Case Study: Patreon achieves automated data privacy and scalable, secure email with Mailgun

Optimizing data privacy for scalable and secure email programs with Mailgun by Pathwire and Transcend

Patreon, the global membership platform for creators (200,000+ creators and 6 million active patrons), faced a growing compliance and operational challenge: honoring GDPR/CCPA-style data access and deletion requests across many systems, including transactional email sent through Mailgun by Pathwire. Manually coordinating privacy requests with Mailgun and other SaaS vendors was time-consuming, error-prone, and risky as email volume scaled.

Patreon solved this by integrating Transcend’s data privacy infrastructure with Mailgun—connecting via a Mailgun API key to automate access and erasure actions, maintain an audit trail, and enforce end-to-end encryption so Transcend never sees raw user data. The result: hundreds of thousands of privacy requests are handled automatically, saving time and money, reducing risk, improving deliverability, and ensuring customer privacy preferences are honored without manual busywork.

Patreon

Jason Bilog

Marketing Operations Manager