Introducing Paizo Plus

Tuesday, July 8, 2025



Greetings, Gamers! In the April Tech Update blog, I promised to give you a breakdown of how the upcoming loyalty program will work. Today, I’m here to tell you that at its core, Paizo Plus operates similarly to the current program: spend money with Paizo and unlock free products and discounts.

Under today’s Paizo Advantage program, if you subscribe to 4 different lines, you unlock either Starfinder Society or Pathfinder Society subscriptions for free; subscribe to all 6, and you get both for free. Subscribing to 4 lines also unlocks a 15% storewide discount on most Paizo products. Paizo Advantage will be replaced by Paizo Plus when the new store launches.

The Paizo Advantage program was designed to be laser-focused on subscriptions, and it has served Paizo subscribers well for many years. However, as our product catalog has grown, we’ve realized that we need a more robust system that better rewards all our shoppers for their dedication in various ways. We needed a program that was more flexible and easy to understand, as well as one that we could modify as we learned what consumers valued most. That’s how Paizo Plus was born, and we can’t wait to share it with you when we launch!


The Basics

When the new store goes live, you’ll need to opt in to the new loyalty program to start earning gold. If you’ve opted in to receive emails from Paizo, you’ll receive an email about the new program when we launch. And you’ll be able to earn gold right from the start:



  • Join Paizo Plus: You’ll earn 25 gold upon joining!
  • Leave a Review: 5 gold with an initial limit of 1 per week (260 gold/year if you write a review every week). You can only write reviews of products you have purchased through Paizo.
  • Birthday Reward: You’ll earn 25 gold on your birthday. Happy Birthday!
  • Follow us on Social Media: Up to 30 gold if you follow us on all 6 platforms. We may add new platforms here over time, such as Bluesky. 
  • Gold on Purchases: You’ll earn 1 gold for every dollar you spend, and the amount of gold you earn increases as you advance in reward level. More on that below. 

Legal details will be available in an updated Terms of Use when the new store launches. 


Refer-a-Friend



Another way to earn gold is by recruiting friends to make purchases from Paizo. Each time someone takes advantage of your referral by spending $20 or more at Paizo, you’ll earn 25 gold. 


Spending Gold

So, on Day 1 if you take advantage of all the ways you can earn gold you’re sitting with 70 gold in your account. What can you get with it? To start, we’ll be offering: 



You’ll see that you can get a Pathfinder Society or Starfinder Society scenario for $10 off, which will make most scenarios you choose free. You can also see that Paizo is tilting the scales in favor of the gold value for Society purchases, because we genuinely believe that this is an essential program for our players and want to encourage more players to participate. 

Our goal with the new Paizo Plus is to maintain the same value as the Paizo Advantage program. Paizo Plus is slightly better than Paizo Advantage, and these starting values allow us to monitor the program and expand it in the future once we see how everyone is earning and spending their points. 


Reward Tiers



We adapted the proficiency system from Pathfinder Second Edition (and now Starfinder Second Edition) and used it as the basis for the tiers that build the programs around. 

Legendary Loot: From time to time, Paizo will release items that are exclusively available to Legendary reward members. They might cost gold pieces, dollars, or a combination of both. They will likely be available in very limited quantities and for short periods of time.

We value our Experts and Masters and will ensure additional rewards are available for all tiers that require both gold and a dollar cost, as well as those that require only gold or other qualifying factors. 


Questions and Answers

Here are a few answers to some of the most common questions I anticipate. For the complete legal rules (which take precedence over this Q&A), you’ll need to wait until we launch. 

Will I keep my free subscriptions to Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society when Paizo Plus launches?
No, but you will be able to purchase Society scenarios for free using gold.

How is gold calculated?
Paizo Plus takes the cart total after all discounts have been applied (but before taxes and shipping) and multiplies that amount by your gold multiplier (1, 1.25, or 1.5). For example, if you buy a hardcover book for $60 and use a $20 off coupon, you’ll earn gold based on the $40 purchase (40, 50, or 60 gold depending on your tier). 

Can I spend the gold I would be earning from a purchase during that purchase? 
No, you can only spend gold after it has been earned. 

