Processor critiques.. opinions please?
 

Hello.. I'm looking for an informative response, if someone could be kind enough to offer one.

I'm presently using Paycom as my processor, and I'm somewhat dissatisfied at the retention levels. It seems like I have to get 250-300 sign ups/day to not lose members. I've been consistently getting the same number of sign ups since I started with them, every day, and my weekly payments don't seem to be growing at all! I thought they were supposed to steadily increase. The retention is very poor, but the front end sign ups are very high.


I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with Paycom and CCBill, so that they could tell me the pro's and con's of each.. In my limited experience with CCBill, I noticed that there are lower initial sales but much better retention. Why is this?

Just any wisdom/opinions would be appreciated.. thank you!

I posted this in this category because it gets more views/replies.

what is your recurring base at?

Are you asking me how many active members I have? with paycom around 2000..

Post the url of your site, 98.64% of the time bad retention has nothing to do with a proccessor and more to do with the members area.

And if you need 250-300 signups/day to keep a 2000 member base your site must really suck.

yes - your total membership. if it's 2K, and you're pulling in 250+ signups/day - that's fucking horrible. big time horrible.

i guess you're using trials?

My front ends are very very good, better than most large programs. My program is private and I want to keep it that way, so I'm not posting URLs. Conversion is about industry average -- 30%.. but the second rebill % seems bad. I lose about 2-3% of member base per day, and at 30% conversion, I need 60 conversions per day to even stay even... which sucks.

I want to only lose 1% per day.. I could grow quite a bit if that were the case.

Why are you blaming bad retention on the processor?

Yes, trials. 250 free trials/day, and 30% convert.. on average about 75 conversions per day..

Why am I blaming bad retention on the processor? I thought the same thing at first, but I talked to a few people who said the same thing about Epoch, so that's why I asked. I used to use CCBill a while ago, and it was very good retention, but HORRIBLE initial sales. As soon as I switched to paycom, my sales at least doubled. I thought that was good, until 3 months later, when I'm seeing I'm losing 2-3% per day..

what does front end have todo with rebills? What do you have in your members areas? family album pics? photos of you and your dog on a walk in the park?

content.
bottom line.

I use paycom.. and my retention has been just fine for over 4 months now..:2 cents:

LOL that members area must suck!.. :1orglaugh

Ummmmmm ....... do you really need people on a message board to tell you that its prolly your content area if you are having a hard time retaining members? Your content isnt unique/appealing/exclusive enough I would reckon.

"Yes, trials. 250 free trials/day"


and im the queen of england

that isnt that hard todo..

Damn it. Do you people ever try to assist someone/offer informative advice? If it was my bloody members area, I wouldn't convert at 30%, the same as everyone else. And as I aforementioned, CCBill just seemed to retain better, for whatever reason. The processing companies are all exactly the same.

Paysite owners, have you ever figured out how much of your member base cancels each day? What percentage? I'm curious of that average number.

i too would think it has to do with your content.

but: if, like it seems your saying - nothing has changed except processors (not your traffic, front end or members area) - and retention was much better than it was before, that is odd.

what i also find odd - is that you say your not gaining any ground at all. if things are stable you should still see mild increases in membership base for a long time. as it takes many many months (years in my case) to build up the smaller percentages of members that will stay on for 6 months, 9 months, 1 year+, 2 years+ etc.

Quiet, I'm gaining ground.. I gain about 15-20 active members per day, but I guess I just feel that at 250 joins/day, it should be increasing at a rate of 50-60 per day.... but maybe I am just being too pessimistic. At first, I was gaining really fast. It took me about 3 months to get to 1800.. but it took an entire month to get just another 200 members! And that's what's frustrating :)

But, maybe it does really take a long time.. I just expect immediate money.. shrug

look bud. it's like this.

If you have 2000 members base retaining at 70%. You would need 600 sales a month to keep it at 2000. That's 20 conversions a day. If you say you need 70 conversions a day that means your retention is like 0% LOL.

Also because your free trials convert at 30%, it doesn't mean your members' area is good.

Funny, after reading the topic, I was getting ready to write a summary on why AMD processors suck, and you should use an Intel for x86's =)

That is encouraging to me. I just started my first paysite (niche market, unique exclusive content.) I had noticed that only a very small percentage of signups select the auto-rebill, even though there is a monetary incentive to choose it.

Then again, I have noticed that the loyal base seem almost fanatics in their devotion to the site.

So I have wondered, if I am constantly gaining a small but growing number of customers who are rebills, if that means I eventually will add up to a big rebill base.

How much is your monthly membership after the trial? If it is something like $19.95, you should have a better retention and there is obviously a problem with your site or your processor (I doubt this is the processor).

If your montly membership is around $39.95 - you should reconsider the pricing plans for your site. And quite frankly, in my own experience you should get rid of trials and offer an upfront $19.95 monthly membership and if your site isn't too bad - you can expect to earn $40 - $45 per member you got.

:2 cents:

Memberships are 39.95.. would go broke if they were $20 because I pay people more than that per sign up..

Anyway, I guess by this thread, all I wanted to know is, what % of a larger program (15+ sites's active memberbase cancels per day, on average -- 1%, 2%, 3%, etc, and are there any consistencies/variations with different processors. I'm not talking about my sites in particular per say.

I can say that I use Epoch as my primary processor, and 1.5-3% of my active members cancel every day.

Was just surveying to see if other people's numbers were consistent with this, and if there were any variations between processors?

Were you doing free trials when you were with CCBill?

Yes. We were doing free trials, but this is when I was partnered with someone else, and it was their master account. This was last February or so. CCBill was low initial joins, but seemingly better retention.

You might want to consider creating or running some reports to try to pinpoint the reason

For the different payment options (if you have ones other than free trials), see the average length of time before the member cancels. Ex. free trials will not normally retain as much as normal signups.

Cancellation reasons (customer request, card could not be rebilled, etc)

If you have the email addresses and the time, you could even email a few members that have canceled to ask them their opinion of the site. Maybe even offer them something in exchange for their feedback

There are a lot of different factors at play, traffic levels and quality, niche saturation, how the market is now opposed to 9 months ago, etc. Do your best to narrow down what doesn?t work and figure out what changes need to be made, if any

Good luck

CCBill is the way to go

Processors really don't matter that much. It's all in how you configure Flapjacks.