AGREED, this totally should happen..
Is this ever gonna be a thing?
We just implemented 'Pat What You Want' feature for memberships, and already seeing some encouraging stats! 🎉https://twitter.com/buymeacoffee/status/1252611610784395265
@Jijo Sunny (founder): Pay what you want is nice, but levels will allows us offer different perks at certain levels.
@Jijo Sunny (founder): If you are going to add a "Pay What You Want", it needs to be a separate option instead of being connected to the monthly.
I agree with @Jijo Sunny (founder) on keeping things simpler whenever possible for user friendliness, and I think I'm inclined to also agree on a lot of the great points made for the downsides to multiple tiers, personally.
I also really appreciate the ability that BMC grants us to have individual items set aside in the shop to be sold directly, regardless of the person's membership status to our pages. That opens up a lot of flexibility and functionality that I haven't really seen before.
In trying to think of a way to keep things simple and also allow for the flexibility creators are looking for with multiple tiers, I'm wondering if a pay-what-you-want sort of setup might be one possible answer?
For example you can take a look at how PWYW is used here on itch.io:
https://nomnomnami.itch.io/syrup-and-the-ultimate-sweet/
You can see this game is on a "Name Your Own Price" system which allows the creator to set a minimum price if they so choose, but folks can pay any amount over that if they want to support the creator further, and then under the downloads section there it says "if you pay $2 USD or more" you get access to the art collection and guide PDF.
Maybe you could keep the monthly option and the yearly option for members rather than implementing tiers ala Patreon, and still have those be the only two options for folks looking to become members, but give creators some kind of toggle to choose either fixed prices like how it works now (and that would remain the default setup) or a flexible pricing where the person joining decides how much they want to pay per month or per year.
Kind of like how the current "Buy Me A Coffee" option lets you donate multiple coffees worth if you so choose, members could "unlock" different rewards if they chose to become a member at $5 per month/$50 per year, or $10 per month/$100 per year... etc. Newly joining and active members could modify the amount they choose to pay for the following month(s), and the current rewards functionality could still be used to hash out the details on a per-creator basis.
Something like this might be a reasonable compromise between keeping things simpler still, and allowing creators greater flexibility in membership options that they are used to from other platforms.
The challenge of course then becomes separating the actual posted content into "membership groups" that only certain members could access if they paid $10 or more a month vs. the things members at the $5/mo. payment level had access to, but perhaps there could be some kind of option beyond "Public" and "Members Only" for posts to be visible to "Members subscribed at $X or above per month/$Y or above per year" (you might call that "Group 5/50" for simplicity's sake) in the event that creator is using flexible pricing?
This might add complexity overall rather than keeping the simplicity we're aiming for, I'm not really sure just thinking about it. Maybe other folks reading this have a much simpler and better idea of how it might be done. Plus, all this is easy to talk about at length and much more difficult to implement, I know. Just consider it some no-pressure food for thought anyway.
@CWTC: Great points! You're spot on about the 'Pay What You Want' model. BMC's beauty is in embracing the generosity of the strangers, and the results were surprising even for us. Itch is another excellent platform doing the same for gaming creators.
Our designers are figuring out how to incorporate the PWYW model for Memberships and Shop. But of course, without losing the simplicity of the platform. The high conversions we see at BMC (vs other platforms) is because of the simplicity and design.
I'll keep y'all posted on the progress, and please keep sharing new ideas -- thank you!
I am looking for Tiers. For example, I am a stock market consultant. I want to send weekly price recommendations for DAX30 and EURUSD. So, I need two tiers for each of one. I can able to post every week on DAX30 recommendations in DAX30 Tier and so on. Sometimes, I want to post on all tiers. And public too
I agree with Wendy, currently I offer a much bigger membership level at £25 on my website using a different membership company, so you are losing out on money as I wanted to switch my current members over to buy me a coffee! I would also suggest an option to take off a yearly price and then that way you can just show 3 monthly levels, which would be much better for me as I would prefer monthly memberships only.
Hiya, thanks for the feedback! Let me share the reasons why we decided not to have multiple plans and instead have a yearly plan:
- Higher conversion rate. People are much more likely to become a member when there are fewer options, and knowing they'll get full access to your extras.
- It's often a lot of work for creators when they commit to multiple levels of rewards. We have seen Patreon suggesting creators stick to one tier. Their top creators usually have just one.
- Emphasis on the 'Yearly' route for building long term relationships and for revenue upfront. Imagine having multiple plans and then a yearly plan on top of it - that would be very confusing.
- Use Shop for any expensive rewards you might want to offer. Alastair (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/freebird) is doing this effectively.
Let us know if we made the right decision, or we should still rethink this. Sharing real use-cases would be super helpful! Thanks.
@Sankar Srinivasan Hi Sankar, thanks for the feedback! Here's our thinking about why we did not implement a tiers structure. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
@Jijo Sunny (founder): the yearly route only lowers potential income for creators. Having multiple monthly options gives people more flexibility. And whether it is a lot of work for creators to use multiple levels, that is a problem for the creators. You should not limit the membership options because creators may get overwhelmed with multiple levels.
Multiple membership levels that could be customized (re amounts) would be great. At least 3 levels. Otherwise, I have to re-route members to different platforms, like Patreon or a special area on my website.
I think membership levels are absolutely needed. How each content creator uses that feature is his/her problem.