Introducing a fee, when is it appropriate?

We've hit a few thousand members now, should we start charging?

[websocials]

Hello everyone.

New here, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Norb, been a webmaster for many years now, and finaly decided to open up our own pay site (online community,dating,socializing,etc.), and we've recently reached over 2500 members, with at least 50% posting full profiles and being active on a daily. The site get 6 figure reload per month, and signups range between 10-25 a day.

We were thinking of starting our fee system when we reached at least 100K members, though this seams unrealistic now... thoughts? anyone been here? Should we re-evaluate when to introduce our fee? Being told now would be ideal, though I'm a strong believer in retention programs and such, I still think we should wait...?

Thx, NC.

[freshfish]

If your signup is for free, a good number of your members will simply drop out and you will no longer be converting 20 signups per day...that too will drop. So, the question is about growth. Do you want to make a little money now nd build slowly, or grow exponentially and then try to capitalize later.

I would not charge now. I would work on tweaking the site, making sure your current members are happy and most importantly, work on a membership benefits. This will allow you to offer premium memberships for pay. You will also be able to grandfather in your existing members making them even more happy :)

[websocials]

Thanks for the reply. What about giving my current members a FREE YEAR or something, and giving new members limited features with the option to 'upgrade early for less'...?

[sem4u]

I think you are on the right track websocials. Maybe you would like to offer existing members a discounted rate for the first year?

[Warren]

Put the site into a "beta" stage for (say) three months, where you charge entry.

Anyone who joins get the beta period plus 12 months subscription i.e. potentially 15 months for free.

[websocials]

Thx Warren,

Seems to be the best solution so far I think... But won't it look horrible if we only get a few paying members, and decide to go back to a free site? Refunds, money lost, along with our brand potentialy...?

[grandpa]

I like this idea

work on a membership benefits.

Get creative with new benefits for your existing membership, something they will be happy to buy into. Basically you then have a free side and a priviledged side. The priveledged few will tell their their friends (or keep it to themselves if it's good enough) while the free side debates the value of joining.

[websocials]

Thx again.

Now what about say, a credit system OR set recurring fee? Advantages: Credits, potentialy buy more and more and more, and spend more than the monthly cost of unlimited, however same goes the other way, and or learns ways to minimize credit use, and recruits the user to alternate forms of communication.... Recurring set $: I know I can count on that $figure every month, however there are only a few upsells from here.

So far I personaly think the monthly recurring set price is a better choice, yet teammates are trying to convince me that credits are better...

I guess having both would be ideal, but from the finance/billing end of things this would be a nightmare. Help?

[wayzel]

We've been toying with the same idea on our service site as well. To reiterate previous comments, I think the best approach is to keep a free version but offer a 'premium' set of features for paying subscribers. You need to make them feel special and happy that they are paying so that they don't leave and your non-premium customers don't feel alienated. Customers may be willing to pay for things like convenience, special access rights, etc. Even better, you can give people a free trial to get them hooked, and then start billing them later.

[SkyDog]

I've found that converting to a free site to a pay site is a real buzz kill. I believe you're better off trying to support it through advertisements. If you have a large newsletter circulation, you can find advertisers for that, as well as online advertising. Google adwords should give you a very good CPM, given your niche.