PM and PMM, we fully fleshed out what model was and what it meant for creators. Creators and patrons loved the final iteration how currencies would work on Patreon.

And it was described as "one of the best and most well thought out approaches to solving a user problem" by the executive team at Patreon.

Here's a snapshot of what the model was. This image was also used for internal buy-in and creator collateral.

We designed a view that allowed creators to see what their tier prices would be in other currencies. This information appears contextually when a creator was creating tiers and pricing them. Creators could also change the price and immediately see the impact on their international patrons. This design allowed us to cut a ton of tedious explanation and help articles because creators were now able to intuitively understand how the new feature worked.
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Today on Patreon, there is no easy way for a creator to do a deep dive into their patrons and view contact information or a patron's history.

I developed a new patron detail view that allows creators to quickly access a patron's basic information. For patrons who're paying in a different currency, we showed a summary accordion of charges. This allows for more progressive disclosure for creators who then want to deep dive to understand more nuanced information like exchange rates.
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Here is what the experience looked like on Desktop.
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Here is the native mobile experience.
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As part of Patreon's international launch, we wanted to celebrate the diversity of creators from all over the world. I partnered with our Brand design manager Alex and illustrator Meg. We collaborated and iterated our in-product and launch illustrations to infuse the Patreon brand along while also celebrating our global creators.

Here are some of the final illustrations that we used in product and for the feature launch.