Patreon has laid off 20% of its workforce, or 93 people.
CEO and co-founder Jack Conte announced the cuts on Thursday (July 23) in a public post to creators titled “A Painful Update about our Team”, which included the memo sent to staff.
Conte said Patreon‘s core business was “healthy and strong”, but that the platform was restructuring to adapt faster to a shifting market.
“I have a painful update this morning,” Conte wrote. “I have decided to reduce the size of our team by 20%, or 93 people.”
Beyond the job cuts, Conte said Patreon was “changing our organizational structure and how we work”.
That means “flattening the organization, refocusing teams on our top priorities, and evolving key aspects of our operations to make us faster at adapting to change”, the Patreon CEO wrote.
In the memo, Conte said AI was not the reason for the cuts, while describing it as a force that has changed how Patreon operates.
“To be clear about the impact of AI on today’s decision: we are not making the above changes because we believe AI replaces humans,” Conte wrote.
“To be clear about the impact of AI on today’s decision: we are not making the above changes because we believe AI replaces humans.”
Jack Conte, Patreon
“The more we have learned to use these new tools, the clearer it has become that they are not substitutes for the creativity, judgment, detail orientation, or craftsmanship that our teammates have in spades, nor do they replace the desire for human connection that all of us cherish so deeply.”
“That’s my personal opinion, but more importantly, it’s the foundation of Patreon‘s strategy: our product vision and business are both predicated on the value of human creativity and human connection.”
“AI has fundamentally transformed the tech industry, though, including how we work, how we build products, how we communicate, and more. That does have an impact on how we operate and organize.”
“AI has fundamentally transformed the tech industry, though, including how we work, how we build products, how we communicate, and more. That does have an impact on how we operate and organize.”
Jack Conte, Patreon
Affected employees will receive at least 16 weeks of severance pay, with an additional week for every full year worked at the company.
They will also keep healthcare coverage through the end of the year and receive a $1,500 stipend to replace their company laptops.
The cuts are the largest in Patreon‘s history. The company previously laid off 17% of its staff, or 80 people, in September 2022, when it also closed its offices in Berlin and Dublin.
Earlier in July, Patreon said it had partnered with Cloudflare to block AI bots from scraping creators’ work to train models without permission.
Private-market research firm Sacra estimates that Patreon generated $179 million in revenue in 2025, up 28% year over year.
Patreon has said that creators on the platform now collectively earn more than $2 billion a year.
Patreon was last valued at $4 billion, after raising $155 million in a Series F round in April 2021 led by Tiger Global Management.
Conte told creators the change would let Patreon “continue building from a position of strength”.
He said Patreon‘s leadership team had “always managed Patreon’s business and financials to ensure that we will be a resilient foundation for creators over the long term”.
The company had spent recent years expanding, acquiring live-streaming startup Moment in 2023 as it broadened beyond memberships into digital events and commerce.Music Business Worldwide
