5 Ways to View Patreon Content for Free (in 2023)

Part of the reason content creators use Patreon is its paywall feature, which prevents people from accessing the content unless they pay.

This is all well and good, but sometimes you don’t really need everything a content creator has to offer. Maybe you need just a certain song, a certain video, or a certain comic. It simply wouldn’t be worth paying $10–12 to get just a single item, so is there a way to get it for free?

After all, there are plenty of paid software and sites that have been “broken” and had the content within made free.  So why not Patreon?

Patreon’s paywall is very well designed and almost impossible to bypass. However, there are certain ways to get free access to Patreon content, such as using sites that contain leaked Patreon content, account sharing, subscribing for one month, then canceling, and other methods.

Use kemono.party 

The site Kemono.party is far and away the best place where you can access a lot, but not all, paywalled content from Patreon and other such sites.

Most of the content on Kemono.party comes from paying Patreon users, who leak the content they receive onto Kemono.party.

If you wish to visit, simply copy/paste kemono.party in your URL bar and start exploring.

Keep in mind, however, that most of the Patreon content on the site is from NSFW or adult creators. If that’s what you’re into, however, you’re in luck since there’s a huge amount of content available to explore.

However, kemono.party isn’t just about NSFW or adult content. You can find paywalled content from creators in practically any field: music, cartoons, comics, tabletop games, etc.

The one big exception to this are podcasts. Podcast links are usually active only 24 hours or less after the content creator has published one. After that period, the links to the podcasts are taken down, and you can’t access the content anymore.

In any case, the biggest problem with Kemono.party is that you’ll struggle to find smaller content creators. This is because the smaller the creator, the smaller the chances of a paying subscriber leaking their content.

Also, the site’s search function is pretty bad. For example, if you want to find a creator, you must write their exact name in the search box. Deviate even with a single letter (for example, Shannon vs Shanon), and you won’t get a result.

Not only that, but you also have to hope that whoever uploaded the content correctly wrote the exact name of the creator. If they didn’t, then it becomes almost impossible to find your target creator, even if they are on Kemono.party.

For example, a popular Patreon podcast named Cold Ones is written as “coldones” on kemono.party. However, if you search for “Cold Ones”, you will get 0 results since it isn’t an exact match.  

As with any piracy website, it’s best to always double check links before clicking them. However, in our use, we haven’t yet encountered any links that download malicious software or viruses.

These may exist, but it’s likely they are few and far between. 

Patreon account sharing

Another way to gain access to Patreon content is through account sharing. Patreon currently allows users to log in with the same account on up to 5 devices. 

This means that it is possible for another Patron to share their account with you without having to worry about being banned. 

The difficulty with account sharing is finding someone willing to share, especially if they are not friends or family.

In this case, you could try hanging out in a creator’s community and see if any user is willing to share an account. Ideally, this should be done on a quid-pro-quo basis, where you share a useful account of your own, while the other person shares access to their Patreon account.

Buy one month and get access to the content creator’s archive

Most content creators on Patreon usually give new subscribers immediate and complete access to their entire content archive.

So, for example, you can subscribe for a single month, get access to every chapter of a comic book series, download or save them, and then cancel your subscription.

On top of this, Patreon supporters usually gain access to a creator’s Discord community channel and are rarely kicked out just because they stop subscribing to Patreon.

This means that you might still be able to indirectly view the creator’s new content, even after canceling your subscription, since you can see the Discord conversations where people inevitably share the creator’s newest content release.

Search individual communities or the creator’s website

Another way to find free Patreon content is to hang around communities dedicated to that particular creator and try to find out if there are any links or files to the content you need.

Good places to start are Discord servers, Facebook groups, subreddits, forums, even Twitter accounts, etc.

Unfortunately, this approach usually works only for big content creators that can sustain large, independent communities. 

Communities for smaller creators are usually centered around the creator’s own Discord or Twitter account, meaning they are more controlled and less likely to produce leaks.

In any case, try searching for “[Patreon creator] discord” or “[Patreon creator] facebook group”, see what you find, and check if there are any content leaks within them.

Finally, don’t forget to search for the content creator’s actual website. Lots of creators eventually create their own site, and they sometimes include some content there for free.

Just ask the content creator 

Another option is to just ask the content creator if they can give you the content you need for free.

Depending on the creator, how much content you ask from them, and what you promise to give them in return, their answer might range from non-reply, to a hard no, to a firm yes.

For example, if you just need a single model (out of a pack of 20) to do a 3D printing of a monster for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, then the content creator might be willing to share it with you for free.

As a gesture of good faith, though, send him a picture of the printed monster, all painted up and on a DnD table, surrounded by player characters and other decorations. 

In that case, both you and the content creator win. You get the model, and the content creator can brag with a nice photo of their model in real life. 

See if the content is already free 

The final option is to simply double check and see if the creator’s content is actually free. 

This is because many content creators don’t paywall their essential content on Patreon. 

Instead, a Patreon subscription simply offers neat goodies to subscribers, such as behind-the-scenes talks, votes on future content, early access to new content releases, etc.

So double check the creator’s Discord, Youtube, and Twitch channels and see if their content is actually available for free, but requires you to dig a bit deeper for it.