The results of our annual Charm Survey are in, and they surprised us all!

In early November 2022, we sent separate (but similar) survey questions to our email subscribers and to each of our four current Patreon tiers. We were overwhelmed with responses (786 email subscribers and 1922 patrons!) and now we want to share the most interesting bits with you.

Our Audience

It’s no surprise that Charm has the best patrons and supporters!

80% of you sew in our 2-20 size range and 20% sew in the 18-34 size range.

There is no other vintage-inspired sewing company that serves such a wide range of sizes and we’re so pleased to be able to provide sewing patterns to everyone in our audience!

Only about 3% of you are using projector sewing files and most people prefer the tiled (print-at-home) or A0 (copy shop) PDF files, by a large margin.

This is such a relief to us, as printing costs have increased so much in the past few years that we are moving to more digital-only content.

25% of you consider yourself beginners, 55% intermediate, and 20% advanced.

But hundreds of you credited Charm with growing your sewing skills, which just tickled us pink!

What Surprised Us The Most

We were shocked to find out that most of our email subscribers consider the Patreon membership to only be a “pattern-of-the-month club.”

We’re clearly not doing a very good job of sharing all of the other benefits of Patreon membership! Next year, we want to make sure everyone knows about the community and educational aspects as well.

Another surprise? Patrons LOVE the monthly sewing tutorial videos and believe the “sewing school” aspect of their membership is just as important as the patterns! We honestly had no idea how much you loved those videos – or how much you relied on them to boost your sewing skills.

Personally, I was also surprised to see that nearly everyone loves the idea of Charm releasing some of the out-of-print Butterick & Simplicity patterns, tweaked into the Charm block and size ranges. (The top 5 requests are shown below.) I’m not sure if or when this will happen, but it’s an exciting idea!

There were over two thousand answers to the question, “If you got to play designer for a month, what’s your fantasy?” and everyone had a different idea! Of course, we read them all. We love it when we can make one of your sewing dreams a reality!

It was really interesting to find out that only 30% of you want more fancy cocktail dresses like Liz, Lamour, and Lana. Most people are interested in everyday dresses and separates, and there was a strong write-in contingent for lingerie and intimates. I’m overflowing with ideas for next year, so you’ll just have to see what we release! 😘

What This Means Going Forward

We are going to put more focus on the monthly pattern videos, and redesign them (slightly!) to make them more user-friendly for everyone.

So many of you had great tips for making the videos even better and since you’ve told us they are such an important part of the Patreon membership benefits, we want to make sure we are providing the most useful and fun content we can.

We’re also going to consider putting more of a focus on YouTube videos. I don’t know what that looks like yet, so stay tuned!

To keep creating all of this great content for you, we need to grow the team even more in 2023. If you’re interested in becoming a member of Team Charm, make sure you are on our email list to be the first to hear about new job postings!

Changes to the 2023 Patreon Membership

Our patrons know (and love!) that we change the Patreon membership theme every year. With a new theme comes a change in membership benefits, too.

Without giving too much away, next year’s benefits will be heavily influenced by the results of the survey. You love the idea of more pattern hacks (like the Rockford Peaches hack of the Presley Shirt), short sewing tutorial videos, and more digital sewing-and-lifestyle content. We can’t do it all, but you’re going to LOVE what we’ve come up with!

The core of the Patreon benefits won’t be changing, of course. There will always be a monthly pattern & companion tutorial video, plus all of the great community aspects you love.

Patreon tiers will be changing next year (as they always do), and new patrons in 2023 will see increased prices. We’re on our fourth year on Patreon – can you believe it! – and new patrons get access to all four years worth of patterns, sewing tutorial videos, community membership, and more. We haven’t raised prices since our launch, and we think the incredible amount of content we’ve released makes slightly higher prices worth it.

It’s vital to us that our current patrons are able to retain their current tier prices. Many of you have been with us from the beginning, and we appreciate your loyalty so much!

If you’re a current patron (or if you join us before December 31), you’ll be grandfathered into our current Patreon prices. If you’re thinking of upgrading or joining, please do it now to lock in these lower rates.

More details about the tier and benefit changes will be coming to patrons in the next few weeks so you can make an informed decision and choose the tier that’s right for you.

Thank you to everyone who filled out the survey! We were overwhelmed and touched by your thoughtful comments and ideas. The Charm community is truly the best, and we appreciate you all!