How we built one of our most loved features: Fan Gifting

The long-requested feature went from sketches to shipping in just three months. Over the December holiday season, fans gifted over $1.2 million in memberships.

We sat down with Chiara Darnton, the engineer who helped lead the build, to talk about what it took to bring gifting to life.

Let’s start at the beginning. What exactly is “gifting”, and how would you explain it to someone new?

Chiara: It’s a way for someone to buy a membership on behalf of someone else. We built two kinds of gifting at Patreon: creator gifting, where creators gift access to fans, and fan gifting, which is what my team focused on - where anyone can buy a gift for a friend, a family member, or even someone in the creator’s community who has a need for it.

To someone unfamiliar with Patreon, it might seem like a regular gift, like a magazine subscription. But you’re also giving access to DMs, community chats, and all the behind-the-scenes content that make someone feel seen and connected, which is what makes Patreon so special.

Where did the idea for gifting come from?

Chiara: It was already in the air when I joined Patreon two years ago. It had come up in hackathons, in internal conversations. It was a top-requested feature from creators and something a lot of employees wanted too. People just wanted a way to share the creators they loved with others.

By early 2024, the creator tools team was working on a version that let creators gift access to fans. But we quickly realized how urgently fans wanted the ability to gift memberships, too. That’s when I was brought in - to help make fan gifting happen.

What was your first reaction when the project landed on your plate?

Chiara: Honestly? Daunting. Mostly because of the timeline. It was August, and we were aiming to ship by November, right in time for the holidays. Marketing was already planning a big push around it, so we didn’t have much wiggle room.

But it was also really exciting. It felt like a meaningful feature with real value.

Where did you start? What did fan gifting look like in its earliest form?

Chiara: We had some design sketches, and the creator tools team had already built a base for their part of the feature. But the fan side was still an early concept. We knew we had to build on top of what existed, while prioritizing what was realistic and meaningful in a short amount of time.

Early user research also helped clarify what fans and creators actually needed from gifting. Those insights shaped how we approached the feature and influenced decisions we made right from the start.

Was there a moment where something really clicked?

Chiara: In early November, while we were still in alpha, one creator, Luvvie, ran a community gifting campaign that completely took off. She encouraged her fans to gift annual memberships to people who couldn’t afford them, so they could stay part of the community.

It blew up. People jumped in to support each other, gifting memberships left and right. She facilitated the whole thing, connecting gifters with folks who needed access. The response was huge not just in volume, but in gratitude. The people who received those memberships were deeply appreciative.

We knew gifting would be useful, but seeing a creator use it in such an unexpected, generous way made it clear this could help communities grow, and help people support each other in meaningful ways.

Did you make any risky decisions that paid off?

Chiara: Early on, we had to figure out how much of Patreon’s existing checkout infrastructure we could reuse for gifting and how much we’d need to rebuild. Our one-time payments had only supported small, single purchases like digital products or access to individual posts. But gifting introduced a different kind of behavior. Users would need to customize and make repeat purchases, and gift redemption added more complex states compared to the existing direct purchase-for-access model..

After discussing with other engineers and weighing the trade-offs, we decided to rewrite a good portion of our checkout and insights funnel so we could handle these new patterns most fully and correctly. It was a risky decision, especially with a tight timeline, but it gave us what we needed: stronger fraud protection, better visibility into gifting behavior, and a solid foundation for the future products that will build on top of this work.

It was a big investment, but one that’s already paid off.

Who else was involved in making it happen?

Chiara: We had a phenomenal engineering team that helped us meet our ambitious timelines while never sacrificing craft. Dawid Kluszczynski, Saad Masood, and Timothy Ng were instrumental in bringing this to life.

My PM, Meekal Bajaj, led with thoughtful prioritization and kept everything moving. He maintained constant communication with legal, tax, and marketing to make sure we stayed unblocked throughout the build.

We also worked closely with the Product Support team, especially Aaron Dinga. Integrating him into our meetings from an early stage helped us anticipate support tickets, make small product tweaks, and build internal tooling to help triage issues more efficiently.

Marketing played a huge role in adoption last year. Cat Ku led the campaign, driving creator excitement through posts, emails, and outreach. She also helped build internal momentum by setting up a gifting stipend for employees, which let us dogfood the feature and create buzz across the company.

And Tina Chou from UXR ran research sessions and surveys that helped us understand what fans and creators actually needed.

What’s a small detail in the product that you’re especially proud of?

Chiara: The little touches were so special - things like the confetti animation on the redemption page and the animated gift box entry point that made the experience feel playful. Ashley Wang, our product designer, Jae Bae from brand, and Saad Masood, our frontend engineer, worked closely to bring that delight to life. Even though we were on a tight timeline, they made sure it didn’t feel rushed or bare-bones. We didn’t want it to feel like we were just shipping a new feature. We wanted it to feel like a real gift, with all the joy that comes with it.

How did the team celebrate once gifting was live?

Chiara: We all came to San Francisco for launch week. We were still monitoring things and working on the final touches before launch, but we took a break to do a cooking class together. Then the following week, each office had a happy hour, and one of our designers even made gifting-themed pins for the team.

What did you learn from leading this project?

Chiara: It was my first time leading something of this scale, so naturally I had to learn to rely on my team more, to delegate.. Thankfully, the engineers I worked with were amazing! As launch day approached I was able to focus more on working with cross-functional teams and preparations for a smooth GA.

Have you personally gifted a membership?

Chiara: Yes! I gifted one to my younger brother. He’s followed this creator on Instagram for years and I always thought he would love their Patreon. He’s the first person I thought of when I started building this feature.

What’s next for gifting?

Chiara: Right now, we’re working on better tooling for creators to run their own gifting campaigns. In the future we also want to build the ability to gift to existing members. I can see this being so valuable in tight-knit Patreon communities where people want to help each other out financially to stay part of the group if they’re going through a hard time.

Dream-world version - no limitations. What would gifting look like?

Chiara: I’d love to build gifting for individual pieces of content, the way you might share a New York Times article. It’s something I know some creators have been asking for, and it would open up more ways for fans to introduce others to the work they love. In an ideal world, it would also be so cool to do bundle gifting. That could look like a sampler of different creators’ memberships, or collaborations where you could gift a vinyl, a membership, and something else together. Something that helps you explore or share a full creative world.

Honestly, one of the most exciting parts of this project is how much more there is for us to build on top of it.