Netflix / Hulu $7.99 trend: Will you follow?
 

Netflix and Hulu know what they're doing more than anyone here. They know retention on a scale nobody here can conceive of. Their prices are now $7.99. Will you follow their lead?

And if you do, how will this affect affiliate payouts?

Massively higher volumes and bandwidth trending vs affiliate adult companies...

Does not correlate

The people who are going to pay $7.99 for porn will pay $39.99.

a movie subscription is a planned buy basically.

porn you're horny and it is impulse. when the card is out based on impulse price points dont matter as much.

also you can devalue your own goods with a low price point. if you have ALOT of the same. lower it. something "special" should always attach a higher price point to it.

makes it feel more original and the price paid was "worth it".

you can devalue your entire site with to low of price points.

split testing is your friend.

:1orglaugh

i considered this and even dropped my monthly membership to $9.95 to see what would happen. besides, it's pretty hard to compete with "free". my bandwidth/hosting is pretty cheap and i don't have to pay model or studio fees so it doesn't cost much to run my site. right now my hosting is the biggest expense and it works out to be less than a buck per member.

anyway, the sales were good at first so i left it for a few weeks because i was going after a larger member base. after a few weeks the new sales started dropping quite a bit. maybe if i let it go for a longer period it might have done better but i pulled the plug on it.

i think the big difference between mainstream and porn is when someone buys a membership to sites like netflix they pretty much know what they are going to get. with porn, i think new traffic to a site might wonder why the price is so low. it's the "too good to be true" mindset.

also, i don't think netflix has ever wacked a member's CC with a x-sale.

after i got rid of the $9.95 membership i raised it from the original $24.95 to $29.95 and sales are better than ever...go figure!

i don't think affiliates would mind as long as they got 3 times as many joins than before to make up for the lower price. i ran this test a month ago and the rebills are coming in pretty strong so i'm going to keep an eye on it.

Yes, the perfect strategy is to follow the savvy and cerebral adult webmasters who give their product away for FREE to attract more and more freeloaders who would not spend money on porn if their lives depended on it. Price point is a total non-factor when you're competing against FREE.

Hardly true. Then how come most people go for the 3 day trial for $5 or less? Why not just buy the whole month? As far as "de-value", this is porn. Most people place ZERO value on porn. Why do you think they go to FREE tube sites.

because they want to jack off RIGHT THEN, so if you GIVE THEM the option they will still choose the price that costs them less to get their jones off right then.

um where did i even mention free?

A) the thread is about a price point
B) movies are always given away free.

what are you even rambling about it makes no sense.

anyone who thinks "price point is a total non factor" seriously has 0 business in business in the first place.

it is because places OFFER IT, anytime you offer a lower teaser rate people are going to take it unless it is NOT new experience and they are returning for more.

dont tell me it is "hardly true".

and kindly shut up about tubes. wow you people never stop with the tubes.

well are you proving my point then? $8 is cheaper than $40.

the point of the $8 in porn is to trick them into buying a larger package in a few days. ie them forgetting it is a trial.

Netflix seems to be using solid price points month after month. BIG DIFFERENCE.

Agreed. I'm seeing the vast majority of my joins coming in at a $7.95 / 2 day trial price. Most people fear the $24.95 rebill.

spot on.

Listen idiot my point is that the number of dudes desperate enough to pay $40 to jack off to internet porn are few and far between. And if that's the market you're trying to tap well I'll come visit you at the soup kitchen sometime. the same guy who buys the $3 trial is the same guy who is going to cancell the re-bill right after he gets off and his head clears. Unless you're hoping he forgets and chickens out of of trying to get a chargeback. Frankly that's a retarded business plan.

:1orglaugh

please stop!

you have 0 idea wtf a point of a trial is then.

i honestly love these posts. it reminds me how you people have 0 idea of any kind of billing operation.

this thread is not about "how many people pay $40 for a porn membership" it is about a $7.99 fixed point.

how do you not see the difference? holy fuck.

you bring up trials when we are talking fixed points, then i answer your trial question, and you bring up fixed price point. wow get your head cleared.

Yeah, this is my motivation. People will let $7.95 rebill without a second thought. Not so much at $24.95.

Anyway, porn is now fairly mainstream. I think we need to start thinking with a more mainstream billing structure.

