Drip By Kickstarter About To Be The Best Patreon Alternative

This morning Kickstarter Drip, or just Drip, emerged as a direct competitor to Patreon. The folks at Patreon made a community in which artists and creators of all sorts can obtain subscription cash in exchange for access to their creative projects and products. The folks at Kickstarter acquired the music patronage group Drip in March of 2016, and here in November of 2017 they've re-launched as a broader coverage service.

Kickstarter announced their Drip acquisition in a way that suggested they might just keep it in the music business. Back then, Kickstarter's announcement included the following: "So how does this change things? In some ways, not at all. Our commitment to serving creators is hardcoded into our missions, and will continue to guide us. In other ways, we're excited to discover where it leads."

The big differentiator between Kickstarter and Drip is the creative forces behind the work. "Kickstarter is for projects, Drip is for people." Kickstarter is made to fund artists and creators fund one-time projects. Drip is "a tool for people to fund and build community around their ongoing creative practice."

In the Kickstarter announcement of Drip today, the company calls out Patreon specifically – along with similar services in Steady and Flattr. The key difference between those services and Drip, says Kickstarter, is "creator independence."

To that end, Drip offers artists and creators the ability to export their data and content. They're also aiming to "help creators securely transfer subscription and payments information to other subscription platforms." In other words, Drip wants you to stay, but keeps the door open so you can go if you want to.

Drip will let you go if you want, but it's only because they love you so much. Kickstarter users can also log in to Drip with their already-created Kickstarter accounts – this includes payment information, too.

Drip is also designed to be "light." Their intention is to keep focus on the creators in Drip, not the Drip brand itself, the primary focus. For the moment, creators will have to wait to get in on the Drip fun. Today a Kickstarter representative wrote, "We plan to open Drip up to more creators early next year. Please drop your email at the bottom of the Drip homepage to be notified."

The Drip community can be found over at D dot rip – because that's the best URL possible for a brand called Drip.