Very interesting. I've gotten a decent number of requests for a la carte purchases on my site, so I'm strongly considering doing it. (It's a big change, though, which is why I've held off.) Can you say more? I'm particularly interested in how you set your prices, whether you kept the recurring model alongside the permanent model, and how you saw customer behavior change. Thanks!
I'm reluctant to give harder details since I am in what could be a "passive income" niche, but I will try. We originally set our monthly prices in line with comparably similar produces - about $20/mo, with discounts to purchase 6 & 12 months in advances. The final fixed cost (lifetime access) account ended up costing less than a 12 month discounted subscription.
The feedback was that a) some people bought precisely because they didn't have a recurring bill hitting their account, even a small one. b) some people found the fixed price too expensive to buy and were disappointed they couldn't buy it. c) The ones that did buy the fixed price were happy with their purchases. Overall, however, we ended up with fewer total buyers each paying above the average lifetime value of the monthly buyers.
When we offered BOTH subscription AND fixed price access for individual units for a period of time, people tended to buy the lowest cost subscription instead of the lowest cost unit. They shopped on price. They were not as happy with their purchases in either case, though more so for the cheapest subscription.
In the end, it was counterintuitive to what is commonly considered "good business" to have recurring revenue from customers. We still think there's a place for monthly recurring billing somewhere, but we don't have the catalog or products to support a mix. It would be great to provide Level 1 at a fixed price and Level 2 at a lower monthly fee because we know they are the "stick with it" customers and so will likely have a better lifetime value.
Sorry to be vague here. The numbers vary over the years, but started about $2500/mo and grew to about 10k/mo over about 6 years. It is for a learning endeavor that people SHOULD commit a year+ to learning, but tend to quit for very human reasons. We think people who make commitments are happier because a) that cool TED talk about irrevocable choices that everyone talks about and b) Committing to putting in the time on our product DOES result in a new skill set, so it has tangible personal improvement if it is used as directed.
