3 Month, 6 Month and Yearly Subs
 

I'm curious what people's opinions are on offering discounted long term options. Are you just giving a deal to people that would be with you for months anyways? Effectively biting into your income? I am considering the option of just dropping those options, even though whenever someone does buy them it does feel like a nice bump in revenue, but long term it might not be.

What are you talking about?

A gallery submit account? So you want to offer accounts for submitters and want to know the options?

Monthly would certainly be lucrative. If you traffic is good enough for people to want to renew that's the way to go.

Oops, yes I probably should've been a bit more specific now that I read my message lol.

Sorry it's actually for a porn website, basically the join options.

Ever since I raised my monthly rate I keep staring daggers at my multi-month options, I'm not sure how much sense they make.

My advice would be to take what you can get, when you can get it.

Sure, someone may love your sites so much they'll intentionally rebill month after month, or may forget or die and never cancel their membership. But this is much rarer today than it was some years ago (except for the speed at which people die of course). Today lots of people cancel right away to make sure they're not rebilled, and others don't stick around more than the second month or maybe the third.

The rule I follow is to allow someone to give me as much money as they want to give me, and if someone wants to pay for a year in advance then who am I to tell them I don't want their larger payment.

Just my opinion of course.

:)

I agree with simon, better to get the larger amount now...you just never know what thier situation will be down the road...so this way you lock in and get the bigger dollars that you risk not getting if you take away that option...

Thanks for the advice. I guess where my issue is coming up is that my multi-month options are too generous, and I feel making them more fair(to my end) would just lead to few enough people picking those options that it wouldn't make sense to even offer them at that point. You guys may be right though. The reality is most people are already choosing the trial or per-month options.

Post your pricing details and some folks here can give you feedback on balancing the pricing so it works well for you. If you're not getting that many longer signups, it may actually be that your 6- and 12-month memberships are too expensive compared to the perceived value. And that can be because of the tour, the amount and quality of content shown on the tour and to members*, the frequency and size of updates mentioned on the tour, and how the pricing offers themselves are presented on the join page (among other things).

* I mention members since they're one of the best sources for longer signups. If the members area is great, some will cancel and then re-join for a longer term (because some surfers are good at math).




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One site I push a lot has just two options.

1. Higher price, if you join for a single month, no re-bills.

2. Lower price per month, re-billed automatically.

This way, if a person is freaked about re-bills, they can still join, but they pay a premium. Personally I like this model better, and I get a nice boost in income for their fear. I think multi-month options are opening yourself up to people getting access for months, asking for a refund, and you've lost a bigger chunk of income. My 2 cents.

What I mean by 'generous' is I'm giving too much of a deal. Currently I have a $4.95 3 day trial, a $26.95 per month option and then a $49.95 for 3 months and $75.95 for 6 months option. I am certainly getting more multi-month subs than when I was offering say 6 months for $100, but again does that mean I'm making more money now? Not necessarily. From experience, at least with the price of the monthly subscriptions, if you go too low you can only make less money, the multi-month options are still a I don't really know thing.

Interesting alternative. I have seen that around, but not in an abundance. Good to hear it's been working out for you. Interesting that people are willing to pay a high price just to save a minute of their time. What percentage would you say choose the no rebill option? I haven't had a lot of success removing the trial. Though I do occasionally remove it during special events/promotions.

I agree with Simon we had a few yearly memberships sign up this week alone.

I have a sponsor that has many price points including the higher nonrecurring which I see a lot of, so it made me wonder. I looked at this sponsors stats for the year and 51% went with recurring and 49% actually picked the higher non recurring option. Figured this might be of interest to you so here is the complete breakdown with pricing:
30 day recurring at $30 - 43.5%
90 day recurring at $60 - 2.5%
1 year recurring at $99 - 5%
30 day nonrecur at $40 - 33.5%
90 day nonrecur at $70 - 10.5%
1 year nonrecur at $110 - 5%

Ok I think I'm going to dabble in adding non-recurring options rather than removing any of the multi-month options. People are right, wanting rebills is one thing, expecting most people to rebill is pretty ridiculous.

Thanks for the info

I went and looked for the year to see what the breakdown was.

59% Single month purchase - 39.95
41% reoccurring monthly - 29.95

So for this site, more bought the single month.

Maybe it's something for another niche, because the signups weren't too hot when I tried the no rebill options. I think I'm just going to rework how I sell the multi-month options. Btw not complaining, I appreciate the help and it was interesting trying it out for a week. My competition isn't doing this kind of stuff so it might've come across as odd for the visitor.

If your considering other options we are about to test a one price buys it all option. Let you know how it goes.

Do you mean a lifetime subscription? Or multiple website subscriptions? Lifetime subs seem to me like quick money now but could cause a problem down the road.