Membership Prices

[Fantasy Content]

Hi,
I was hoping to get some advise...we are getting ready to open our first membership site and my question is we are trying to figure out what to charge for a membership. In the research we have done it appears that most sites charge 19.95. We were thinking of startig out at 9.95 instead of 19.95 in an effort to build our memberships faster and to try and set ourselves apart from other sites. What I have been told is that anyone willing to pay 9.95 to enter a members site is also going to be willing to pay 19.95 so I have been told not to cut myself to short. Does anyone have any advise on this?

[shunga]

You might find, depending on how much content you have, that $9.95 is too low to cover your expenses, the processors fees, fraud, and give you a good profit. And depending on how often you update you should be looking for at least one rebill, which is the upper cap for the membership fee. Too high and you'll get fewer rebills. It's impossible to give a definitive answer without numbers on content and updates.

[Fantasy Content]

Good points...we plan to start out updading monthly until we get some members then we will do it weekly. As far as the amount of content we plan to just keep adding and archiving so that the site will only get bigger as we go. The type of content...will be pictures, video clips and full length videos. If you send me your email I can forward the URL to you...I would love to get any feedback I can! My email is dan@fantasycontent.com

[XSV]

This is just my opinion and a generalization without knowing your site details... update your site daily if you want to retain the members and have as much exclusive or semi-exclusive content as possible.

[Fantasy Content]

Wow Daily would be very time consuming for one site! What about adding some affiliates that give you galleries that are updated daily?

[richard]

XVS has a good point, update daily = members love you.

Or... make it look like you are updating daily with some cool programming ;)

[McMike]

Originally posted by richard:
<STRONG>XVS has a good point, update daily = members love you.

Or... make it look like you are updating daily with some cool programming ;)</STRONG>

Anybody know some scripts that can take care of this?

[Fantasy Content]

Yes, If any one has a script please let me know. :)

[shane]

premiumcontent.com has daily galleries

[WiredGuy]

The other point if you want to start off at 9.95 is that are members going to be happy when you double your prices? I assume you want to start at 9.95 and then go to 19.95. The existing members are going to find that double the prices may not be worth while, unless your planning on keeping those members at the 9.95 rate which complicates things and makes your costs higher initially.

If your planning to go to 19.95 I honestly think you should start there. Since most sites charge about 29.95-49.95 I think $19.95 is a good deal.

WG

[Due]

If you need advise on what price to set on your members area I can say 99.95% sure you WILL FAIL.
You need to look at what you can offer and then think about the price you would like to get.
Are you going to offer any partnership deals - 50/50 or whatever then what does your partners whant as a min. to promote your sites?
If you are serious about your project then hirrer a company to find your most optimal prices. If not spend the next 6-7 months trying to pick out the best price and if you are lucky you will succeed.
You have to charge the most expensive price you can and still let the surfer think he get it cheap ;)

[shunga]

A $9.95 or even a $19.95 site would find it difficult to update every day without a good membership base. But I wouldn't update once a month. A paysite really has to update at least once a week. Also members that signed up at $9.95 would be rebilled at that rate, even if you increased the membership fee, depending on what processing method you used, of course.

[shunga]

Originally posted by Due:
<STRONG>If you need advise on what price to set on your members area I can say 99.95% sure you WILL FAIL.</STRONG>

We all wonder about pricing sometimes, Due, it doesn't mean we don't know what we're doing, though. ;)

[boneprone]

hey babe.
BP4L

[Fantasy Content]

Yes...these are all great points. We are doing all the research we can so that we can be sucessful ;)

We pretty much know what we are going to do but want to bounce a few things of others to see what they are doing or think.

[battuss]

Originally posted by Due:
<STRONG>If you need advise on what price to set on your members area I can say 99.95% sure you WILL FAIL.
You need to look at what you can offer and then think about the price you would like to get.
Are you going to offer any partnership deals - 50/50 or whatever then what does your partners whant as a min. to promote your sites?
If you are serious about your project then hirrer a company to find your most optimal prices. If not spend the next 6-7 months trying to pick out the best price and if you are lucky you will succeed.
You have to charge the most expensive price you can and still let the surfer think he get it cheap ;)</STRONG>

You often speak the truth but now i think you are a bit pessimistic
Telling her there's a 99.5% chance she will fail because she's in doubt of the price sounds a bit harsh. Im running a paysite for a year now and im always in doubt what price to use :) But my site is far from being a failure.

But to stay on topic:
In a day or two i will launch a new site and its gonna be 29.95. Why? Because if the member is attracted to the site and he like's the tour he will pay it anyway. I got exclusive content and they wont find it anywhere else. Its as simple as that. A good example is teenflood. One of my best selling sponsors. I used them when they asked 20 a month and they did well and when they changed to 30 a month they still did well, maybe even better! Asking 24.95$ or more does not scare the visitor away. I only scares those away who want a 2.95% signup or a free signup. Asking a high price will make the surfer think there's alot to see inside and can actually have a good effect on the signup behaviour. Unless you open a 13 in a dozen teensite with nothing new (which you dont cause you showed me yesterday) i'd say there's nothing wrong with asking 19.95 or higher. Don't go with 9.95 or something, its just losing money.

My 2 dutch cents (soon euro cents)

[battuss]

Hmm, reading back it looks a bit weird, first i say im always in doubt and then i explain what prices to use :) Let say it this way, i used to be in doubt, not anymore :)

[fantasyc]

Originally posted by Due:
<STRONG>If you need advise on what price to set on your members area I can say 99.95% sure you WILL FAIL.
</STRONG>


That is totally untrue!! What a narrowminded opinion, with that attitude you won't last long ;)
Along with shopping other competitors it is always good to ask the advice of other webmasters :)
By the way, Fantasy Content is definately not me, he is very male ;).

[battuss]

Originally posted by fantasyc:
<STRONG>

By the way, Fantasy Content is definately not me, he is very male ;).</STRONG>

Oops :)

[Unknown]

If you need a script for simulating rapid updates, (Like daily, random or hourly galleries, pictures or feeds etc), just send me details and I'll cook something up for you.

UIN is in my profile.

[basschick]

i don't really see the point of a very low membership fee unless you have very little content. $24.95 or even $29.95 would do fine. after all, if you sell only one membership at $29.95, you have sold the financial equivalent of 3 memberships at $9.95.

we dropped the trials on the pantysite, and make almost the exact same number of sales at $29.95 that we did with trials - only now even if they cancel, we get a full month's $.

we update every other day, but it doesn't take that long. just use thumbsplus and put a link up on the main page :-) also if you have some live feeds in there, and chat, the members will always have something new to do.

once a month updates are not competitive with even the smallest sites. some lease galleries update daily, so that is something that may take the heat off you.

[Avatar]

I must agree with basschick. Charge $29.95 rather than $3.95 if the bottom line is the same. Reduced members is reduced bandwidth and reduced support. Well at least on my moviesites.