Write2Sell: How to Set Your Prices
How to make your Substack price a no-brainer? How to keep your paid members paying? And why you need to focus on this right from the start.
You have your offer.
You got your free subscriber.
You made them consider becoming paid, and they’re almost there now, just one click away from upgrading.
Staring at your pricing.
What happens next? Depends entirely on how you present your offer on that very last step.
Your price is a key element of your offer. Since you have limited influence on that particular step, you want your subscription page to be a no-brainer.
Now, Substack says the average conversion rate from free to paid members is between 5% to 10% with 10% being a goal you can aim for.
But there are creators who have more than that. My favorite example is Jeannine Ouellette with her “Writing in the Dark” publication. She has an impressive 18% conversion rate! She describes what helped her achieve that in this post. But look at her subscribe page:
Not like the average Substacks, right?
What’s different:
Consistent pricing. $7/mo → $70/y ($5.83/mo) → $85/y. Do you see the repetitive numbers 7, 8, and 5? Aesthetics matter.
Very detailed descriptions. Specific. Consistent with her content. She utilizes the maximum character limitation in the descriptions. She also promotes (“unlike any others”) and adds a social proof element (“many swear they transform their writing & even their lives”).
Cheaper than average founding member plan. This was the first time I saw this strategy. She added something in addition to the annual plan, again very specific (not the general “regular 1-1 with me”), and made it affordable. So if you’re up to annual, you’re most likely to do the founding.
I’d say this page has pretty much all of the elements of a state-of-the-art landing page.
A few more things to consider when pricing your offer on Substack:
Stay competitive. Check others in your niche. Go to your “Explore” tab and check your category’s leaderboard. If you’re just starting, you might wanna stay a bit below them. But not too much.
If you’re new, start with lower prices and increase gradually as you grow. You can always do that, but not the opposite. If you decrease your prices while having existing paid members pay more, you’ll make them leave. Some will unsubscribe and resubscribe at the lower price. But you’ve already lost their trust.
Adding a bigger discount to your annual plan will give you more annual subscribers. You’ll have a year to convince them to stay with you. My discount is 60% currently and I have 95% of my subscribers on the annual plan. The huge discount gives me room to increase and still be competitive.
The human brain loves round shapes. They mean “safety”. With digits, subconsciously people like more 8, 3, 6, 9, and 0. Everything with a sharp edge means "danger". These are 1, 7, 4. What's left in the middle is 5 and 2. Use them strategically.
Do that and you’ll have your no-brainer subscription page!
I love that email notification!
So now you have a new paid subscriber.
Great success, right?!
Not yet!
Winning a paid member is just the start.
Trust is at the core of all relationships.
On Substack, you’re not just selling. You’re building a long-term relationship. So trust should be your first and number one priority.
But gaining a paid subscriber doesn’t mean you’ve done the job. You’re just starting. Yes, is a sign of trust. But it’s also a great responsibility to maintain that trust in the long run.
That is something most new creators forget.
They focus on earning new subscribers, but without a proper retention strategy, they will end up exhausted from the constant battle.
Substack is still a young platform. Imagine when it grows to the magnitude of YouTube. Competition will be fierce. You can’t focus only on gaining new subscribers. You need to retain the existing.
With time as you grow, retention will become even more importnat. Much more than gaining new paid members.
I’ve identified the following five practices, which (mostly new) Substack creators currently do. For some extra cash. But their relationship with existing paid members is already at risk. I can tell you, these creators are set to suffer huge volumes of churn pretty soon as their paid member’s trust is already lost.
That’s why is crucial to build with retention in mind right from the start.
Here’s what I mean:
The Write2Sell column is for paid subscribers. If you’re a free subscriber, upgrade your plan:
Upgrade your subscription now and you’ll never get a price increase in the future! You can unsubscribe at any time.