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You don't have to build this. There are tons of membership management plugins and platforms out there, pretty much all integrate with Stripe, and most of them w

You don't have to build this. There are tons of membership management plugins and platforms out there, pretty much all integrate with Stripe, and most of them will keep a mailchimp list in sync so you can easily send emails to just your paying members. EDIT: I also hate the logic of "meh, fees don't matter, my revenue would be zero otherwise!!" It's not true (you have other cheaper alternatives), but even if it was, doesn't that mean you should be fine paying 99% in fees to platforms and credit cards and whoever else? After all, 1% is better than 0%!!!"

Moto7451 9y ago
You can also download an install an IRC server or Jabber server to run corporate chat, yet tech companies happily use the paid version of Slack. Not managing the thing you aren’t good at or interested in doing is the value prop.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  You’re absolutely right. But how many of those services charge 10% of revenue? Zero. And if 10% of revenue uncapped isn’t too much “because not interested”, why not 20% or 50%? You’re obviously welcome to pay 10%, I just think it’s foolish once revenue hits a certain point. Edit: think of it this way: you already have $20k per month of paid newsletter revenue and you need a new membership billing provider. Other options are $20 - 100 per month and won’t go up any more. Would you even consider one with the same or fewer features that’s $2000 per month (and will take 10% of every marginal dollar from there)? I really doubt it. I love sleek, simple, elegant tools, but I won’t pay any price for them.
  - ziikutv 9y ago
    > But how many of those services charge 10% of revenue? Zero. I am not discounting the points you've made. I understand that there are definitely cases where 10% might be too high. Hell, it might even be applicable here. Respectively, I disagree with your quoted comment. Are you sure its zero? Uber Rush delivery drivers make 75-80%. Where do you think the rest of the delivery fee goes? This was just from my first Google. I am sure you can find more examples of this being not the case. Going back to the topic at hand. For a dev like me, I think 10% is high but agree with the points made. There are 100s of posts online of people writing shit for free. I am sure you can even find a dozen of subreddits alone for writing. From their POV this can be seen as a secondary source of income. Most people who are GOOD writers - at a point where anyone would buy their 'product - have been writing for many years. They could even be doing this as a profession (think book writers). For them, do also see 10% being a high fee? -- > I just think it’s foolish once revenue hits a certain point. including your edit are home run!
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      Uber Rush delivery, the App Store, and other similar platforms are different because they're providing the platform, and more importantly, they're often bringing you the customer. It's much more reasonable to pay a fee that's a percentage of revenue in that case. I was responding to the person who suggested that Slack charging for chat was analogous to what Substack is doing.
tschwimmer 9y ago
There's actually a pretty interesting behavioral economics point to be made here. From a purely rational standpoint, you would choose to make 1% over 0%, because it's 1% more than you otherwise would have made. In practice, humans have a "fuck you" threshold above which they feel taken advantage of and refuse to cooperate. Check out the idealized economics experiment version of this which is called the Ultimatum Game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  I do find this super interesting as a pure behavioral economics question, but this situation is a bit more complicated. There's actual work to be done for this revenue, other costs you have to manage, opportunity costs for any capital you have invested, and the risk that you'll actually make enough at the end of the day for it to be worth it :)
waytogo 9y ago
> There are tons of membership management plugins and platforms out there, pretty much all integrate with Stripe, and most of them will keep a mailchimp list in sync Which membership management would you recommend?

Moto7451 9y ago

You can also download an install an IRC server or Jabber server to run corporate chat, yet tech companies happily use the paid version of Slack. Not managing the thing you aren’t good at or interested in doing is the value prop.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
You’re absolutely right. But how many of those services charge 10% of revenue? Zero. And if 10% of revenue uncapped isn’t too much “because not interested”, why not 20% or 50%? You’re obviously welcome to pay 10%, I just think it’s foolish once revenue hits a certain point. Edit: think of it this way: you already have $20k per month of paid newsletter revenue and you need a new membership billing provider. Other options are $20 - 100 per month and won’t go up any more. Would you even consider one with the same or fewer features that’s $2000 per month (and will take 10% of every marginal dollar from there)? I really doubt it. I love sleek, simple, elegant tools, but I won’t pay any price for them.
- ziikutv 9y ago
  > But how many of those services charge 10% of revenue? Zero. I am not discounting the points you've made. I understand that there are definitely cases where 10% might be too high. Hell, it might even be applicable here. Respectively, I disagree with your quoted comment. Are you sure its zero? Uber Rush delivery drivers make 75-80%. Where do you think the rest of the delivery fee goes? This was just from my first Google. I am sure you can find more examples of this being not the case. Going back to the topic at hand. For a dev like me, I think 10% is high but agree with the points made. There are 100s of posts online of people writing shit for free. I am sure you can even find a dozen of subreddits alone for writing. From their POV this can be seen as a secondary source of income. Most people who are GOOD writers - at a point where anyone would buy their 'product - have been writing for many years. They could even be doing this as a profession (think book writers). For them, do also see 10% being a high fee? -- > I just think it’s foolish once revenue hits a certain point. including your edit are home run!
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Uber Rush delivery, the App Store, and other similar platforms are different because they're providing the platform, and more importantly, they're often bringing you the customer. It's much more reasonable to pay a fee that's a percentage of revenue in that case. I was responding to the person who suggested that Slack charging for chat was analogous to what Substack is doing.

tschwimmer 9y ago

There's actually a pretty interesting behavioral economics point to be made here. From a purely rational standpoint, you would choose to make 1% over 0%, because it's 1% more than you otherwise would have made. In practice, humans have a "fuck you" threshold above which they feel taken advantage of and refuse to cooperate. Check out the idealized economics experiment version of this which is called the Ultimatum Game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
I do find this super interesting as a pure behavioral economics question, but this situation is a bit more complicated. There's actual work to be done for this revenue, other costs you have to manage, opportunity costs for any capital you have invested, and the risk that you'll actually make enough at the end of the day for it to be worth it :)

waytogo 9y ago

> There are tons of membership management plugins and platforms out there, pretty much all integrate with Stripe, and most of them will keep a mailchimp list in sync Which membership management would you recommend?