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15 Comments

Selling a subscription is more difficult than I thought!

Selling a subscription is more difficult than I thought, recently we transformed ๐Ÿ‘‰ https://lineicons.com/ from a one-time purchase product to a yearly subscription model SaaS (with a huge update). As we released a new big update with more icons, sales should have increased, and guess what? sales declined about 20% from the previous month!

People feel committed and not happy about recurring payments, I think I will feel the same way sometimes as a customer, that's why we had to create options for lifetime packages. It's kinda playing with user psychology and trial and error with the pricing structure.

I am still happy since there is no other way to survive with a product that needs regular updates (new icons) and supporting services (CDN) that cost you money.

Let me know your thoughts on this ๐Ÿ™Œ
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MusharofChy

  1. 4

    People only get angry if you change something they paid for already. I wouldn't change any of the past buyers access. Give them what they paid for. Add in a subscription model for new customers and offer a LTD that's HUGE, make it a huge price. And offer packages at one time price. That's a perfectly normal model. You get some subs, you get some one time sales.

    Make sure you have a system that you can email updates.

    I do this with Gumroad and Outseta for my tutorials, BetterSheets.

    1. 1

      Hi Andrew,
      Thanks for your opinion on this. Yeah, I have to balance the pricing and maybe make LTD more lucrative and easy to access besides subscriptions.

  2. 3

    There's particular products that people just don't see as a recurring service, and don't want to pay recurring for.

  3. 3

    maybe you could offer various packs and the subscription at a discount.

    If you not an agency of some kind or larger business you probably don't need a subscription.

    1. 1

      Good point, noted on this.
      Thanks

  4. 3

    awesome to see your progress turning this into subscription model! Many customers will benefit from it. ๐Ÿ‘ to more subscriptions! ๐Ÿคฉโœจ

    1. 1

      Thanks fajar, I hope so there was no other way to make a progressive product and make it better gradually. I am getting a lot of email complaints from old customers and sales drop but I will keep this as it is.

  5. 2

    Hitting a similar wall at the moment with OpinionX. Our usage is ad hoc for now (before we build in stickier features like integration partners), so we're trying to figure out how much of our churn is "pausing" versus "leaving".

  6. 2

    As someone who randomly needs icons sometimes (not a designer), paying for a subscription is a good option. But $29 would probably deter me unless there was an icon I REALLY needed.

    I wonder if the issue is not the pricing, but the way you're presenting it. Do you know what's changed? Where did users start dropping off where they converted previously?

    1. 1

      Thanks for your input with really good explanation, I will re-think about entire pricing model and try comes up with a sustainable solution.

  7. 2

    As someone who purchases Icons and vector art on a somewhat regular basis. I can say that I wouldn't want to sign up for a subscription either. For this type of purchase I much prefer just paying for each item individually.

    1. 1

      Makes sense, I might need to rethink about the entire pricing. Thanks for sharing your views ๐Ÿ˜Š

      1. 3

        Also check out what your competitors do. Some sell a combination of subscriptions and flat fee options like โ€œ10 icons of your choice for $Xโ€.

  8. 1

    Hi

    Subscriptions are better for the long run even if it is harder to sell it, congrats on the change!

    I think that now that you have subscriptions the communication with your subscribers will be KEY!, so that they can clearly see what you deliver overtime and that their subscription value grows over time.

    1. 1

      That was the main reason of change actually, I mentioned on post. I don't think it's possible to maintain a progressive product and sell it for lifetime. Thanks for understanding my perception and support ๐Ÿ™

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