"mainstream" billing structures are 100000x shadier than anything you have ever imagined in adult.

you cant really compare to what netflix is doing because they have an established brand. yes if your brand is at a MEGA established level it is worth comparing to.

it is the wal mart syndrome, you are the big dog and you basically know you can slash your prices, eliminate almost all competition and make even more profit at lower points because there is less competition around.

Yep the big porno guys think this is the 80's/90's where people paid $30 for a VHS tape with 5 scenes in it. I hate to break it to them but their content is just not that valuable anymore. If people are only willing to pay $8 a month for Netflix then porn shouldn't be priced higher than that. People value porn less than they value mainstream movies.

My thoughts exactly. People hate rebills. I do. Everyone I know does. I think successful rebills is all about making it as painless as possible.

I think Netflix and Hulu are onto something...

"$5 trial" that rebills at $40 is not exactly "devaluing".

you have changed what you have been talking about, it is confusing.

how are sites like videobox doing?

They weren't an established brand when they first came out. In fact NO ONE thought they could possibly suceed and compete with the Blockbuster and Movie Gallery. Same goes for RedBox. Now Movie Gallery is dead and Blockbuster is on life support.

People don't go to RedBox because it's an "established brand" they go because they can rent a DVD for $1 and Blockbuster wants $4.

Oh by the way 15 months ago you could have bought Netflix stock for $25 now it sells for $200.

No YOU are the one confused.

the only people who didnt think they would succeed are probably blockbuster and people who had no idea about the internet. im gonna miss blockbuster honestly.

if my memory servers me well redbox is like auto drop off? im not 100% sure.

ill kind of summarize my point.

basically people in porn are there for the in and out, netflix knows people will rent movies longterm especially with convenience.

finding that balance knowing people are there for the in and out and some for the longterm is a very hard balance.

how about this one:
you have a "tube" site, and you get people to the "money shots", or the horniest shots, then you show like a "bandwidth problem". then sell people the "bandwidth" that just really removes a light box for $7.99.

the conventional methods and price point dont apply to porn as much, i was merely talking about devaluing an already devalued product which is pointless imo.

This is even about tubes. I'm not even pro-tube if that's what you are infering from my posts. The point is content makers need to realize the gravy train days are over. The content isn't worth that much. I think egos get in the way of common sense. If you can sell your $40 a month porn well good for you. Just don't imply that someone who decides to sell a monthly membership for $8 is devaluing porn any more than tube sites have.

Remember when $9.99/mn sites were the big fad. I don't believe any of them are in existence anymore...
WG

Not if you insist paying an affiliate $50 per sale.

there is always a premium for porn

So how do you think affiliate commissions should be handled at the $7.99 price point?

i just finished a netflix trial they dont have shit. what a waste of time and they deleted some of the view now.

Pimproll is on it already
http://www.xbiz.com/news/127943

Blizzard seems to do OK charging roughly $100 a unit PLUS 14.99 recurring to play World Of Warcraft every month. They've got 11 million subscribers per month.

I do think 7.99 is to low, but I'd be curious to see what the $15 (under 20 bucks) price point worked like.

Like mentioned above, at 14.99 a month I'll let my membership recur and not really think twice about it, but if it was 29.99 a month, I wouldn't pay for it if I wasn't playing. At 15 bucks a month its worth keeping just incase I want to log in. I suspect I'm not the only one or they wouldn't have 11 million recurs, there is NOT that many people playing.

http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=...eua2E ussPCsM

Maybe this is short lived?

This is scaring the crap out of cable carriers.

Lmao Netflix has 10 million members because he had the foresite to realize 10 years ago that video was eventually going from physical to digital. He didn't build his members base way back then because he was planning to continue the same model of monthly memberships for dvds by mail.

Interesting point. I sell one off fetish vids for $7.99 / £7.99 & ?7.99 (Dependant on where the purchaser is based)

I sell a nice number of them, but have always wondered about opening an affiliate thingy... Obviously, they wont 'rebill' in the monthly sense. And I cant see anyone sending traffic to split half of 7.99...
Not when you can get $222.00 PPS lol

So I have never bothered... :upsidedow

yeah, great smart guy:thumbsup

Let's be honest here, they were run by shit companies with no member areas.

We have seen incredible results at www.porn.com with the new pricing.

This could for sure work with such a huge network as porn.com

without cross sales no affiliate program would be able to survive with that low of a subscription fee

wish hulu was avail in canada

If we switched to that price point we definitely could survive. You are talking out of your ass with that comment.