How long do I stay in a membership tier? 
When you achieve a new tier, you stay in that tier for 12 months. At the end of 12 months, Paizo Plus recalculates your tier.

When I reach a new tier, do I need to wait a year before I can advance to the next one? 
No, when you reach a higher tier, you will be upgraded, and a new 12-month calculation will begin. 

Do I reach a new tier by accumulating gold or spending money?
Only by spending money. Gold and dollars are two different pools.

Does gold expire?
Yes, after 12 months. You always spend the gold with the closest expiration date first. We’ll send an email to notify you about expiring gold if you’ve opted in to receive emails from us. 

Can I earn gold for past purchases? 
No. Only purchases made after Paizo Plus goes live and you’ve opted in to the program count. You can, however, write reviews for purchases over the last 5 years and earn gold on those reviews.

Will Paizo give away free gold?
That is a distinct possibility if you’re reading our fantastic emails and following us on social media!

What happens if I terminate my account? 
All gold is removed and cannot be returned. 

Can I give gold to a friend? 
No. Gold is for your use only and is limited to your account.

Does gold have any cash value?
No.

Do the discounts offered in Paizo Plus stack with store sale discounts?
No. You’ll receive the single highest discount available.


Sneak Peek of the Store

Here’s a brief look at what the team has been working on in the new store. Still subject to change, of course. Isn’t it pretty?



Concluding the Adventure

We look forward to unveiling the new store and Paizo Plus in the very near future! We're much closer to launch now than we were in my April blog, but we still have some work to complete before we’re ready to announce a specific date. 

Thank you again for your support of Paizo. We look forward to welcoming you to the new store soon!

Good Gaming! 

Jim Butler
Chief Executive Officer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Paizo Paizo Plus Paizo Store
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Dark Archive

19 people marked this as a favorite.

Oh come on guys, why are you still on twitter? Come with us to Bluesky


6 people marked this as a favorite.

They HAVE a Bluesky account, I'm not sure why it's not listed as an option.


22 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Agree on the twitter thing. Seriously, stop posting to that cesspool and definitely don't reward people for interacting with a place where the owner is an open white supremacist who has multiple times tweaked their chatbot to be more racist and anti-Semitic.

Also, what does this mean for those of us with legacy advantage?


I already get emails and follow on all the social media.
I'm subscribed to 4 lines already.
Definitely will be going back to leave reviews.

Definitely gonna come for the Legendary Tier.

Also loving the preview of the new store look as well.

Horizon Hunters

4 people marked this as a favorite.

How is this going to effect Subscriptions? Will it auto apply gold to PFS/SFS? I'm not liking this.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Will the Money required for Paio Plus tiers take into account your previous purchases, or only those after you subscribe to paio plus?

Wondering because I spent some cash on a subscription this year and I was wondering if that will be taken into account.

Silver Crusade

6 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Will the last 12 months of purchases be used to determine our starting proficiencies? Because it would feel pretty bad to go from full Paizo advantage down to Expert proficiency.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I think I'm likely going to be one of the rare people where the move from Advantage to Plus is an overall negative, but I *suspect* that for *most* people this will be a positive move, so I get it!

Edit*: Having reread I *believe* this will mostly end up the same for me? I have six active subscriptions and while I won't get Society scenarios automatically via the free subscription now they should end up free anyway with the Gold discounts. It just goes from a passive/automatic thing to having a slight inconvenience of having to manually purchase/redeem to pick them up.

Paizo Employee CEO

9 people marked this as a favorite.
Saverix339 wrote:

Will the Money required for Paio Plus tiers take into account your previous purchases, or only those after you subscribe to paio plus?

Wondering because I spent some cash on a subscription this year and I was wondering if that will be taken into account.

Yes. Your previous 12 months of purchases will be used to determine your starting reward level, but you will not earn gold for those purchases. You will only earn gold on new purchases after we launch the new store.

-Jim

Paizo Employee CEO

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Tikael wrote:
Also, what does this mean for those of us with legacy advantage?

If you have a Legacy Adventure Path subscription, you will have the same subscription when we switch over to the new system.

