Buy Me A Coffee, a platform that allows creators to receive monetary support, share exclusive content with their fans, and sell digital downloads, is waiving its 5% fee for the month of April, for its community of 100,000 creators on the platform.
In a statement to Reclaim The Net, Buy Me A Coffee said:
“We’re making this change in April to support our creators, many of whom are gig workers, freelancers, creatives severely affected by COVID-19. Jobs and livelihoods have been impacted and we want to do what we can to help them during this time.”
Buy Me A Coffee added that it has seen a rise in coronavirus initiatives on the platform which has given it a stronger impetus to support its creators.
Not only do the changes mean that creators will earn more revenue from every donation and payment that is made through Buy Me A Coffee but the platform itself has recently been seeing higher than average growth which creates more opportunities for creators to boost their income.
Buy Me A Coffee’s founder and CEO Jijo Sunny tweeted “tipping and membership volume exploded last week.”
And Buy Me A Coffee told Reclaim The Net that its average daily sign-ups have grown by 75%, with an average of 700+ new creators signing up every day recently compared with its previous average of around 400 daily creator sign-ups.
Buy Me A Coffee’s waiving of fees and huge surge in user numbers comes as several other reports are suggesting that the fan funding market has seen significant growth over the last few weeks.
While YouTube ad revenue is down by as much as 50% for some creators and sponsored post rates are predicted to fall by as much as 25% because of the virus, fan funding through platforms such as Buy Me A Coffee appears to be an income stream where there is plenty of opportunity for growth.
