3 Types of Membership Models for Creators
The Patreon-ification of the internet and how growing social media creators can add new lines of revenue via subscriptions.
In 2013, a YouTuber with 100,000 subscribers wanted to spend 900 hours making a replica of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars and filming his music video in it. He had a clear, strange, and expensive vision for it. He knew the YouTube ad revenue wouldn’t cover it, but he had a hunch that his fans would. So he partnered with a friend to build a platform to allow fans to support creators directly. It worked and this is how Patreon was founded.
Providing a paid subscription layer on platforms that are usually free is a way for creators to start building a business around their actual content, instead of exclusively relying on advertising or brand partnerships as a way to make money. Having a line of revenue that has followers pay creators directly, de-risks their businesses and allows them more creative freedom. It has been life-changing for many creators who have been able to make a living from doing the work they feel like doing.
In the ten years since, the idea of Patreon has added a new, recurring way for all kinds of people to build a direct relationship with and benefit from their fanbase.
In the last few years, this model has grown beyond Patreon, and become an option on social platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Instagram. There are also platforms like Substack that exist solely to help writers monetize their content via subscriptions. The majority of subscriptions offered are low-cost premium versions of that person’s content on the platform.
Community is intertwined with internet memberships, so I started to look into how the creators I know and follow are monetizing their following in this way.
I want to understand what seems to be working well and where the pitfalls might be for those who want to try this out.
I’m most interested in the community part of it, so I’ve approached it from that lens.
Memberships vs. Community
To me, a membership is something you pay for to get access to a benefit you’re after. That benefit can be a community of your peers, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, you might have a Costco membership, which gives you access to the store, but there’s no Costco community.
A community is a group of people that come together to nurture their own and one another’s growth. A community can be a membership, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be a description of your relationship with your neighbors, which is not a membership, or it can be a paid community that is short-term and not recurring like a cohort-based course. It does not have to be an ongoing, paid membership to qualify as a community.
Creator memberships can include additional content, perks, and access. Connection is not a necessary part of any membership.
From looking at how these memberships/subscriptions offers are being done by creators, there seems to be a spectrum of how much connection is offered, which puts them into 3 buckets. Here’s what they are:
1. More content
What is it: A subscription that gives access to additional content from the creator. This can be longer videos, behind-the-scenes, premium analysis, etc.
Who it’s for: Fans who want to see more.
How much: Lower cost, ~$2-5/month on average
Pros: Share content that isn’t a fit for everyone, identify your super fans, try out new formats, get spicy.
Cons: You need a big audience to convert a meaningful # of them.
A few examples from different platforms below…
2. Perks and Events
What is it: A subscription that gives access to sometimes off-platform perks from the creator. It can include live Q&As or livestreams, discounts on products, maybe a Discord that is lightly moderated.
Who it’s for: Your super fans.
How much: ~$6-20/month on average
Pros: Great to give subscribers a sense of community without building out a whole thing.
Cons: You risk being put on a pedestal by super fans in an uncomfortable parasocial way.
Example: Tara McMullin’s monthly $7 What Works membership includes additional content, as well as access to quarterly workshops, discounts on other workshops and more perks.
3. Community
What is it: A place where your members can meet each other and connect based on what they have in common. It can include events, courses, resources, and group coaching from you.
Who it’s for: People who identify with the problem you solve.
How much: $40+/month
Pros: Done right, communities don’t center their founder, which means this type of business is more scalable and even sellable. It’s about you using your content as a filter to connect people who have an identity in common. It’s not a fan club.
Cons: It’s a lot of work to build a healthy, ongoing community.
Example: Tiffany Yu is a disability advocate and content creator with 200K+ followers accross TikTok, Instagram and other platforms. She launched a premium community business, Diversability Leadership Collective to advance disability leaders.
I see these 3 buckets as options for those who’ve built an audience on social media and want more direct, scalable ways to build recurring revenue.
The one that will work best for you, will depend on:
Your revenue goals and size of your audience.
How much your followers follow you for your personality vs. your ideas.
Whether building and managing an ongoing community business if of interest to you.
What to consider if you want to start a premium membership on or off social media
Para-social relationships are a real issue that you should be thinking about if your platform is expanding and you’re adding a membership. Using your influence to gather people and then distribute power to them is one way to feel more human as a creator.
You should maybe charge more than you think. Even if you’re committing to a few extra videos/posts/photos per month, having paying members takes extra work that is hard to account for. You should be compensated for that.
It’s rare for a member to convert from a lower tier to a higher tier. In most cases, it’s not worth it to have a way for people to pay you $2, $10, $50, in hopes that they’ll upgrade. If they’re happy with the $2 they’ll stay there. If they’re unhappy, they’re more likely to churn than upgrade.
Adding community to your membership is definitely more work, but it’s also a really fulfilling business to run that can be long-term profitable, especially if you’re starting with an audience. (But I am biased!)
I’d love to write more about this topic and collect more examples, and success stories with $ amounts from creators who are building premium subscriptions for their followers on social media.
Reach out if you are one, or have ideas on this topic. I’d love to hear from you: hi@businessofcommunity.co
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