-Jim


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

If the transition to Plus over Subs is going to be numerically better, is this taking into account the (effectively) free PDFs subscribers get with their book subscriptions?

Paizo Employee CEO

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Kzuld Krer wrote:
How is this going to effect Subscriptions? Will it auto apply gold to PFS/SFS? I'm not liking this.

Subscriptions will be covered in a future blog, but your subscription purchases will also apply to Paizo Plus.

-Jim

Paizo Employee CEO

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Wrenbird wrote:
If the transition to Plus over Subs is going to be numerically better, is this taking into account the (effectively) free PDFs subscribers get with their book subscriptions?

You will continue to receive a free PDF with physical subscription products.

-Jim


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jim Butler wrote:
Wrenbird wrote:
If the transition to Plus over Subs is going to be numerically better, is this taking into account the (effectively) free PDFs subscribers get with their book subscriptions?

You will continue to receive a free PDF with physical subscription products.

-Jim

Thank you for the quick response!

Oh, it’s just the SFS and PFS subs that are going away? That’s a relief. The way the post read made it sound like ALL subscriptions are going away at first (the initial comparison of Now Vs New comparing current subscription module to ways to earn gold threw me).


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

So instead of getting the society pdfs free and automatically for subscribing I now have to micromanage it myself? And THIS is the solution you chose to develop? Way to go 21st century tech with 19th century customer service.

I feel SO rewarded for for being a subscriber since almost the first month your subscriptions existed.

Liberty's Edge

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Antony Walls wrote:

So instead of getting the society pdfs free and automatically for subscribing I now have to micromanage it myself? And THIS is the solution you chose to develop? Way to go 21st century tech with 19th century customer service.

I feel SO rewarded for for being a subscriber since almost the first month your subscriptions existed.

This was my initial gut reaction too, but tbh I think this actually does end up working out to a "better value" minus having to pick up the Scenarios yourself versus them automatically being delivered to your Digital Content library. You're still fully able to pick up Society for free given the Gold to Discount options, but you now have the ability to apply the discounts on other products too.

You lose the ease of automatic, but now actually get some choice too. Plus, it means Paizo gets some better metrics on whose actually picking up Scenarios, which ones are more popular, etc.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Yeah loss of automation for the free society stuff is a bad move for me, and frankly this does nothing but make stockholders feel good. It is what it is.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Tikael wrote:

Agree on the twitter thing. Seriously, stop posting to that cesspool and definitely don't reward people for interacting with a place where the owner is an open white supremacist who has multiple times tweaked their chatbot to be more racist and anti-Semitic.

Also, what does this mean for those of us with legacy advantage?

Seconded on Twitter (or whatever it's called these days). Cesspool is a tame word that fails to describe how abhorrently horrid and toxic the platform and the owner are.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
NOM NOM NOM wrote:
Oh come on guys, why are you still on twitter? Come with us to Bluesky

Twitter is far more popular than Bluesky is. It's the unfortunate truth that they still have to advertise over there.

Envoy's Alliance

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, I engage with Paizo's twitter account every week, but still, tying it to Paizo Plus definitely seems unnecessary :) Would love to see the twitter link removed and replaced with Paizo's Bsky link when Paizo Plus goes to release, for sure

Liberty's Edge

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Actually, I think I'm back to not being thrilled about this.

The Society things not being automatic and instead having to spend the Gold/Loyalty program points manually is annoying, but I was already thinking about "Oh, but I can use discounts on things like Novels now" too.

However, Advantage is going away entirely? So I will need to earn 500 gold/spend $500.00 to get a 10% discount on a single purchase when I currently have a Global 15% discount which itself applies to my subscriptions?

Ow.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Torn between the potential freedom of paizo gold over automated society scenarios vs. the reality of my overpopulated graveyard of expired loyalty rewards from every other company.


6 people marked this as a favorite.

Changes could've bee n communicated a bit more clearly. Also would personally think adding the socials at all is a bit tacky (Feels very mobile game), but if y'all want to keep them preferably swap Twitter for Blue Sky or w/e.

