Olio Patron

Over the years, lots of you have told us you'd love to contribute more to support the Olio mission, and the Patron tier is our answer to that. It's a way to give a little extra each month (or year) and make an even bigger impact.

What's the difference between being a Supporter and a Patron?

Both plans include exactly the same app benefits. The difference is that Patrons contribute a little more, and that extra amount helps fund our work to make sure more surplus food gets eaten, not wasted. When you choose your plan in the app, we'll show you roughly how many meals worth of impact your contribution supports. This is based on our recent calculations which show it costs us roughly 19 pence to enable a mealto be rescued rather than wasted, and that keeps improving as we bring new collections onto the platform, without expanding our team and other costs at the same rate.

Check out these FAQs to find out how to become a Supporter.

Yes! Patrons get everything Supporters get:

You'll have these features for as long as your Patron subscription is active.

Your features last for as long as you're subscribed. Your subscription renews automatically (monthly or annually, depending on the plan you chose), so your features won't expire unless you cancel. If you do cancel, you'll keep your features until the end of the period you've already paid for.

Your subscription is billed by Apple or Google (depending on your device), and they'll email you a receipt each time it renews, along with any renewal reminders they send in line with their own policies. You can check your next renewal date at any time in your App Store or Google Play subscription settings.

If you cancel, your features will simply stop at the end of the period you've paid for — there's nothing else you need to do.

Yes! Because your subscription is billed by Apple or Google, the switch is made in your device or store settings rather than in the Olio app (the 'Support Olio' screen isn't shown to existing Supporters). Both stores explain exactly how to do it:

You'll only ever have one subscription running; the store simply moves you from your Supporter plan to your chosen Patron plan.

And because Supporters and Patrons get exactly the same features, nothing changes in the app when you switch, the only difference is your payment:

You only ever need one plan, being a Patron includes everything a Supporter gets, so there's no need for both (and no way to accidentally pay for both). If you're a Supporter and want to do more, simply switch to a Patron plan.

Not right now, the whole point of the Patron tier is that the extra contribution goes towards impact, not perks. That said, if Patrons tell us they'd love something like a special badge or icon on their profile, it's absolutely something we'd consider. Let us know by making a suggestion in the forum!

You'll see the current Supporter and Patron prices when you open 'Support Olio' in the app — both are available as monthly or annual plans, with a saving if you go annual.

Over the next couple of months we’ll be running a handful of tests to find the right Patron prices for our community (rather than us guessing, and most likely getting it wrong), and will use the outcomes from those tests to establish the ongoing pricing.

The easiest way is to open the menu in the top right corner of the Olio app, select 'Support Olio' at the top, and choose a Patron plan if you are given that option. You’ll need to be using at least app version 2.227.10, and some people will not immediately get the option while we test that introducing the Patron tier doesn’t negatively impact how many people choose to become a Supporter.

If you're already a Supporter, see 'I'm already a Supporter, can I switch to being a Patron?' above, the switch is made in your device or store settings instead.

Exactly the same way as a Supporter subscription: through your Apple or Google Play account settings on your device. You'll keep your features until the end of the period you've paid for.

From time to time, you may notice that the price of becoming an Olio Supporter or Patron differs between people. We understand that this can feel surprising, or even frustrating, so we want to explain why we do it.

Like many organisations, Olio occasionally tests different prices with small groups of people. This is called ‘price testing’, and it’s a standard way for organisations to understand what price works best for the people using their product or service.

The alternative would be for us to simply guess what the right price should be. And if we guessed wrong we could set the price too high, putting it out of reach for too many people, or too low, meaning the programme doesn’t generate enough income to achieve what it is designed to do.

By testing different prices, we can learn what works best across our community and use that evidence to set our pricing over the longer term.

We appreciate that it can feel unfair if you discover that someone else has been shown a different price. Price tests are temporary, and being shown a particular price isn’t a judgement about you or how much we think you personally should pay, it simply means you’ve been included in one of the groups in a test.

Becoming an Olio Supporter or Patron is also completely optional. The core Olio experience remains free to use, while Supporter and Patron plans offer additional benefits, such as an ad-free experience, for people who would like them while also helping to support Olio.

As a mission-led business, it’s really important that we find a model that enables Olio to remain accessible to as many people as possible, while also generating the income we need to keep Olio running and growing our impact. Price testing helps us make those decisions based on what our community actually does, rather than on guesswork.