Patreon is developing an API of sorts. It's currently not used for a lot of actions on their website, other than for a few cleaned up features. It's also not documented yet. I'm doing some digging and am going to try my best to provide some documentation for it. I am not at all affiliated with Patreon and provide no warranty that this information will work in the future or even now. I'm just publishing it in the hope that it will be useful and will help people extend the Patreon platform in awesome ways.
Some important information to look at before diving into this API.
Patreon is making use of the JSON API spec so some implementation details can be found by plumbing that documentation. The root of the API is at api.patreon.com
Some requests require that you have an API key when you make them. This is done by appending "?api_key=YOUR API KEY" to the end of the URL. At present, it looks like there's only one API key shared by everyone: 1745177328c8a1d48100a9b14a1d38c1. Methods that require an api key are marked as such.
Unless otherwise indicated, assume all timestamps are in this format: 1970-12-31T23:59:59
Method for iniating a user session. Also retrieves a lot of information about the logged in user.
Body data
Response
In addition to returning a JSON object with information about the user, the server also responds with a Set-Cookie header that sets a cookie named "session_id" to a unique session ID on the domain "patreon.com". This cookie appears to expire a month later by default.
Creates a user, currently used for FB registrations
Body data
Response
Retrieves data about a given user [requires api key]
Response
Retrieves information about the currently logged-in user. Appending "?include=cards" to the URL causes credit card information to be included as well.
Response
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature
Response
Retrieves a list of campaigns. Only seems to work if "?filter=subbable" is appended to the URL
Response
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature [requires api key]
Retrieves information about a particular campaign [requires api key]
Response
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature [requires api key]
Gets a list of all the categories on the site (this is part of an unreleased feature) [requires api key]
Response
Retrieves a given reward by its numeric ID [requires api key]
Response
Creates a post??? Or maybe creates an ID for a post, which can then be modified with another call??? [requires api key]
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature (but seems to be relatively functional at present).
Retrieves a given post by its numeric ID [requires api key]
Response
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature
Modifies an existing post [requires api key]
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature
Deletes an existing post [requires api key]
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature
Undeletes a previously-deleted post [requires api key]
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature
Retrieves the attachments for a given post [requires api key]
Response
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature
Uploads an attachment [requires api key]
Unfinished endpoint for an unreleased feature
Deletes an existing attachment [requires api key]
These are the types of objects that may be included in requests or responses, either as the main "data" object, or as an object in the "linked" array.
Represents a campaign (i.e. a content creator's patreon page, essentially). Often, the 'included' array will include all the reward objects for this campaign and a user object for the creator of this campaign.
{
"about": "<description of campaign>", // can contain HTML markup
"created_at": "<timestamp>"
"creation_name": "<name of campaign>",
"creator": <number>, // seems to be a Subbable-only thing??
"creator_name": "<name of creator>", //seems to be a Subbable-only thing??
"id": <number>, // campaign ID number
"image_small_url": "<url to 320x320 image>",
"image_url": "<url to 714x402 image>",
"is_monthly": <boolean>, // does this campaign charge per-month or per-creation?
"is_nsfw": <boolean>,
"links": {
"rewards": {
"linkage": [
// array of reward objects
]
}
}
"main_video_embed": "<html>", // an embed tag for the campaign's main video
"main_video_url": "<url>", // an url to the campaign's main video
"one_liner": "<short description of campaign>",
"patron_count": <number>,
"pay_per_name": "<pay per what?>" // what are supporters being charged for? (e.g. "month", "video", etc.)
