Membership site practice since 2008
Notes from eighteen years of running, and repairing, paid membership sites
I write about pricing, retention, content structure and community for people who run a membership or subscription website. Nine guides, free to read, written from work rather than theory. A small consulting practice sits alongside them.
What this site is
One subject, worked on for a long time
I ran a paid membership site of my own from 2005 until I sold it in 2013. It was a subscription library of watercolour lessons and monthly critiques, and at its largest it had a little over two thousand paying members. Almost everything I know about this work I learned there, usually by getting it wrong first.
I started writing it down in 2008, mostly because I could not find anyone else writing about the unglamorous parts: what to do when a card fails, how to reorganise an archive without losing people, how to tell a member that the price is going up. Those guides are still here, still free, and still being revised as things change.
Since 2013 I have advised other people who run membership sites. Six to eight of them a year, one at a time, usually for a few months. The nine guides are where most of that work ends up eventually.
Start with these
Three that answer most first questions
Choosing a pricing model for a membership site
Monthly, annual, tiered, one price for everyone. How to pick the shape that fits what you actually publish, and what each one does to your cash and your workload.
Reducing member churn without gimmicks
Churn is a symptom, not a disease. How to find the real reason people leave, which fixes hold, and which retention tactics quietly make things worse.
Onboarding a new member well
The first fortnight decides most of the first year. A plain plan for the first login, the first week, and the first thing a new member should finish.
The practice
Three ways to work together
I take a small number of clients at a time, which keeps the work honest and means I read your site properly rather than pattern matching it against the last one. Every engagement starts with a free thirty minute call to work out whether I am the right person, and I say no fairly often.
Site review
450 dollarsOne off, written, with a call
A read through of pricing, onboarding, content structure and the cancellation path, with what I would change and in what order.
Pricing and retention workshop
1,200 dollarsHalf a day, up to six people
A working session with your team on what to charge, how to move a price, and which retention work is worth doing first.
Monthly advisory
From 900 dollarsPer month, usually three to six months
A standing call every fortnight and answers in between, for owners who want someone alongside them while they change something substantial.