Out of the Gate Paid Subscribers

**mathceleb** · 08-11-2011 01:38 PM

Is anybody familiar if a general rule of thumb exists to estimate up front what percentage of users of a product will pay for a formerly free service.

I have heard 1%, 5%.

for example, if a web service has 30,000 users consistently for a few month which was originally a free service, and next month, that service begins charging. Without any advertising or promotion, is there a rule of thumb percentage on the amount of people that would pay the next month without blinking?

**Ryan424** · 08-11-2011 03:07 PM

Let's say Facebook started charging us, Id leave. Or how about Gmail. I go back to Yahoo. If YouTube started charging, Id use something else. My point is, instead of directly charging people, maybe you could find ways to charge advertisers or get your members to buy affiliated services based on their interests.

**mathceleb** · 08-11-2011 03:34 PM

Yes, I understand that some people will leave, either for good, or temporarily if t hey decide to come back at a later date and pay if they feel it was a more useful service than anybody else had, or just a service that they liked.

I'm wondering if there is a rule of thumb number on the percentage of people that would pay out of the gate if they liked the service.

**Ryan424** · 08-11-2011 04:11 PM

I can't comment on figures, but I will stand by my opinion. I said that because the internet is moving in the direction of Free user based services supported through advertising revenue. This has been happening for a long time, but it would ultimately depend on what your service is to begin with. Would you care to post a site link?

**mathceleb** · 08-11-2011 04:37 PM

My website is Math Celebrity™ - Building Sizzling Hot Math Skills

For 4.5 years, we have been free. But because so many people over the last 2 years have asked us why we are NOT charging, we decided to go commercial. The people we have spoken with helped us set our prices.

Essentially, you enter a math problem, push the button, and every single line of math work appears. Example: Enter 19876/432 into the search engine. Based on the amount per hour you spend on a tutor, the amount of detail that they show you, coupled with the fact that they are only available certain hours of the day, we felt that it was the right time to start charging.

When school returns, we will hit 35,000 visitors at minimum, and my hope is 500 of those consistently pay the $20.00 monthly license fee, all access.

There are a few other services I know of that friends or colleagues have that are free now, but t hey wish to charge in the future. I use my site as the guinea pig for this discussion.

**Ryan424** · 08-11-2011 09:44 PM

Originally Posted by mathceleb

My website is Math Celebrity™ - Building Sizzling Hot Math Skills

For 4.5 years, we have been free. But because so many people over the last 2 years have asked us why we are NOT charging, we decided to go commercial. The people we have spoken with helped us set our prices.

Essentially, you enter a math problem, push the button, and every single line of math work appears. Example: Enter 19876/432 into the search engine. Based on the amount per hour you spend on a tutor, the amount of detail that they show you, coupled with the fact that they are only available certain hours of the day, we felt that it was the right time to start charging.

When school returns, we will hit 35,000 visitors at minimum, and my hope is 500 of those consistently pay the $20.00 monthly license fee, all access.

There are a few other services I know of that friends or colleagues have that are free now, but t hey wish to charge in the future. I use my site as the guinea pig for this discussion.

Now that is a cool website. I have never seen a calculus calculator like that. You don't have any adds. Have you considered monetizing your site before charging guests? You could have more... Anyway, great site.. I give it a thumbs UP

**mathceleb** · 08-12-2011 10:52 AM

Thanks for the kind words.

We have had much haggling between teachers between the use of ads, are they appropriate, versus a donations based site, versus charging outright. Over the last 2 years, we have discussed all options.

I agree with you though, must of the web content is now geared towards ads versus charging. I may join more research discussions and forums to get a better gauge on what to do.

It may also help to discuss with other folks who started off free and switched to a commercial site, and how they went about it.