Perfect Paysite
 

How do I build the perfect paysite? The best content, the best features, and priced for the impulse buyer, a price low enough you almost can't resist joining yet still enough to make a small profit.

Rep me and I will give you the "secret to paysite success". :)

the 'best content' is the most subjective of all your requirements. depends on your target audience/market - you will have to go with exclusive content shot to your specs of what the 'best content' is for your niche - easier said than done and will cost plenty since you want the 'perfect paysite' which means daily content updates. 'best features', that's not too hard, you need a great CMS, either a ready made one or one custom coded with all the features you want.

very expensive when you realize that the sites out there today that are considered the best have hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars of custom exclusive content already in them. that's in broad niches.

it can be done, micro-niches would be the easiest, but remember that a micro-niche has a limited audience so you need to be everywhere that fans of your micro-niche are.

It amazes me that with all of the content available at such low prices these days that nobody has a dirt cheap paysite that is huge.

Expensive isn't a factor, since that should be covered by the "small profit" portion of the question. Since this would be a brand new paysite, there isn't a budget for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in content to start with. What would you suggest for starting out brand new with the concept?

IMO, you need to be proficient in atleast 2 areas to keep costs down.

Areas:
Able to produce your own content
Knowledge in HTML/Photoshop
Knowledge in using in Wordpress or other CMS (if you can program or customize your own AWESOME!)
Knoweldge in generating traffic / SEO


If you can handle at least two of these areas (preferably three), then it will be much easier/less expensive to start up your own Paysite and then grow from there.

the 'dirt cheap' concept has been tried with paysites and it didn't work - Lensman and I think PlatinumBucks both tried $9 dollar programs and failed. i think for the broad porn audience they look at a cheap join price and think 'this must be a pile of crap'.

but in smaller niches it might work better- SuicideGirls has a cheap membership price.

Videobox has a membership for $14.99.

do you already have a niche in mind for this?

At first thought, I'm thinking... "Trailer Park Boys" (movie/series) type content. Amateur/average girls niche. Nothing that hasn't already been done necessarily. Another niche would work just as well.

Another... is there still room for photo content or is video only the way to go?

If you price your site too low, affiliates won't rep you. If you price it too high, nobody will buy it. If your content can be found on ANY tube site, nobody will buy it regardless.

Go with your gut instinct. Don't even listen to this advice or any advice given in any blog. Truth is, nobody knows anymore, but everybody "thinks" they do.

Nobody is giving anything away free in this world, especially real advice. Why have the other guy succeed, right?

There's more haters and posers in this business than you can possibly imagine.

Affiliates are not important. Let's ignore them for this scenario.

If you were into -this- niche, imagine a niche you're already interested in, what aspects would enable you to complete the join?

Make all perfect, even a members area

that's one hell of a big question. so in house traffic, no affiliates? you are thinking of shooting exclusive content?

Assume no affiliates. Assume some exclusive content, but not all. I'm not convinced that exclusive content is required to gain a following, could be wrong. Given a choice between Site A and Site B, with same content, additional factors will determine whether a sale is made; tour, price, features, extra value, traffic, etc...

Would you say that processing is probably the single most important factor in closing a sale?

Nah, they did a crap job of it. Also for a cheap, as in I don't give a shit if this rebills forever cheap, $9 is too much. They stuck with that price so they could still use affiliates for these programs and it was a mistake.

hmm. well you are already a jump ahead if you can deal with the traffic yourself (or within your group). it's all about the sale. so many people trying to sell a niche they no nothing about. that is key. number one. you have to know (honestly, have to be into) what you are selling. you don't have to be yourself, but you have to have someone writing/designing it who is.

yes, processing is a big deal, but without traffic and seriously focused writing/design by someone who really understands the niche, you're not going anywhere.

cheers.

right now the tube style paysite model is doing well from what i've been hearing

Put yourself in the surfers shoes. For the past 10 years I've seen all the really big boys laugh when people mention take care of the surfer. I don't think people will be laughing too hard in 2011 at people that care for their surfer/members.

