How Much Could We Charge For Memberships?

[Lee]

So i was just wondering, what price point do you think surfers would pay to access our sites if everyone suddenly changed their pricing options to the same thing?

I know a lot of sites charge between $15 and $40 right now for 1 months membership but, do you think we'll ever see a time where 1 months membership costs $100 or more and surfers will pay that price?

Where do you think the absolute cap for paysite pricing lays?

Regards,

Lee

[maxpower]

Never say never, I am sure in 2099 we could charge 100$ for a membership I wish we could up the price as things become a bit more stagnant, but that is not what is happening in fact I am about to drop the price of a site to 9.99. If you ask me “I know you probably would not” we are in a bit of a vicious cycle with all this, lower prices, more free stuff, less interested viewers, and more competition, that said you can still make some good sales, but things on the horizon are not getting better by a long shot.

[DEVELISH]

Howdy Lee,

I bet if you have some very exclusive content which is not available in an small niche then yes, you could charge $100 - I bet there is some very kinky BSDM stuff where you can't get much content - If you then could offer a relatively large amount of that very specific content it would work.

DEVELISH

[abostonboy]

I know a lot of sites charge between $15 and $40 right now for 1 months membership but, do you think we'll ever see a time where 1 months membership costs $100 or more and surfers will pay that price?

Where do you think the absolute cap for paysite pricing lays?

Based on inflation, maybe. Right now the cap on gay is $50 and that is high. Though there are striaght sites that have had a $49.95 for a long time.

$30 is the best for rev-share as a cap. And $40 for PPS. But then, i still feel the best price if you offer no trial is $24.95 (It works as far as conversions go just as well as 19.95) Once you hit $30+ w/o a trial you better offer something no one else does.

A lot depends on if you offer a trial or no trial and if your goal is to keep a surfer a long time or a short time. Anybody will pay anything once. It's getting them to pay that price over and over that is the bitch.

[Xstr8guy]

I thought I had heard years ago that there was a straight Japanese site that charged $100 per month. I can't remember for the life of me what it was.

[gaybucks_chip]

I remember reading in one of the media articles that some of the CP sites were charging outrageous sums, $89/month and up... which, of course, they could justify because it was content that one couldn't legally get anywhere. Often this was apparently done by making the surfer purchase memberships at two different websites that the CP operator was an affiliate of.

I think if you had something so completely new, unusual, and desirable, AND something that had reasonable barriers to entry so that someone else couldn't just swipe the idea, you would able to command a premium price, at least until others in the industry were able to copy it

[abostonboy]

at least until others in the industry were able to copy it

which would be about 1 week.

[basschick]

assuming we're talking about legal content, while some people might pay over $50 for something truly amazing, i expect retention would suffer.

and i believe ccbill has a $99.99 cap or something of this sort.

[abostonboy]

assuming we're talking about legal content, while some people might pay over $50 for something truly amazing, i expect retention would suffer.

and i believe ccbill has a $99.99 cap or something of this sort.

I think VISA changed the playingfield a bit as well. Chargebacks can kill ya!

[desslock]

So i was just wondering, what price point do you think surfers would pay to access our sites if everyone suddenly changed their pricing options to the same thing? Do you think we'll ever see a time where 1 months membership costs $100 or more and surfers will pay that price? Where do you think the absolute cap for paysite pricing lays? Regards, Lee

Lee

I always find it interesting seeing discussions about pricing models on GWW. The classic dillemmas and attempts for knowledge all completely coincide with the conclusions economists make in studying prices.

What if your competitors changed their prices? How should that effect yours? Why shouldn't sites all charge $100?

In Game Theory, there is a famous case called the Prisoner's Dillemma. This is used to show how difficult price cooperation is, even if it is mutually beneficial:

Two prisoners have been arrested for the same offense and are held in different cells. Each has two options: Confess or tell nothing. One could confess and agree to testify as state's witness, receiving a light sentence while the other gets a heavy sentence.

They can both say nothing, may be lucky and both get off, owing to lack of firm evidence. Or they could both confess and both receive lighter sentences as opposed to having someone testify against him.

The second outcome would be best for both prisoners. However the RISK that the other might confess and turn state witness is likely to enourage both to confess, landing them with tougher sentences than if they'd both stayed silent.

Very often, businesses behave like these prisoners, not setting prices as high as they could if they only trusted the others firms not to undercut them.

As a result they are worse off.

[CorbinFisher_BD]

I think you could get away with charging well in to the hundreds of dollars per membership per month, so long as your content justified doing so in the eyes of the members and they felt the quality and value was there.

For example, say you had a site to which membership was capped at a certain number of individuals, and your main selling point of the site was that each member, per month, got to request a specific type of video. A specific scenario, act, so on (that was legal of course). Their membership included being able to request such a thing, as well as being able to view all the videos requested by others. Or even create different levels of membership... a "voyeur" level (still with a relatively high price point) to see all the requests of others, and participant level (considerably higher price point) for 1 request a quarter, an even higher one for one request a month. So on so on. That way you could still build up a decent membership base without overextending yourself when it comes to creating all the content.

There are people out there with extremely particular tastes and fetishes, if you will, and who have either the disposable income or the severe need and desire to see very specific stuff that they'd pay eagerly.

Sure, you'd not have tons and tons of members, but the small group of members you did have would each be paying quite a bit.

Just throwin shit out there.

I had a friend who did something similar - he and his friends would make per-request porn for individuals, who'd keep the only copies and would pay well in to 4 figures for a single vid. And everything they did was legal (on video, at least... don't even wanna know if they 1099d their models or maintained great records or anything ) but they had no shortage of demand.

[Lee]

Their membership included being able to request such a thing, as well as being able to view all the videos requested by others. Or even create different levels of membership... a "voyeur" level (still with a relatively high price point) to see all the requests of others, and participant level (considerably higher price point) for 1 request a quarter, an even higher one for one request a month. So on so on.

Strange you should mention that

Ive actually been shopping around lately at a bunch of exclusive content providers with something like this in mind however, the problem that im running in to is that a lot of providers dont maintain a 'stable' of models on their books to properly be able to facilitate such a venture at the present time at least, not for the niches that im considering running it on.

I have seen sites that do this in the past and it has always struck my curiosity factor to see just how well something along these lines would not only work for the site owner but, figuring out how to base the affiliate pay scale on such a business model.

As i say, if could find some custom providers that did have a wide reach of models on their books id be all of that like a fly on shit but, until these producers im contacting are able to give me a solid library of models that they have and, are able to continue working with i have a feeling this is going to be quite a way off for me right now.

In essence, this would take the usability of an adult website to the next level, where the members actually get to dictate what they want and, how much they would be willing to pay for that exclusive content.

Regards,

Lee

[abostonboy]

I had a friend who did something similar - he and his friends would make per-request porn for individuals, who'd keep the only copies and would pay well in to 4 figures for a single vid. And everything they did was legal (on video, at least... don't even wanna know if they 1099d their models or maintained great records or anything ) but they had no shortage of demand.

We did the same thing as well with some of our videos now that i think about it. Some members just had fetishes and they wanted to see ceratin models do it.

[tigermom]

I think that pricing depends on the quality of the site. IF you can guarantee very high quality (in terms of the plot/fantasy/content, not just resolution) and exclusive content, not seen anywhere else, you could probably ask for $50 a month without a problem. But it does have to be a lot of content, niche specific and exclusive.

As for the porn-on-demand idea, I think it's cool, and it basically corresponds to the idea of live private cam shows. How much do people pay for a one-on-one session with a hot and cooperative model? They are pretty much generating their own porn that way... asking things and even communicating with the person on the other side.