Is it normal for members to purchase 1 month and cancel before rebill?
 

I've got 1 month recurring memberships and the content is good, but lately it seems like I'm getting a good amount of users purchasing 1 month recurring and right afterwards setting up to cancel the rebill and expire their membership after the month is up.

Does anyone here experience this as well? Is this just normal practice for a lot of paysite users these days?

Yes, for me it seems people are more and more aware of recurring billing and how it ads up. Especially at the beginning of the year when they are going over their statements looking for tax deductions.

But if you have affiliates sending joins that immediately cancel you may want to look and see if it's all coming from the same place, it may not be a coincidence.

It's a way for them to not forget to cancel before the rebill. When they first join they have the whole catalog of material. For month two, they're basically judging the value of staying as a member on whatever updates you will be doing. Even if they like your content it often makes better financial sense for them to sit it out for a few months then rejoin to "catch up".

Do you offer a discount for recurring? If so they sign-up at the cheaper recurring price and then cancel.
Normal today is for someone to sign up with a stolen credit card, rip your site, and post your content on one linking boards so they can profit more off your site than you do :pimp

Yes, you sometimes seem members turn off rebill before even logging in for the first time!

Leave them with a teaser preview of what's upcoming on the next month's update. Cherry pick the preview content...go with a sample of the very best.

Doesn't always work - but anything's worth a try to keep them rebilling. Combine it with a rebill discount (as mentioned above).

People do this all the time with my paysite, more than buy trials even if I specify unlimited access trials.

Cheaper option than non recurring and you get members taking advantage knowing they won't renew.

Its fairly common, several sites have been using a 10 dollar more expensive non recurring monthly subscription with good results.

Which ones?

I don't remember, but the first I just checked (Met Art,) is doing it.

now this is exactly how i am doing it, and i think others also :) nothing special to think about, just normal human sense :winkwink: :2 cents:

Unless it is a revshare sponsor. Then it doesn't matter.

Anyone with an IQ in double figures would do it, download like mad everything watch at leasure, come back if it was really good in a couple of years to see if all new content...very often is not.

Yup and that is why you mail your ex members with a welcome back discount offer ;) If you got Nats 4.1 you can let 3xpromo.com do it for you ;)

True. With revshare you don't have the same vulnerability.

So simple. Email your client, thank him for his business, and ask him why he chose to cancel. Invite him back for a free month if he can give you some advice on how to keep him around longer. You will gain a ton more information this way.

yep, thats why you should offer a discount to retain ;)

Yes, we do this too.

At AV Revenue, our recurring price is $29.95 and one month non-recurring price is $39.90. A lot of members prefer to take one month without rebilling and then come back two 2 or 3 months later. Some of them take one month at $39.90 and then buy a 6 months

Yes a common practice. Its the lurker quote.
The sign in and starting download all your content.

You can avoid it if you has a lot of content, they can't download in one month :-)
You always change or upload new
And setup a much cheaper 3 month offer. It helps for around 15% to signup this instead the 1 Month

I agree!

Normal. :)

It's what I do.

This would be of no use. They cancell right after they join, the only reason they cancell right away is so they don't forget it and get hit with the rebill.

I have organic traffic so that doesn't include much fraud or cheapskates.

That's a very, very common practice and has been popular for many years.

Back when I personally subscribed to porn websites, I always did that. If I liked the site and felt that it was worth sticking with, I would just re-subscribe at the end of the month and let the rebills occur naturally. If I didn't think it was worth it, by cancelling at the beginning I removed the risk of forgetting to cancel later.

Most of the time I didn't choose to re-subscribe, because it was easy to watch all the content on the site in a month's time and the updates weren't frequent enough to be worth $29.99 (or whatever) a month. The ones I stuck with were invariably the mega-multi-sites that had far more existing content than I could work through in four weeks.

I haven't subscribed to one in years, but I still do a fair amount of IT consulting work for pornsite owners, so I get to see their content, how often it's updated, etc. I have helped a few go through their competitors websites to find out what they were concentrating on, so my clients could concentrate on something else. Overall, my assessment of subscription pornsites hasn't changed in the last few years - most still don't have enough existing content or frequent enough updates to make them worth $29.99 a month.

If I were you, I would go through your pornsite and look at is the way a subscriber would. Is there enough there to be worth paying for a subscription each month, as opposed to spending roughly the same thing for a megasite, or even one of your competitor's sites? If not, what value-added services can you provide to give you the edge?

Thanks for the replies, guys. I think I might add another one month non-recurring option that's a little more expensive just like how met-art and some other sites are doing. It's worth a try.

Happens to me a lot. I'd say if I sell 5 memberships, 3 will cancel the auto rebill. And I'm charging the lowest monthly fee CCBill will allow.

Anyone not already doing that has no business running a paysite.

Ah, no wonder. By charging so little you're practically screaming "my site has no value."

Or im appealing to people who say "Im not paying $14.95, fuck this. If I search for a few minutes I can find this video or a better one somewhere for free".
Thats reality in 2015

I once had a monthly recurring membership and a more expensive 1 month non-recurring membership. A lot of people chose the non-recurring option. I deleted the 1 month non-recurring; it doubled rebills within months so was absolutely worth deleting the non-recurring 1 month option. I did add a non-recurring 3 month option for the price of 2 months. People who really really don't want a recurring membership can purchase that option. That worked out pretty well too...

Yes and no.

depends on them.