Engaging with the customers is key. I find our members are more vocal than ever. They are easily upset but also easily calmed. Which makes sense if you think about it. People want to know you are listening and that you care. You have to be humble and realize you may not know better than them. At the same time you have to be able to take all feedback and understand what's best for the overall customer base.

All in all think of it from the customer stand point. Try to build it from that point up. If you do you'll find a way to make money. Don't worry too much about the money right away. Be mindful of it but don't let it cripple the development of your site.

Definitely not. Majority of sites use epoch or ccbill with very little control over the join process. So processing is not the most important factor in closing the sale imo.

if you price your site too low the customers will think it's too cheap to be good.

It's really not simple - 100 suggestions from the customers is often 100 very unique bizarre suggestions. Their fantasies are often complex and you can't just group them into 5-6 most popular ones.

Don't do it. I have 23 paysites, trust me. Focus your attentions elsewhere. have happy life.

if you will have 23 paysites like mutt have his jewel, you will be talking other way :winkwink:

Because cutting the membership price in half does not double sales. :2 cents:

If you have the traffic and SOME money to invest (not really much), I can tell you. But it won't be free and much less public since it won't make sense to tell all your competition what you do.

However, I can tell you in advance it won't recoup money at launch, you'll need between 3-6 months to get even ON MONTHLY COSTS, 6-10 months to recoup the already invested money and after month 11 you'll start to get your investment back plus some profit. However, this business model has a geometrical growth, so as long as you can keep it in the low without people copying it, you may hit a jackpot.

If you're interested, send me a mail to webmaster + fdsign + com . But be advised: you need the traffic, you need some money AND we'll build it for you.

Again, this is the 'small picture' attitude I don't get about this industry. I'm well aware that half price doesn't double sales. There is however a price point where even the most frugal customer goes "You know what, it's worth that much a month" so they rebill forever. These companies that are sitting on millions and millions of images and videos that are web ready are missing out on a chunk of the market that they should dominate. Done right you would see the first paysite with 500k to 1 million + members rebilling forever. Content is cheaper than ever, this makes it even easier to keep piling on the updates once you run out of your own stock.

I'm not saying a new player should jump in and try to offer something like this. It would obviously be much easier for one of the top 10 or 20 companies to pull it off.

Oh, and you would not need affiliates for this kind of site.

There are also a lot of other revenue streams you could look into with a site boasting a high number of real, happy customers. I don't mean shipping off your customers to a competitor either.

bangbus circa 2005

You're right, sorry for the snappy answer. All I know is, it would take someone a lot more creative and resourceful than me to profit off an extremely low price point...

Not many could pull it off but there are a few that could. Lensman had a good idea but he threw up a handful of cookie cutter sites with a price point that would allow an affiliate program to exist. I have no idea what shitty kinds of upsells they attempted with it but I would almost bet money they were there.

Basically, content has gotten abundant enough that a low price point today wouldn't be the same as a low price point 7 years ago. It could be profitable if done right. The cost of entertainment has gone down in a lot of ways. Movies are cheaper and easier to rent, music is now bought one song at a time or pirated and adult content is stolen a huge chunk of the time. The economy sucks, some people will never pay $30 / month for a membership but a large chunk of them would pay $x.xx without question. In my opinion.

Amen Kitty! :thumbsup

Thanks to many of you for such insightful feedback.

think about ways you can make off of the person after they are a customer and even during the signup process, don't just focus on the monthly membership charge. If you can find other ways to make a couple bucks here, couple bucks there off of them once you have them as a customer, i think that is the key.

You want your entry point to be very low to get them as a customer then you need to find the best ways to monetize them and every hit to your site for that matter.

hit me up in ICQ and i will give you a couple ideas if you like.

you are 5-6 years too late for starting paysites