Grand Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I counted, and I would only be needing my last 9 months to be legendary if it started today. Looking at the numbers, I could drop the AP sub (for me it was 30% off because of Legacy advantage, so that would be ~250$ less per years) and still manage to keep the 15% off that I had with 4 subs. (I won't drop it, cause I really like my full PF2 AP collection). The only thing I "lose" is the Society scenario, but the gold I gain just in these 9 months is probably enough to get them for free anyway. And I have leftover gold.

So yeah. My quick napkin math do seem to show it being a bit better, even if I will need to do some more manual transactions, as I'll have to redeem that gold to "buy" the society scenarios manually, but eh, I'll also get to use these rewards a bit more flexibly, like the remaining gold will probably be enough to buy a couple lower cost things, like the physical free RPG Day adventure I missed.

And if I didn't want the scenarios (which I do, but I'm talking hypotheticals here), that would be a lot of gold to get discounts on mor products instead of getting scenarios I wouldn't have wanted (hypothetically, of course).

Oh, and that wasn't even counting the birthday gold and the potential review gold!


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
NightTrace wrote:


However, Advantage is going away entirely? So I will need to earn 500 gold/spend $500.00 to get a 10% discount on a single purchase when I currently have a Global 15% discount which itself applies to my subscriptions?

Ow.

We will probably be legendary tier if we currently qualify for paizo advantage. Which will mean we keep our 15% discount. But it's tied to that $750/year threshold now instead of having 4 subs.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yeah, the loss of automation re: Society modules does feel rough (especially knowing how bad I am about spending loyalty points and stuff). But being able to use gold discounts on Novels and boardgames and flipmats and stuff is pretty nice honestly.

If I'm logging in every month to collect my PDF haul anyway, just need to add checking the gold horde to the routine I guess.

Liberty's Edge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
AidAnotherBattleHerald wrote:
NightTrace wrote:


However, Advantage is going away entirely? So I will need to earn 500 gold/spend $500.00 to get a 10% discount on a single purchase when I currently have a Global 15% discount which itself applies to my subscriptions?

Ow.

We will probably be legendary tier if we currently qualify for paizo advantage. Which will mean we keep our 15% discount. But it's tied to that $750/year threshold now instead of having 4 subs.

That's fair. I'm at six subs and I strongly suspect that Paizo gets $750 annual from me already and I'm fine with that to be clear lol.

I'll need more information (which will be coming in the near future it sounds like) but I'm probably a niche/smaller population all things considered. I do believe this will probably continue to be a net positive for most Gamers :D

Vigilant Seal

14 people marked this as a favorite.
JJGYET wrote:
Yeah loss of automation for the free society stuff is a bad move for me, and frankly this does nothing but make stockholders feel good. It is what it is.

Paizo is privately owned and not publicly traded so there are no 'stockholders'.


How will the review writing incentive work with paizo products we received for free, such as scenarios given out as convention support or granted to Venture Agents?

Paizo Employee CEO

10 people marked this as a favorite.
TheTownsend wrote:
They HAVE a Bluesky account, I'm not sure why it's not listed as an option.

I've added Bluesky to the list of available rewards. You should see the graphic and text changes reflected in the blog shortly.

-Jim

Grand Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
NightTrace wrote:
AidAnotherBattleHerald wrote:
NightTrace wrote:


However, Advantage is going away entirely? So I will need to earn 500 gold/spend $500.00 to get a 10% discount on a single purchase when I currently have a Global 15% discount which itself applies to my subscriptions?

Ow.

We will probably be legendary tier if we currently qualify for paizo advantage. Which will mean we keep our 15% discount. But it's tied to that $750/year threshold now instead of having 4 subs.

That's fair. I'm at six subs and I strongly suspect that Paizo gets $750 annual from me already and I'm fine with that to be clear lol.

I'll need more information (which will be coming in the near future it sounds like) but I'm probably a niche/smaller population all things considered. I do believe this will probably continue to be a net positive for most Gamers :D

I'm at 4 subs: PF Rules, PF Adventure, PF Accessories, and PF AP and it would only take me 9 month to hit the 750$, so yeah, if you have 6, your guaranteed... and that's 1150+ gold to spend however you want (I counted the birthday bonus). 20 society scenario is 1000 gold... but like I said, for me that only take about 9 month to hit, so I have 3 more months of gold that are fully "extra".

