DO Higher Priced Memberships Convert better?
 

So I was just thinking about some of my old marketing lectures in college, and how when things are higher priced they are usually looked at as having a higher quality and better rate of return. So do you find that most of the sites that convert better for you are relatively higher priced then the ones that aren't converting as much for you?

For instance, say there is a site that sells it's memberships at 24.99, then there is also a site up for 32.99 more then likely the 32.99 site will get more members signing up just because they believe they will get more for there buck at 32.99. Because when you think about the savings of less then $10 it's not a big difference to the consumer, so when they look to sign up most members won't even take much thought into the price as per there pocket book, but more at if they pay more money they think they will get better quality stuff. Therefore I just wanted to see if my theory was correct, that the higher priced membership sites convert better then the ones that are maybe a bit lower priced.

Also how many paysites have thought of this and have raised membership prices for this reason?

A year or so back I raised the site on a handful of sites, and also added in a staggered system for those who sign up for a month, rape your site, and cancel. There was no effect (i.e. decline) in memberships.

If your shit is unique or good. They will still pay whatever.. within reason.

:2 cents:

I don't really know if higher price gets more signups but I have all the proof I need that for a specific range the higher prices converts just as much as the lower prices and thus make you more money.

For example: $29.99 membership is better than all the way down to $9.99 trial and if the site doesn't retain that well then $29 is way better than cheap trials like $3.99 etc...

bump for more opinions.

Depends on your content. If you have exclusive content and models that aren't on every site on the planet then you can charge more and not worry, but if you have the same content, or even the same models, you have to be a little more competitive with other sites. Surfers do shop around.

It really depends on a lot of factors. Your target audience, quality of content, etc. But in general, I'd say that when a surfer finds a site with high price, he presumes that the quality of it is accordingly high. But the question is: is he ready to pay this price? So there is no definite answer to it, you need to make some research before raising the prices.
From my experience, I can say that after we had raised the prices on one of our sites the convertion rate did go up.

Great post Alexander, it certainly does depend on the content you have, but then again you have to think most of the members don't know most of your content until they actually sign up.