YAY!! All good news. I'd rather be able to do all of this than ONLY be able to offer straight up subscriptions (even if it means there's no 3 or 6 month option). 🥳
Good luck with paid, as and when you turn it on, and remember to think about the annual amount, if you want to ease in gently.
Having said that, one of my first Paid subs on 'Off on a Tangent' was an annual, very soon after I started it, and it really helped me maintain focus, as I didn't want to give a refund! 😉
I think with the usual Tip Jar it's off putting as it's down to the User to determine how much, and people don't want to guess it wrong and look too tight. With this, you can determine how much the tip jar is, so I reckon £2 feels about right.
One thing to bear in mind is that the smaller the payment, the bigger the percentage Stripe takes, so with £1, you only see about 78p, with £2 you get £1.78 etc.
Really helpful post - thank you! I would love to offer (and be offered) the option for 3 and 6-month memberships rather than annual for the exact reasons you mentioned. Going from a 1-month interval to 12 is quite the ask for many. Hoping Substack reads your article and listens!
I do hope Substack offers more flexibility on how people get paid. I’d love to offer a mastermind-type membership with a minimum commitment, but will do it off Substack because they don’t allow that. The off-ramping is a big issue because I’m not totally bought into this as a business model or even add on, and wish I’d thought about that more clearly before turning on subscriptions. My backup plan is to offer annual subscribers the choice of additional value, like access to previous things I’ve created, or a refund. But if Substack wants to truly position itself as a way for creators to get paid, that part of the platform needs to become much more flexible and sophisticated. Part of the reason I’m not sold on the platform is that it ends up making my business much more confusing. I don’t want to end up with a million platforms doing a million things.
Yeah, I agree, I'm trying to use as few platforms as possible, but there are a few blockers on Substack that prevent you using it as a normal website, like the Welcome screen, I wish we could turn it off. Sigh.
I'd love to be able to offer a 3 month membership for a one-off payment too, as I know from my experience in subscription products, some people will buy that and not a subscription.
I think people are getting a bit fed up with gathering subscriptions, 'micropayments to view' could be the answer, but the payment gateways do make small payments very expensive.
YAY!! All good news. I'd rather be able to do all of this than ONLY be able to offer straight up subscriptions (even if it means there's no 3 or 6 month option). 🥳
Agreed, this gives us huge flexibility! 👏
Excellent as always. Thanks for the clarification!
I think customizing payments will definitely help many of us, since a lot of substackers offer services…
Thanks for this helpful guide Kate! I’m not ready to start a paid offer yet, but great to have the ground rules to hand for when I am 😁
Good luck with paid, as and when you turn it on, and remember to think about the annual amount, if you want to ease in gently.
Having said that, one of my first Paid subs on 'Off on a Tangent' was an annual, very soon after I started it, and it really helped me maintain focus, as I didn't want to give a refund! 😉
It works both ways!
you're so creative and smart about this!
Thanks Alice, hopefully people will find it useful. ✔️
Ooh very interesting & simplified too which is what I like. I do sometimes think about the old tip jar …. 🫙
I think with the usual Tip Jar it's off putting as it's down to the User to determine how much, and people don't want to guess it wrong and look too tight. With this, you can determine how much the tip jar is, so I reckon £2 feels about right.
One thing to bear in mind is that the smaller the payment, the bigger the percentage Stripe takes, so with £1, you only see about 78p, with £2 you get £1.78 etc.
Ah ok thank you ☺️
Really helpful post - thank you! I would love to offer (and be offered) the option for 3 and 6-month memberships rather than annual for the exact reasons you mentioned. Going from a 1-month interval to 12 is quite the ask for many. Hoping Substack reads your article and listens!
I have been talking to them directly about this, so am really hoping it’s now on their discussion table at least. 🤞
That’s great! Thanks for doing this!🩶
Very helpful information! Thanks.
I do hope Substack offers more flexibility on how people get paid. I’d love to offer a mastermind-type membership with a minimum commitment, but will do it off Substack because they don’t allow that. The off-ramping is a big issue because I’m not totally bought into this as a business model or even add on, and wish I’d thought about that more clearly before turning on subscriptions. My backup plan is to offer annual subscribers the choice of additional value, like access to previous things I’ve created, or a refund. But if Substack wants to truly position itself as a way for creators to get paid, that part of the platform needs to become much more flexible and sophisticated. Part of the reason I’m not sold on the platform is that it ends up making my business much more confusing. I don’t want to end up with a million platforms doing a million things.
Yeah, I agree, I'm trying to use as few platforms as possible, but there are a few blockers on Substack that prevent you using it as a normal website, like the Welcome screen, I wish we could turn it off. Sigh.
I'd love to be able to offer a 3 month membership for a one-off payment too, as I know from my experience in subscription products, some people will buy that and not a subscription.
I think people are getting a bit fed up with gathering subscriptions, 'micropayments to view' could be the answer, but the payment gateways do make small payments very expensive.
Will keep trying to find a solution! 😉
Oh amazing! Thank you Kate, such a lovely surprise, I’d completely forgot you were offering a reward for restacking. 🤎
Welcome to the VIP lounge, I will DM you the orientation notes! 🤓