The online subscription industry is generating $18.3 billion in revenues, according to Subscription Site Insider’s recently-released 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Reportand detailed in the chart below.
The report, released this month, has over 300 data charts, and covers a variety of niche sites –from news to B2B to consumer digital publications to eLearning and database sites. Moreover, the report provides benchmarks and stats on various operating and marketing concerns. For example, the report — based on a survey of more than 130 subscription site executives — found that most premium content sites have a conversion rate of less than 1% for free visitor to paying subscriber:
It’s remarkable that such a low conversion rate can lead to such impressive revenues. It also bodes well since 2012 was the year that many new sites launched paywalls and meters; as these new subscription sites work out the kinks and start applying best practices to their subscription marketing and paywall optimization, we expect industry revenues to grow exponentially. One best practice is to bundle different types of access — but to price that bundle above individual subscription plans. For example, if your print subscription plan is $14.99 a year, your print + online plan should be higher. Print subscribers should not automatically get online access for free. Observational data of more than 200 subscription websites (both B2B and B2C) allowed us to determine how many sites were bundling access via different platforms (58, exactly) and in what manner:
To learn how these bundled offers vary by niche and pricing, buy the complete 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Report today.