"pledge_sum": <number>, // pledged amount in cents
"published_at": "<timestamp>",
"summary": "<html markup>",
"thanks_embed": "<html>", // embed tag for patron thanks video (null if no video),
"thanks_msg": "<text>", // message shown to thank patrons
"thanks_video_url": "<url>", // url for patron thanks video (null if no video),
"type": "campaign",
"url": "<url to patreon campaign>" // generally https://www.patreon.com/<username>
}
Represents a credit card or other payment method (i.e. PayPal)
{
"card_type": "<name of payment method>", // known possibilities: "PayPal", "Visa"
"expiration_date": "<expiration date of card in YYYY-MM-DD format>", // will be null for PayPal
"id": "<unique identifier>",
"links": {
"user": {
"id": "<user id>",
"type": "user"
}
},
"number": <last four digits of credit card>, // will be 0 for PayPal
"type": "card"
}
Represents a category of campaign (e.g. Music, Comics, etc)
{
"id": <numeric id>, // at time of writing, categories are ids 0-14, except the "All" category, which has id 99
"name": <display name for category>,
"type": "category"
}
Represents a comment on a post
{
"type": "<comment|like|success|other>",
"body": "<body of the comment>",
"links": {
"parent": {
"linkage": {
"type": "<comment|like|success|other>",
"id": "<id of parent comment>"
}
}
}
}
Represents a post or creation on a campaign
{
"campaign_id": "<id of associated campaign>",
"category": <category if relevant>, // null if no comment set
"cents_pledged_at_creation": <number>, // what was the total sum of all pledges at the time when this was posted?
"comment_count": <comment count>,
"content": "<body text>",
"created_at": "<timestamp>", // presumably can't be null
"current_user_has_liked": <boolean>, // has the logged in user liked this post?
"deleted_at": <timestamp>, // null if not deleted
"edited_at": <timestamp>, // null if not edited
"embed": { // stuff for embedding videos. if it's not a video, all sub-fields will be set to null
"description": null, // video description
"domain": null, // web domain of platform where video is uploaded
"html": null, // video embed code
"subject": null, // video title
"url": null // video url (i.e. on youtube or whatever other platform)
},
"id": "<id of this post>",
"image_height": <height of large image>, // 0 if no image
"image_large_url": "<url of full size image>", // null if no image
"image_url": "<url of image shrunk to 320px wide>", // null if no image
"image_width": <width of large image>, // 0 if no image
"is_creation": <boolean>, // is this a creation or just a post?
"is_paid": <boolean>, // true if this is an automated post after a month/content is completed, else false
"like_count": <number of likes>,
"min_cents_pledged_to_view": <number>, // minimum individual pledge necessary to view post
"post_type": "<image|text_only|link>", // may be other unknown values
"published_at": "<timestamp>", // null if unpublished
"thumbnail_url": "<url of 75x75 image>", // null if no image
"title": "<post title>",
"type": "post",
"url": "<url to this post>",
"user_id": "<id of user who posted>"
}
Represents a reward tier for a campaign. There are two reward objects, id:-1 "Everyone" and id:0 "Patrons Only", that seem to be global and constant for all campaigns.
{
"amount": <number>, // pledge in cents required to access this reward (null if unrestricted)
"created_at": <timestamp>, // null for global rewards
"creator_id": null, // only appears for global rewards
"description": "<html markup>", // description of what this
"id": "<unique identifier>",
"links": {
"creator": {
"linkage": {
"id": "<user id of creator of this reward>",
"type": "user"
}
}
},
"requires_shipping": <boolean>, // does patreon require a shipping address from users who enter at this level?
"type": "reward",
"user_limit": <number> // how many users are allowed to claim this reward? 0 if unlimited, null for global rewards
},
A user object contains information about a Patreon user, usually the currently logged-in user.
{
"about": "<about me>", // an optional bio, can be null
"created": "<timestamp>",
"email": "<user email>",
"first_name": "<first name>",
"full_name": "<first and last name>",
"gender": <number>, // 0 if unset, 1 if male, 2 if female
"id": "<user id>", // is always numeric afaik, but appears as a string nonetheless
"image_url": "<url to 200x200 jpg>",
"last_name": "<last name>",
"status": 1, // not sure what this means, usually it's 1 but I have seen 0
"thumb_url": "<url to 50x50 jpg>",
"type": "user",
"url": "<clean url to user profile>",
"vanity": "<custom url username>" // null if no vanity username set
}