I’ve had a longtime fascination with the sweet spot between creativity, community, and commerce. It’s led to the launch and growth of many endeavors, big and small, over the years.
And, now I’m curious…
When it comes to Substack, why do you upgrade from free to paid?
In the podcast world, where I’ve rolled for a dozen years, it’s become one of the central questions as producers work to diversify revenue streams in search of a more sustainable model, without destroying creativity. I’ve analyzed this on various other platforms in the past.
But, what about here on Substack?
There are so many wonderful posts on strategies to grow, write, produce, build community, I’m learning so much.
But I haven’t seen clear, data-driven insights on what motivates free subscribers to become paid subscribers. So, I figured, lets see if we can gather that information here and make it available to all.
If you’re open to sharing, I’d love to know what most motivates YOU to make this call.
Share your answer in the poll below (or comments, if needed).
If your biggest motivator to become a paid subscriber is not on this list, feel free to share what yours is in the comments.
And, of course, I understand, building a financially-sustainable experience here isn’t a primary motivator for all, completely cool. I’m trying to figure out where I fall on that spectrum myself. If it does matter to you, I hope these insights will help.
P.S. - The more input we gather, the better the data and the more we learn how best to serve and grow our communities. It would be amazing if you’d be kind enough to help out by sharing this poll around.
Excited to continue to learn together!
Jonathan
Interesting poll! Since you’re looking for insight, I’d also add that I am likely to unsubscribe from writers that put all comments behind a paywall. Reason being, many people on substack are obviously aspiring writers looking to grow their community. Tips suggest helpful comments are one such way to do that. Paywalling comments just feels like the big guys are squeezing the little guys. Maybe that’s not the motivation (or all of the motivation), but that’s how it feels to me. If I were ever a big guy (or most likely big woman), I would definitely want to support the little guys.
Also, many established writers come to substack and immediately put everything behind a paywall. This makes sense if they’re just trying to monetize their existing audience that they ported over. However, there are people I’d be interested in exploring, but having never been exposed to their content before, would want some time before thanking them with a payment. You are one such person in this category for me. One free article is definitely not enough.
Thank you for collecting this data, I’ve been wrestling with the same question. For me, I think the upgrade to paid is a gesture of gratitude and support. It’s a digital way of purchasing someone’s book to keep on my shelf, even if I already read it through the library for free. The content has to resonate and be meaningful or enjoyable to me but the payment is a gesture of appreciation vs. paying for service.