Guides
Practical guides for independent media brands on finding what your audience will pay for, pricing and launching a subscription, and keeping subscribers.
How to find out what your audience will pay for
Validate a paid product idea before you build it: mine replies and search, analyse your archive, interview engaged readers and run a pre-sale.
Membership, paid newsletter or community
Compare subscription business models for creators: paid publications, memberships, communities, tools, courses and bundles, and what each takes to run.
How to price a paid newsletter or membership
A practical guide to pricing a paid newsletter or membership: monthly vs annual, tiers, founding members, regional pricing and when to raise prices.
How to launch a paid subscription
A step-by-step guide to launching a paid newsletter or subscription to your existing audience, from founding members to the first 90 days of metrics.
Which engagement metrics matter for a media brand
Pageviews and list size measure reach, not habit. The engagement metrics that point to loyalty and paid conversion, and how to track them weekly.
How to measure subscriber retention by cohort
Totals hide churn. How to group subscribers by join month and entry point, build a retention table and read where the curve flattens.
Reduce involuntary churn from failed payments
Failed payments cost you subscribers who meant to stay. A practical guide to retries, dunning emails, card updaters and grace periods.
What subscription billing infrastructure has to get right
Billing is more than a payments provider. What media companies need from entitlements, webhooks, uptime, fraud controls, tax and migrations.
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