Porn Site Pricing

[Guest zipperzone]

I have trouble in understanding why most porn sites are so expensive on a monthly basis.

There are many I would be interested in subscribing to, but not at $29. per month.

I think that if they priced themselves at $9.99 per month, (or even $14.99) while they would be earning less per subscriber, their overall volume would skyrocket actually making them even more profit than they currently have.

Am I nuts, or what?

[TotallyOz]

I have trouble in understanding why most porn sites are so expensive on a monthly basis.

There are many I would be interested in subscribing to, but not at $29. per month.

I think that if they priced themselves at $9.99 per month, (or even $14.99) while they would be earning less per subscriber, their overall volume would skyrocket actually making them even more profit than they currently have.

Am I nuts, or what?

I don't think you are nuts. But, I have found the opposite. People who are into one "fetish" are willing to pay a reasonable rate for access to that information. What you say does make sense. What I find is that less and less people are willing to pay any amount for sites as they expect them for free. But, if you have a special area that few are able to compete with, you are in a win win area. There are few areas like that left.

[alanalt]

I think what Oz is getting at is that there are 2 kinds of people out there, those that pay for porn and those that don't. So I'm not sure that one can assume that there are lots of potential customers who would sign up at a reduced rate, or at least that there are enough to ensure one could make up for the lost revenue from the lower price... I've noticed that most of the 'successful' long-term sites have tweaked their rate packages quite a bit in the past couple of years. If they've settled at the $25-30 range, it's likely that's because that's the range where they make the most profit. One thing I've noticed is that fewer and fewer sites offer a cheap 'trial membership' as opposed to a few years ago. If zipperzone's model of increased number of subscribers offsetting lower rates worked, I'm sure you'd see this phenomenon growing, rather than shrinking...

I also think the answer lies in the fact that there are generally 2 kinds of subscribers to pay sites. The 'loyalists' who will subscribe to the site for month-after-month and keep renewing their membership ad infinitum. Then there are the 'one-offs', ie. the people who subscribe for a month (or lesser trial period, if there is one), download everything they can, and then cancel their membership before the period is up and then (if they like the site) come back in a few months time to do it again.

Lots of sites will offer pricing schemes to attract 'loyalist' customers, who often qualify for a reduced renewal rate after they've been a member for a while or can buy 3/6/12-month subscriptions that offer a substantial saving over the monthly rate. While, on the other hand, higher monthly rates ensure a site will maximize its profits from people who aren't likely to buy more than a single month's membership to begin with.

That's my $0.02 anyway,

Alan

[BiBottomBoy]

Royalty rates for erotic photos have been steadily climbing in price and from many agencies the rate you pay is dependent on the number of subscribers you have - i.e. if you have more eyeballs on the site you pay a higher rate for the images.

Therefore, dropping subscription fees just to get more members doesn't make good business sense, because you are increasing expenses while dropping revenue.

[Guest FourAces]

I believe its really becoming difficult for paid porn sites to survive let alone for some to even make a decent living these days. I have seen from recent deals like the one I wrote about on my blog where one dollar trials are being offered. Other sites have reduced their monthly memberships to 14.99 like men hard at work but most still are sticking rigth around the 30. a month plan.

As zipper mentions this can get expensive if you wanna belong to more than one site. That is in part why I joined Tylers Room a mega site. For 20. a month I get access to dozens of site and other content as well. While some of the other content is basically filler there is enough awesome access to make it worth while.

Several sites have gone under this year a few of them were fairly popular. But between the business cost to keep a site online and the constant demand for new content the costs can soar.

And there is so much free porn to see if one has the patience to look for it. As I think it was OZ who mentioned that only a niche site will really do well still and I cannot think of a legal niche that isn't already saturated out there.

[BiBottomBoy]

If I was going to start a niche site right now I'd start one dedicated to Christine O'Donnell fetishes.

A really hot girl ordering you not to masturbate?

Fuck, there's going to be a lot submissive straight men into that.