Proposal
I propose that MP be enhanced to allow multiple price|subscription length sign-up options against the same plan. (e.g. You can subscribe to the same plan by paying monthly or annually.)
So if I have 3 plans, I might like them to be priced like this:
| Basic | Standard | Advanced |
| $5 per month | $10 per month | $15 per month |
| Or save 20%: $50 per year | Or save 20%: $100 per year | Or save 20%: $150 per year |
Currently
Currently MP allows only one sign-up pricing option per plan (ta single price, subscription length and units can be specified), but allows multiple length, unit and price Renew Options.
Some Detail
It would be great if MP allowed the configuration of multiple (two in the above case) plan price-and-subscription-length sign-up options, so that users can either pay monthly ($5) or annually ($50) for the same plan - instead of buying a monthly plan and only then having renew options of various durations).
(I know that the current method is to create two plans: one monthly plan and one annual plan and only allow flexibility via renew or upgrade options, but it would be a lot neater to allow various sign up subscription prices and lengths against the same plan.)
Here's how I think this could be implemented:
- The Current Price and Subscription Length fields in the Plan Detail section of the Edit Subscription Plan page could be made to look like the Renew Options section on the same page - i.e. A three column table (Length|Unit|Price) with the ability to add rows instead of a single Price field and a single row, two column table (Length|unit).
- I don't yet know how the Renew Options are executed with MP, but I imagine that it wouldn't be hard to implement something similar from the first subscription period?
Why I think it's important
Early revenues can be increased significantly by offering, say 20% discount, on annual plans. Assuming that one can expect that 20% of the early adopters will pay for a year's subscription, to save 20%, this translates to an increase of around 180% on early adopter revenue.
(10 new monthly plan signups per month on a $10 plan = $100 new signup revenue (10 * $10). 8 new monthly payment plan signups and 2 new annual plan sign-ups per month = $280 new signup revenue per month (8 * $10 + 2 * $100). Of course, existing member revenue will be 20% lower every subsequent month, so we break even after 10 months and forfeit 20% of our revenue in months 11 and 12!
The bottom-line is that it's crucial to most business models to offer both monthly and annual subscription plans. Cash at start and retention later on, when the ratios switch and 80% of users pay annually, once the brand and service is established.
Although it's possible to configure MP to do this - by creating double or triple the number of plans and putting links to each of them in the short description, it would be great if this setup and maintenance workload was reduced!
What do you think, Tuan?
Gary
