Pricing well is an art, and there’s no one right pricing strategy for every company, or even every media business.
Experiment, and keep experimenting. Align your pricing with your company goals and subscriber demand. And make sure you have a platform that will support your testing and various pricing plans.
Flexible pricing and packaging is key to the success of your subscription business whether you go for a freemium model (giving visitors limited access to free content), promotional rates, content/format bundles, or a fixed fee all access plan.
Here are some of the more common pricing packages that you may want to consider:
FREEMIUM PRICING
The freemium model increases the probability of customer acquisition, since your content will be accessible to subscribers who are not yet ready to make a commitment. If free content such as pilot episodes or feature articles help to convert prospective subscribers to paying subscribers, your commerce system will certainly need to accommodate this model.
PROMOTIONAL PRICING
To help convert prospects to customers, you may choose to offer marketing promotions, which can be:
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- Time-based (e.g., 50% discount for the first 3 months)
- Volume-based (e.g., tiered pricing, whereby additional units become progressively cheaper)
- Or both.
Eligibility for promotions can be dictated by a multitude of factors such as geographic location, customer type, usage, etc.
The lure of promotions to increase customer acquisition rates is powerful. The downside is that an over-reliance on promotions can erode value and train prospects to demand a promotion before signing up.