Two quick thoughts OOC pricing
Two possible approaches / guiding principles to pricing:
1 // Anchoring against other tools your members already pay for
No idea if this is “optimal,” but I anchored the pricing of my OOCs against other tools that I knew members would be comfortable paying for.
For example, indie authors comfortably pay ~$50-80 (one-time) for writing software, and ~$400-1000 (one-time) for basic freelance support on proofreading and design. While some authors do spend $5k+ per book, almost everyone, at least in nonfiction, spends $500, which gives me a baseline. Averaged out over a year-long writing process, that $500 baseline gives us ~$40/m as the “minimal” book-making monthly expenses. So putting our authors’ OOC at $20 (originally) or $30 (current) felt aligned with what they were already willing to pay to “solve” the book-writing “problem.” Whereas pricing it at $100/m would have felt significantly higher than what they were already spending.
For this group, I anchored the pricing against Circle’s $79/m subscription tier, plus whatever other miscellaneous subscriptions are commonly used to run any sort of community or audience (Zapier $29/m, Airtable $12/m, ConvertKit $25/m, etc.). So the $40/m felt relatively well-anchored to tools that an OOC-builder would already be comfortable paying for.
(This also suggests some interesting wiggle room based on whether you’re positioning your OOC as an alternative to DIY/self-education (low cost) or as an alternative to coaching/consulting (high cost). I’ve positioned as the former, along the lines of “like a book but better,” but you could potentially raise the ceiling by positioning instead as something like “like a coach but cheaper.”) ** 2 // Pricing as an accountability booster**
Thinking about marathons (again), I began to see the price tag as being, from the member’s perspective, a benefit and part of the value. Nobody needs to buy a ticket to go run 27 miles down the road. But people do, partly because they appreciate the organization of the whole thing, and partly because they believe that putting down the money will help them to follow through on their goals.
I’ve heard lots of folks describe cohort based courses in a similar way, where they say something like, “I know I could get all this information for free on youtube, but I know that unless I pay for it, I won’t actually make the time.” So the price becomes part of the value proposition.
I haven’t personally used this framing, but it does feel valid for many situations, and there’s certainly some credible literature talking about how this sort of thing can boost accountability.
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Any other approaches spring to mind?
Comments (4)
I am not asking for a refund. There was $49 of value here in the first month. But my strong suspicion--based on what I can see as the rate of interaction and new content--is that there won't be another $49 next month. I hope you prove me wrong. At $49/month I cannot recommend this to anyone to join because you are still in the "barn raising" stage and will likely be so for another 6-12 months (again you are welcome to outperform my expectations).
Update two weeks in: You have configured exit such that when I notify you of non-renewal I am immediately locked out of the account. Given I have paid $49 you might think I would at least get the full 30 days. That would also give you some warning. So this my notice of an orderly exit at the end of my first month.
Anchoring: the anchoring with high cost services is absolutely where I’m at, ofc this is dependent on the pain/solution, but to me I’ve been looking at too low prices, considering the cost of private tutoring ($200-400/m), so that makes perfect sense!
The accountability is also a factor I’ve been overlooking, and honestly a value prop that you don’t get. I think accountability with community is different than accountability with a mentor. The feeling of the community is more social pressure, so both negative and positive: as long as you don’t get stuck in people pleasing, and instead just listening and digesting feedback
Other ways of admitting I think would be time/energy saving!
Not necessarily in the length of time needed to finish/learn, but in the effort you need to put into learning: if your OOC makes it so you have less friction, fewer decisions, centralised place, less frazzle, more in depth convos and material — that means you can do muuuch less, and accomplish the biggest bit, maintain traction, energy, and momentum (Paul Buchheits 90/10).
Another way could be anchoring to playfulness (a bit related to the time/energy saving).
If you can say to people “hey, if you’re here, it’ll feel like you’re playing around, having fun, when you’re actually a comping goals and finishing stuff. Nb. I don’t mean “gamification” I’d rather say that this is the constant flow state of doing things that interest you, because they’re interesting to do. Sometimes all we can do is make something interesting, awaken curiousness with the members.
Does that make any sense? And do you agree/disagree? Could I sharpen/expand on some points?
sorry, I fucked up the first sentence in the second paragraph “… and honestly a value prop that you don’t get with just meeting a private tutor once or twice a week.”
@Sean Murphy if I was on desktop absolutely, I’m on the circle app which doesn’t have the functionality yet (that I know of)