Grand Archive

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Jim Butler wrote:
TheTownsend wrote:
They HAVE a Bluesky account, I'm not sure why it's not listed as an option.

I've added Bluesky to the list of available rewards. You should see the graphic and text changes reflected in the blog shortly.

-Jim

This is an incredible turnaround speed! :O

But the screenshot now show "completed" instead of the gold reward for joining. :P I see that it was taken on a test server! Which is even more impressive TBH. xD


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Glazed past this before understanding that subscriptions are here to stay, but: adding a voice to the "but why Twitter?" pile.

Follow count or no, I can't imagine it's worth driving people to the hate machine for a couple cents. Feels more like building a branding hit rather than branding recognition?

Acquisitives

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

This seems awfully complicated.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Hello,
To start with, I Have a question on what we can buy on this store with credits ? Will this include anything on the store, including digital product, including foundryVTT products, Flip-Mat, etc…

To continue, I welcome changes, at the end this will provide some more flexibility on how to use our advantages ( depending on the answer above).

Before expressing negative thought I need to understand, does customer last 12 month’s purchases before the start of Paizo+ be taken into account for their initial tier calculation ?

One last question , which may be unrelated, will the store be a able to manage special editions ( like sketch cover or retailer edition) so that we can replace our subscription edition with the special editions ?
To be honnest on this, the customer service is wonderfull, friendly and they are proffessionnal but it’s a bit of an overhead to annoy them each month for this. It’d be more straightforward


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Will Venture Captains have to purchase scenarios with gold now? There's a chance that could cripple my local Society.

Not really a fan of these changes, but that's just me. I'm not a subscriber, so my vote doesn't really count.

Also please don't feed Musk's megalomaniacal hate machine, it goes against everything Paizo stands for.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

5 people marked this as a favorite.

I’m 110% for excuses to throw money at Paizo and improving customer experience. No doubt a lot of work was put into this.

That being said, I’ve grown to absolutely loathe loyalty point systems. They’re uncomfortably manipulative and are often more hassle than they’re worth. I also don’t like having to buy things just so I have the privilege of buying things that other buyers aren’t allowed to buy.

Horizon Hunters

2 people marked this as a favorite.

As an example of why folks are saying "Whyyy twitter??"

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/06/improved-grok-criticizes-democrats-and-ho llywoods-jewish-executives/

Otherwise, yay new site! And as someone not living in the USA, a reward system that doesn't rely on physically-shipped products is very welcome. Now my pdfs will shine slightly brighter :)


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Finally remastering the store

Dark Archive

Oh, Deer Lord wrote:

Will Venture Captains have to purchase scenarios with gold now? There's a chance that could cripple my local Society.

This doesn't interact with the Venture Officer program as I understand it, so there's nothing to worry about in regards to your lodge and scenarios :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Any chance of you creating a Mastodon account for us FOSS absolutists to follow?


Richard Lowe wrote:
Oh, Deer Lord wrote:

Will Venture Captains have to purchase scenarios with gold now? There's a chance that could cripple my local Society.

This doesn't interact with the Venture Officer program as I understand it, so there's nothing to worry about in regards to your lodge and scenarios :)

Thanks


1 person marked this as a favorite.

So previous purchases will not count for gold and previous reviews will not count for gold?


Can the new store front not bury the FVTT modules? Please and thank you lol.


I like this! As someone who isn't subscribed to four lines, I like that I'm able to have something. And I'm also glad you're taking last 12 months into account, I think I'd easily hit that Legendary threshold!

Scarab Sages

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps Subscriber

I can say this is straight out worse for me. I get everything I want from Paizo via my subscriptions (postage to Australia is just too expensive for me to want to go all in). So I lose my legacy 15% advantage for gold I will never spend.


I like it overall, thank you.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jim Butler wrote:
Tikael wrote:
Also, what does this mean for those of us with legacy advantage?

If you have a Legacy Adventure Path subscription, you will have the same subscription when we switch over to the new system.

-Jim

Does the 30% discount remain?

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