Bluesky put the tip jar on the profile

TL;DR

Most apps say, “Stay here and spend here.” Bluesky now says, “Go where you already get paid.”

Bluesky’s new profile links sit directly below the bio, and links to Patreon and Ko-fi automatically show as green support buttons that open the creator’s own payment page.

Before you post, ask yourself: “If someone liked this enough to pay me, what would their first tap be?”

Look at enough creator profiles and you start to notice the same small tax. Someone likes a post, opens the profile, taps the link in the bio, lands on a page of more links, and then has to work out which one is the tip jar. Every extra step loses a few people who meant well.

Bluesky has quietly removed most of those steps.

What changed#

On 22 October Bluesky added profile links. You open Edit Profile, add a URL in the new Links section, give it a title if you want one, and drag the links into the order you like. They appear directly below your bio, and people on mobile can tap and hold a link to see the full address before opening it.

Bluesky’s own framing is pointed. “Unlike traditional ‘link in bio’ pages, which require visitors to click through a pop-up or another page before visiting your links, Bluesky’s profile links send your followers directly where you’d like them to go.”

Then the part creators will notice first: “links to payment platforms like Patreon and Ko-fi automatically appear as prominent green buttons on profiles.” Bluesky doesn’t take the payment. The button simply opens the creator’s existing Patreon or Ko-fi page, and the post names no cut, no prices and no fees.

Letting people leave is the pitch#

Most platforms try hard to keep both the audience and the money inside the app. Tips, subscriptions and gifts all live behind the platform’s own checkout, because that is where the platform earns. We have written before about platforms paying creators to show up, and on 1 November Social Media Today, citing Business Insider, reported that Instagram had offered some creators as much as $500,000 to post long videos to its new Features format. Meta would only say it is “funding Features content directly with some creators.”

Bluesky is making the opposite bet. It says it wants to help creators “build businesses beyond the platform, rather than trying to keep all that activity inside Bluesky,” and calls profile links “a first step toward a broader vision of creator monetization across the Atmosphere,” its name for the apps built on the AT Protocol. Over time it wants memberships that work across apps, so a creator’s business isn’t tied to one platform. That part is a plan, not a product, and Bluesky gives no date.

The order of your links is now a decision#

Once links sit on the profile itself, the profile stops being a bio and starts working like a shop window. Whatever sits first gets the tap. Whatever sits fourth is mostly decoration.

That makes the boring choices matter. Plain titles beat clever ones, because “Support my comics” tells a visitor what happens next and “Art stuff” doesn’t. The last line of the bio can explain what supporters get, so the green button reads as an offer rather than a request. And anyone running several accounts should check that the first tap on each one goes where they actually earn, whether that is a shop, a newsletter or a tip jar.

It’s a small feature. Small features that remove a tap tend to show up in the money first.

Sources: Bluesky: Introducing Profile Links (22 Oct 2026) · PPC Land: Bluesky puts Patreon and Ko-fi pay buttons at the top of creator profiles · Social Media Today: Instagram offers to pay creators for long-form content (1 Nov 2026)