Vox’s page on Patreon
Explainer journalism brand Vox is using membership and subscriptions platform Patreon to help build a “two-way relationship” with its audience.
US-based Vox expanded its existing paid memberships onto Patreon in November, providing subscribers with additional video content, ad-free video and podcast libraries, livestreams and chats with Vox journalists, and unlimited access to the main Vox website.
Vox editor-in-chief and publisher Swati Sharma told Press Gazette she believes Vox is “the first national newsroom to use Patreon at scale”.
She said they had chosen to do so because: “We are a multi-platform newsroom, and what Patreon offers is really great tools to engage with an audience that does care about multi-platform offerings.”
The main Vox membership costs $6 (£5) per month and a “champion” tier with an extra chat feature and a special video thank-you is $10 (£8).
Vox (which was founded in 2014) already had paying members via its website, with readers invited to pay between $5 and $50 per month to get full access to the website. The membership was relaunched and given a push at the start of 2025 as Donald Trump came into office for the second time, resulting in 350% growth in new sign-ups in the first two months after his inauguration.
Existing members automatically receive one year of Patreon access at no extra cost.
Sharma said memberships had “exceeded our expectations”, adding: “But I wouldn’t say this is a change. I would say this is a value add…
“This is just the next step in membership, and a fun way for us to experiment and create that relationship with our audience.”
‘It’s part of Patreon to have two-way engagement’
Sharma described members actively engaging rather than passively consuming and noted that Patreon has many features designed to encourage this, such as the chats and livestreams.
“I think it’s almost the point of Patreon… it’s part of the platform to have that two-way engagement. And it’s not for everyone, sometimes people just want that additional content we have on Patreon…
“We see how media is changing and people do feel a connection with some of our posts and writers, and they want to have that back and forth so it’s really nice to be able to do that.”
The type of extra Patreon content she cited included a video of senior culture correspondent Constance Grady speaking about the iconography of ICE , and a conversation between Today, Explained hosts Astead Herndon and Noel King about the biggest surprises of 2025.
Many publishers have spoken over the past year about the importance of building community at a time when Google’s AI Overviews are impacting clickthroughs from search.
But Sharma, a former managing editor at The Atlantic and journalist at The Washington Post, both subscription businesses, said having a relationship with readers has “always been something I’m passionate about”.
“Our whole purpose and goal is to serve our audience and in a world filled with noise, we’re direct, and we give them clarity that they desire. So for Vox, it just feels even more natural to have these kind of platforms where we can connect directly with our audience.”
Vox editor-in-chief Swati Sharma. Picture: Vox
Vox owner Vox Media does not share any financial figures but Sharma said memberships make up a “good portion” of revenue for the brand “and we want it to be an even more significant one”.
But she added that the mission-driven angle of it is as crucial as the revenue. “It’s really important for our ethos and for a better way to represent who we are.”
Although membership sign-ups rocketed after Trump returned to the White House, which Sharma said had resulted in the “need for a lot of clarity” that Vox can serve, she added that the brand’s “very earnest” audience are just as committed to their coverage on animal welfare, the Even Better vertical about self-improvement, and pieces based around moral conundrums.
Looking into 2026, Sharma said they are “just experimenting all the time” and will “see what resonates, and just have fun on a new platform”.
‘We’re being smart and ambitious’
Priyanka Arya, head of consumer revenue at Vox Media, told Press Gazette that although launching on Patreon involved bringing people to a new platform, that turned out to be “less of a challenge than we maybe even would have considered”.
Arya said: “A big reason we went with the platform is we have really meaningful audiences across our website, across our podcast, across Youtube and video, and we wanted to expand our membership programme to develop an offering that was really comprehensive for all of those audiences…
“What Patreon allows us to do is host videos, host podcasts, host different formats in one place that is harder to do on our owned and operated and really bring our audiences together for a shared experience, which we think is really exciting.
Arya said it has been a “nice surprise” for users to find that journalists are communicating with them directly.
“We’re definitely excited for our audience to get to know our writers and our talent more personally, and I think this is a platform that will allow them to do that.”
She said a lot of Vox’s large podcast and video audiences are “accustomed to the various platforms that are out there” used by creators including Patreon, which claims to have more than ten million fans paying for memberships each month and 100 million free memberships.
Vox is the second Vox Media brand to use Patreon. In April 2024 sports media brand SB Nation launched a subscription product on the platform for its Youtube channel Secret Base.
Arya said the goal for Vox was “quite different” but that the earlier launch helped the publisher develop the value proposition and learn the tools “and different ways that it’s possible to engage a community”.
Arya noted that this year Vox has grown memberships month on month and “exceeded our goals for the year”.
“I think we’re being really smart and ambitious in evolving the programme, even on top of that, to activate communities across our platforms, and that’s really the goal for us. And so far, we’re happy with how it’s turning out.”
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