Membership Site Fee's---- What is the average? How much would you pay? What is too much?

That's what I am wondering....it seems like anything $20 or under gets the most results. So if you are completely over delivering at that price (like you should be charging $67 or $97) then your turnover would more than likely be lower.....but

if you are converting at $20 on the front end and under delivering then you obviously have a higher attrition rate.


I have seen an impact with price points over the past 12 months with standard paid products...and now I am trying to gauge memberships.
Not being as involved in this area it would be nice to hear from those who have successful membership sites

This is an eye opener. I am always of the opinion that a yearly billing is better like the domain name fees

Hello,

I am preparing to launch an online newspaper membership and am conducting research on membership prices and affiliate fees percentages. Would be grateful for any info and help to launch. It will have a view to raising funds for humanitarian projects.

I am considering Post Launch Monthly Membership Fee of 49.90 with Prelaunch Special Price at 29 or 29.99.

This will bring the Post Launch Annual fees to : 598.8 and Prelaunch Annual fees to 348 ( @29 per mth) or 359.88 ( @29.99 per mth).

Please could you feed back if you think:
- Monthly 29 or 29.99 is best.
- Annual 348 or 359 is best.

Based on recent research, it seems affiliate fees are about 20% on average and can go up to 50%.

I am considering 20% with incentives up to 33% for collective site sale targets reached during the campaign or 25% with incentives up to 36%

Collective Site Sales = If the campaign reaches targeted number of memberships, then a bonus is paid to all affiliates with special recognition to high performers.

Also, wondering if any members have data as to how many memberships can be expected in a single campaign, ... would that be about 25,000 or like 100,000?

Thanks in advance for any info and help.

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Hey Sean,

There is no pat answer - not even an "average".
Any membership that could be written off as a business expense (i.e. marketing related) will bring a higher price than a membership targeted at most niche markets.

In the niche markets, a personal finance membership would most certainly command a higher fee than a woodworking, craft, or cooking membership.

Is it an interactive membership (i.e. forum or private blog) - some way for the members to interact with each other? Or is it a periodic content delivery (private blog, email, downloads) membership, providing no contact with other members/the owner?

I think (maybe without realizing it) you acknowledged that with your initial exclusion:
Instead of targeting a price up front, you should be trying to define the membership benefits.

Then (especially if the membership is interactive)...
define your absolute rock-bottom cost to deliver those benefits.

That's your launch price, available only to early adopters - and it's a locked in price that stays the same as long as those "charter members" retain their membership.

Once you have had a chance to analyze the conversion rate on your sales (member recruitment) page, raise the monthly fee by x% (based on your known conversion rate).

Track the conversion rate for this new price separately so that you can compare it to the original. Track member retention separately as well, so that you know the average retention rate at $x/mo. versus the average retention rate at $y/mo.

Note - this is not necessarily your final price. You can do this as many times as needed to determine what monthly fee results in the highest value per member.

Kudos Elysia,

^^^ THIS ^^^

Increasing retention should be the overriding concern with any membership site, and if you can reach out (email, SMS notification, etc.) to your member base on a regular basis - even if only to let them know of a new download or interesting post in the members area - you will reinforce their decision to continue paying that monthly fee.