Patreon X Discord

‍This guide will show you how to set up, integrate, and provide your patrons with exclusive Discord rewards via automated bot, putting less pressure on your shoulders as a creator. This article does not address how to promote or improve your Patreon earnings. This article also assumes that you understand basic server settings like roles, channels, and permissions, as well as having a server already created.

What is Patreon?

Patreon is a subscription service for content creators similar to YouTube Memberships and Twitch Subscriptions. Supporters (referred to as “patrons”) can pay a monthly fee to access content from creators they are supporting. This private content can cover a wide range of content including text posts, polls, videos, images, merchandise, and more. You, as a content creator, have control over how much value you place on the content you produce and distribute over Patreon. Patreon also provides creators the ability to offer additional or different rewards or content to supporters who enroll to higher-priced subscription tiers.

Why Create Discord Rewards?

For content creators that use platforms like Patreon, providing rewards to patrons is a necessity because it directly benefits those who choose to support you. One of the simpler rewards creators can provide patrons is a Discord reward system automatically managed by the Patreon Bot. One example of such an award is assigning one or more roles to patrons in your Discord server based upon their subscription tier on Patreon. You can then utilize channel permissions to provide your supporters with exclusive access to aspects of your server like hidden channels or perhaps even hoist them in the sidebar of your Discord server as an added bonus based on their role(s).

Installing a Discord Rewards System on Patreon

The first step to setting up Discord Rewards on Patreon is to have a Patreon account. Once you’ve started building your Patreon page (or have one completed), you’ll need to head into the “Tiers” section of your page.

Once in the “Tiers” section, pick the tier you’d like to grant the access to your rewards in your Discord server. We recommend that this be the lowest tier you’d allow patrons to subscribe at in order to receive a special role in a Discord server. Once you’ve selected your chosen tier, you’ll need to connect your Patreon to Discord.

Now, let’s make this reward a reality with the following steps:

1. Select the “Advanced” option within the “Benefits” section.
2. Click that great, big, blurple button to connect to Discord.
3. Allow the pop-up window to authenticate with Discord. You may be asked to sign-in to prove that you’re using the correct account.
4. Grant the Patreon Bot access to your server by selecting the correct server in your dropdown list.
5. Make sure to grant the bot Manage Roles and Create Invite permissions.
6. Hit “authorize” to finalize everything.

Please note, if you created your server that you plan on adding to your Patreon, you’ll have no trouble finding it in the server list mentioned in Step 4. If you’ve had a friend, moderator, or a community manager create your server, you might not see it in this list. Make sure you have the Manage Server permission in order to see it. If you don’t, double check with the server owner and have them add it to one of your roles in order to successfully connect to Patreon.

Customizing Your Discord Rewards

Roles, Roles, and more Roles

With your Patreon page successfully linked with your Discord server, you may notice this message in Patreon:

To finalize reward set-up, you need to create the actual roles. Consider creating a different role for each of the Patreon tiers you have and distinguishing the roles by naming them after the tiers’ name or the amount of money pledged by patrons of each tier. For example, if you have a $50 per month Patreon tier named Top Contributor, you could name the corresponding reward role either “$50” or “Top Contributor.” This usually works out the best for future rewards, because you can easily distinguish your followers who send $5 a month, versus those sending $50 a month, and change role permissions accordingly if you are offering them different levels of Discord access.

Remember that it is important to keep the Patreon Bot’s role above all the other roles we make for this purpose so it can help manage them.

Now that your tier roles are in the server, there should be no more red warning text on the Patreon Tier Creation page. If there is, give it a quick refresh. The disappearance of this text means that you can now check the box “Gives patrons access to selected Discord roles.” If you are using multiple roles for each tier of your Patreon for organization in your server, make sure they’re all added. After setting your channels and permissions spoken about in the next step, double check that the correct role in your Discord server is associated with the proper tier on your Patreon page.

Success! You’ve completed the Patreon and Discord integration! Now lets establish accessibility levels.

Channels and Permissions

At this point, you’ll want to build a structure for your server in these new tier roles. Head back to the channel list and decide how you’d like to reward your different tiers. Do you want each tier to have their own channel category, or do you want one channel category with different channels designated to different tiers? Make sure to give each category and/or channel permissions associated with each role that you want to have access to that area.

We have an example based upon the channel list image below to see some of our recommendations in action. This example utilizes one channel category for all patrons, but gives certain patron tiers different levels of access.

You’ll notice Patreon allows you to assign users multiple roles when they subscribe to a tier. This makes it easier to manage private channels and categories across the different role tiers. In our example, you’ll see that all patrons have access to an exclusive general text and voice channel to talk to each other regardless of tiers. However, different tier levels are given access to different additional perks, such as sharing social media links for the creator to follow back, polls for future content, and a VIP text and voice chat to better talk to the creator they’re supporting.

Conclusion

Congratulations on launching your new and/or updated Patreon page! The beauty of this system is that you can continue to create new roles and channel permissions to best serve your community as you continue to grow. Now that you’re done with the basic steps outlined in this guide, all you have to do is edit/add/drop/shift roles around as needed to ensure you are making the most of your Discord Rewards patron program.

Patreon rewards give your fans and supporters exclusives in exchange for supporting your work. Having this automated system to handle and manage your supporters means you can spend more time making new content and less time worrying about a bot or a function in Discord whenever new patrons sign up. It also makes managing permissions much simpler because you have more control over which roles a patron is assigned to based on their subscription tier.