Patreon gives creators the tools they need to reliably reach their fans, strengthen their communities, and build sustainable businesses.
Patreon Software Engineer, Jonah Wasserman, shares how they teamed up with Mux to seamlessly integrate native video into their platform, transforming the experience for creators and their supporters alike.
Read the story in his own words:
Before Mux came along
In the days before the Mux-Patreon partnership, video existed on the site but in a much different way. Creators used external hosting platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo to host video and link it to their Patreon page. While this approach worked, there were a lot of issues including:
- The friction of having different platforms to host and distribute
- Divergent content moderation (a takedown on YouTube would affect consumption on Patreon)
- Piracy and link leaking
- Lack of insights
- Subpar native experience
As Patreon grew, we knew that something major had to change with how we handled video. While YouTube and Vimeo embeds are always welcome, our creators deserved a more dedicated video experience — something that would protect their content, give them complete flexibility, and work seamlessly with Patreon’s ecosystem.
Native video emerges
In November 2022, we introduced Patreon Video in partnership with Mux. It instantly became a hit with thousands of creators making videos within the first week.
Bringing Video to life required solving several complex technical challenges to ensure a seamless, high-quality experience for both creators and their audiences. This meant developing and optimizing:
- A highly scalable video streaming platform — Patreon Video needed to support tens of thousands of simultaneous viewers per asset while maintaining a high bitrate and avoiding buffering, ensuring a smooth, uninterrupted experience.
- A robust video uploading pipeline — To help creators upload content efficiently and with fewer errors, we integrated Mux early file upload warnings, allowing for proactive error detection before publishing.
- Comprehensive data and analytics — We built powerful analytics tools to track engagement, helping creators and Patreon understand which types of videos performed best and identify areas for improvement.
By combining cutting-edge technology with a deep understanding of audience engagement, Patreon Video has transformed how creators share content, making every premiere an event worth celebrating.
How Mux helped
Building Patreon Video meant tackling one of the hardest challenges in tech — delivering high-quality video to a massive audience without interruptions. Video streaming is notoriously complex, with countless factors affecting playback: encoding formats, device compatibility, buffering, and network conditions.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, we needed a proven, reliable video solution that would let us focus on our product rather than the technical nuances of streaming. Mux was the perfect fit. Their platform made it incredibly easy to develop, scale, and optimize video delivery, ensuring that every user could enjoy and participate.
When working with video, there’s a lot to think about — bad encodings, massive file sizes, unsupported formats, and unpredictable network conditions. Mux abstracts this away and makes our integration easier with:
Seamless device compatibility — Mux ensures that whether a fan is on a brand-new desktop, an aging mobile device, or a tablet with questionable specs, they get a smooth, reliable playback experience.
Simple configuration — Incorporating essential video features doesn’t require writing custom infrastructure. Features like subtitles, playback controls, and preview thumbnails are handled with basic config changes, saving us weeks of development time.
Reliable user-generated content processing — Since Patreon allows creators to upload their own content, we needed a video solution that could handle anything thrown at it. From weirdly formatted files to massive high-bitrate uploads, no matter what creators uploaded, Mux processed it effortlessly.
- WebM? No problem.
- An obscure audio codec from decades ago? Handled.
- A 20Mbps+ bitrate? It’ll take time to upload, but it’s fully supported.
By removing the complexity of video engineering, Mux freed us to focus on delivering a better product, faster.
What We’ve Done Since
Since introducing Patreon Video, we’ve built a lot on top of the integration.
Drops is a watch-together premier tool where creators can upload videos ahead of time and then everyone watches together at the same pace, creating a community watch party where everyone is part of a premier moment.
Video previewing is a powerful tool that allows creators to clip parts of their video and share it either off-platform or right on Patreon with members who haven’t subscribed yet. This is an extremely easy way for creators to share just a snippet of their work without having to do the video editing themselves.
One of the driving changes to use Mux was content protection. To protect our creators’ work from malicious actors, we use secure playback and playback restrictions to make it harder for content to be leaked.
Beyond just video
Mux offers more than video processing — they deliver powerful analytics that help us understand viewer engagement, optimize delivery, and quickly address playback issues. Beyond technology, Mux has proven to be a dedicated partner, consistently offering hands-on support and guidance, ensuring Patreon Video’s successful launch.
Mux’s ecosystem continues to grow, and we look forward to adopting more tools that protect our creator’s content and improve video upload and download success.
By expertly handling the complexities of streaming, Mux transformed video from just another feature into a seamless, high-quality experience that connects creators deeply with their audiences, no matter what comes next.
