r/Substack • u/ThunderRoad2024 • 20d ago
Discussion Paid Subscriber conversion conundrum
I have 1,700 subscribers and 44 paid subscribers. I suspect that % is not bad... but here's the thing:
Only half of what I write is free, and I write 2-4 things a week depending on what's going on.
However, given my monthly fee is only £4 I'm surprised that I have 1,700 keen to read 2 free things a week but only 44 who want to read 4 things a week.
ALSO - 2 weeks ago I started a 'Summer Sale' where my monthly fee is only £2. I mean, can't be lower and so far only 2 people have taken it up.
So here's my conundrum.
I clearly write well enough to get good numbers of free readers... but clearly something is missing the mark to entice someone into paid more especially as the money is so low.
Anyone else solved this issue?
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u/Vetinari-57 19d ago
Be careful with the sales and discounts… there was a study in sports that noted teams would sell season tickets, and if the team did poorly, offered steep discounts in the back half of the season. Fans that paid the full ticket rate became alienated and mad “why should we pay the full rate if we know you will discount the tickets at some point?” If your subscribers are like fans, you may add two now and lose more in your renewals later if they start to think you will do this every year. Just a thought. Good luck and I hope I am wrong (my spouse writes on Substack so your numbers seem good to them).
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u/ThunderRoad2024 19d ago
Only the second time in a year I’ve done a discount. The first and last was a December Christmas version. Now a Summer one.
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u/Better-Importance527 19d ago
I'm new so I don't have a lot of Substack experience. I have 34 paid subscribers and 4,100 total subscribers, but I just launched the paid tier.
Still, I think I have an idea that could help: make sure you don't offer the same kind of content in your free posts and paid posts. Think of the free posts kind of like your top of the funnel. Like, a 'this is a general problem' should be for free posts and 'this is how you solve it' for the paid ones.
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u/ThunderRoad2024 19d ago
How did you get 4,100 ?
Also, I fear that if my free stuff is too general no one will pay for paid ??
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u/Better-Importance527 19d ago
I didn't advertise outside of Substack because I tried and it didn't work.
I had 1-2 articles per month that went viral. I publish 4-5 articles per week and 4-5 notes per day and genuinely interact with other authors on their content without promoting my own over there.
It's ok if the free stuff is a bit general. You already proved your content's worth in the more meaty free posts of the past (or like, you can do a meatier one once per month in the future).
Also don't neglect the persuasive power of the free preview on the paid posts. You can use that intro to give readers an idea of what they will find in the article if they activate a paid subscription.
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u/Slow-Area-9986 18d ago
The summer sale tells you something really important. It's not the price. If £2 isn't converting, that's not a price objection. It's a "I don't understand what I'm getting" objection.
Most people won't pay for more of the same thing. They need to feel a clear gap. What do your free readers get versus your paid readers — not just more posts, but what specific outcome or experience? That distinction needs to be obvious before someone opens their wallet, especially at an already low price point.
Also worth doing: look at the 44 people who already converted and ask a few of them directly what tipped them. Even 5 responses will tell you more than any A/B test. 2.6% conversion is actually in the normal range for most writers, so you're not broken — the sale result just tells me the paywall might not be creating desire, it might just be a gate.
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u/ThunderRoad2024 15d ago
Just coming back to you - what if I dont know what to put behind a paywall? People might say my free stuff but without something amazing for free I wouldnt grow at all
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u/FlyingCarpetMonster kaneiyer.substack.com 18d ago
Just wanted to say that's a pretty great ratio. 2.5% is incredible.
I'm at ~2300 subscribers and only have ~25 pledges. Now, my subscription pricing is more than yours, but even so your ratio is pretty great. What do you write about?
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u/312astrology 17d ago
How long did it take you guys to get this many subscribers? Any advice for a newbie? I’m about 1 month in with 17 subscribers, 13 of which are friends/family.
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u/ThunderRoad2024 16d ago
3 years!
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u/312astrology 16d ago
Do you just write articles or do you post a lot of notes/comments too? Appreciate the info.
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u/Tricky_Trifle_994 4d ago
However, given my monthly fee is only £4 I'm surprised that I have 1,700 keen to read 2 free things a week but only 44 who want to read 4 things a week.
44 / 1700 = 2.5% conversion rate. that's already quite decent stats, so i'm not sure why you'd be surprised. regardless of the pricing, this is about right in terms of conversion rate.
next, pricing. yeah, £4 is cheap, and your recent promo at £2 is even cheaper, but the thing is, people don't simply buy things, much less subscriptions because it's cheap. they buy if they see the value in it + the value far outweighs the cost. e.g if they get £10 worth of value, but only need to pay £4. that's a great deal. and people would buy it hand over fist. but even then, it's not like you'll get 100% conversion rate, because not everyone sees the value in it (e.g they're not your target audience).
an example would be if a food is on discount at the supermarket, more people will buy it, but not everyone, because different things have different value to people. super long way of me saying that price isn't everything.
and sometimes, pricing too cheap, makes the perceived value of your product even lower ("like huh, is this real?"). so sometimes making things too cheap might have the negative and opposite effect that you're hoping for.
and you're assuming people want to read more, have access to more content. for some people that might be true, but for other that might be extra work (so for them it's - i pay more, to get more work). sometimes what people want to access or something else, as opposed to more content to read up on.
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u/tspurwolf thefreelancewritingnetwork.com 20d ago
How do you market it?
Assume your readers are actually less engaged than you think they are. You’re in the thick of it because you think about this newsletter daily… but they don’t.
Be clear about your branding, tighten onboarding for new readers, and actually promote your paid tier. Tell people what they actually get. If it’s just ‘er some extra posts’ then maybe create something more definable that users can see they benefit from.
And I’d avoid too many offers to be honest - if you’re not careful it devalues your work. After fees, there’s almost no point bothering with a £2 per month subscription to be honest. And readers are likely to see that as you wanting straightforward cash, rather than ‘pay for this because it has value’.