[sytelus]

While this is well written, I would urge people to NOT to follow this advice. Subscriber churn is a real thing and losing $1000/yr subscriber hurts way more than losing $100/yr subscriber. Additionally, it takes an order of magnitude more effort for conversion and your product has to almost match the utility of a smartphone produced by $1T company to even demand that kind of automated recurring payments. The vast majority of fun creative content won't qualify for this anyway.

However, my bigger beef is with the subscriber model itself which somehow every person wants to impose for their next product. The fact is that it is much easier to convince me to pay $10 to get a new release instead of forcing on me $10/yr subscription. The subscription should be optional merely provided as a convenience to the customers who find themselves paying you again and again, not as requirement to use your product. This is a true customer-obsessed point of view. If you have something good to sell, make at least part of it free so people know the value to expect. Rest make it one-time fee and create your upgrades/releases appealing enough so people buy them recurringly!

[modo_mario]

>The fact is that it is much easier to convince me to pay $10 to get a new release instead of forcing on me $10/yr subscription.

For the average person this is not the case assuming you as a creator are trying to extract similar value. That means you're pushing out a new release every year. That either means the new release invalidates the old one or is so enticing every time that people keep buying it without skipping releases as they think about it or are reminded unlike a subscription which can be automated.

[busterarm]

Do both instead. Do something where you can offer tiers. Group lessons (100/yr subscribers) vs Individualized (1000/yr).

[sytelus]

I'd suggest not doing tiers. Segmentation is repulsive. Why do I ever want to be a bronze-level customer in your product world? It perhaps makes sense for products that have monopolized or established firmly or where costs are truely substantial as feature/utilization is increased. However, most likely is often the side effect of throwing in the MBA part of your brain to squeeze in that last bit of revenue juice without you having to improve the tech. In essence, just luring in customers with "low starting from..." prices and then telling them they are fools to expect those prices. I tend to distrust products that rely on segmentation to inflate revenues and I think they are often ripe for disruption. At least, for creative/educational products please don't tell your customers that they are 3rd class citizens in your world unless they allow you to completely squeeze them out.

[stingraycharles]

Different price tiers are a completely normal thing. Put another way, why would I have to buy the premium package when all I want is much more simple?

Trying to make all your customers fit just one single pricing model is bad for business.

[aj-4]

"Segmentation is repulsive" -- this makes no sense as a blanket statement without product context.

[Kiro]

Tiers have worked out amazingly on Patreon. It's monumental.

[mikro2nd]

I didn't read the article as advice, rather as pointing up/sharpening the differences between two variants of online subscription model.