The Subscription Model For Creators: How To Build A Recurring Revenue Ecommerce Business

You’ve worked hard to build your audience. So why let someone else control how you get paid?

Ads, affiliate links, and platform payouts all come with rules you did not set and revenue that can disappear overnight.

In this post, you’ll learn how to use subscription models to generate recurring revenue from your content. This gives you more control, more stability, and more predictability in your creator business.

What is a subscription business model?

A subscription business model is an ecommerce method in which you earn recurring revenue by charging customers regular subscriptions.

Most subscriptions are charged on a monthly basis, but you can also use annual subscriptions and quarterly subscriptions.

The keyword here is “recurring revenue.”

While traditional ecommerce models rely on one-time purchases, the subscription business model allows creators to charge viewers on a continuous basis.

Why should creators consider launching a subscription business model?

Recurring revenue is the strongest reason why creators should consider launching a subscription-based business model.

This kind of revenue model allows you to earn a predictable amount of income on a regular basis, be it monthly, quarterly or yearly.

If you offer your own products, you know that acquiring new customers takes a lot of hard work.

Your marketing strategy needs to be top notch, and as a creator, you also need to ensure you maintain a healthy balance between genuine content and promotional content.

Recurring revenue allows you to generate more revenue from customers you’ve already acquired, which also allows you to focus more on creating high-quality content that’s helpful in your niche and less on creating promotional content.

If you don’t sell your own products, launching a subscription business model is the perfect way to start.

Revenue models like ad revenue, affiliate marketing and sponsorships are great. They even earn some creators millions.

However, they’re all dependent on how much money another business is willing to offer you.

Ad revenue splits can shift, affiliate programs can close and sponsorship deals can dry up.

Related: Affiliate Marketing vs Dropshipping: Which Is Better?

Not to mention the brands you work with can go belly up or suffer from a lot of negative press.

If you launch a subscription-based business model, you can start becoming more independent by offering your own subscription.

What tools can creators use to build a subscription business model?

These are the types of tools creators can use to charge viewers subscriptions:

• Native subscription tools – Social media platforms like YouTube and Twitch have native subscription tools that give subscribers exclusive perks in exchange for monthly subscriptions
• Membership platform – A platform like Patreon allows creators to charge viewers monthly subscriptions in exchange for exclusive content and other perks
• Membership plugins – If you own your own website, you can use membership WordPress plugins to build your own membership site
• Ecommerce platforms – Platforms like Sellfy and Shopify allow you to charge customers subscriptions
• Online course platforms – Most courses are available for one-time purchases, but you can charge students subscriptions instead
• Community platforms – These platforms allow creators to charge viewers for access to a community-based platform with forums, instant messaging and more

Subscription-based business models for creators

1. Content-based memberships

This is most creators’ first stint in a subscription-based business model.

Most go the easy route and simply enable the channel membership feature on their YouTube or Twitch channel.

Facebook and Instagram allow creators to charge subscriptions as well, but these aren’t as popular as the ones available to YouTube and Twitch creators.

Outside of social media, creators charge subscriptions through platforms like Patreon, Ko-fi and Buy Me a Coffee.

OnlyFans counts in this category as well, and while the platform does not advertise itself as an adult-content platform, if you ask your subscribers to join your OnlyFans account, that’s the kind of content they’re going to expect. Fair warning.

No matter what route you decide to go with, channel membership or third-party platform, the perks available to your subscribers are more or less the same:

• Exclusive content
• Subscriber-only posts
• Subscriber-only livestreams
• Badges (social media only)
• Emotes (social media only)

Some creators offer additional perks, such as subscriber-only discount codes for merch.

You can charge what you want on most platforms, but Twitch subscription prices are locked, though your viewers will have multiple tiers to choose from.

If you don’t want to use a social media platform or a third-party platform, you can create your own website and lock exclusive content behind a paywall.

Squarespace, Wix and WordPress are the best options for this route.

Squarespace offers this feature natively while Wix and WordPress offer an app/plugin. A third-party WordPress plugin like Restrict Content Pro makes it easy to create paywalls.

2. Online courses

If you teach your niche, online courses are one of the best types of products you can offer your audience.

You can create and host an online course with a platform like Thinkific.

The platform also has community-based features that allow you to turn your course into a full-blown membership platform.

Courses can be organized into lessons that are either text or video-based. You can also host livestreams and webinars if you’d prefer to teach students live.

Students can complete courses in their own time, but you can also schedule courses if you want all of your students to finish lessons at the same pace.

Community-based features allow students to ask you and other students questions and connect with one another.

You can charge subscriptions for individual courses, communities and memberships. You can also customize how much and how often to charge for subscriptions.

3. Online communities

You don’t need a membership or online course platform to form an online community. There are plenty of platforms that allow you to charge subscriptions for exclusive access to an online community.

Among the most popular are Discourse and Discord.

While most Discord users expect the platform to be free, some are willing to pay to access a private community that’s free of toxic behavior.

Discourse is one of the best platforms to use if you want to create your own online forum for your niche.

The platform hosts your forum for you, and members can create forum posts, earn community badges, chat with one another and more.

Discourse allows you to charge subscriptions on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis.

Other platforms include Circle, Kajabi and Mighty Networks.

These platforms are similar to Thinkific in that they also offer online courses in addition to community features.

4. Product drops

Let’s say you already offer your own products. You can generate more buzz for your products while also providing your customers and yourself more value by charging subscriptions for access to special product drops.

Product drops are special products you offer that are only available for a limited amount of time or in limited supply.

If you work a little harder at designing and creating your products, you can create higher-end products to offer in product drops.

Because the products are more luxurious and only available for a limited amount of time, customers are more likely to purchase them as they feel a sense of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out) to buy it.

Most product drops are only available as one-time purchases. However, you can charge subscribers monthly or annual subscriptions in exchange for receiving every drop you offer as long as their subscriptions are active.

Sellfy is a fantastic ecommerce platform to use for this purpose.

Not only is it a great ecommerce platform in general, it offers print-on-demand and subscription features that make selling your own products as easy as can be.

Most creators offer exclusive merch in product drops, but you can also sell books and anything else you feel subscribers in your niche would love.

They even allow you to sell digital products, so you can charge subscriptions for magazines, ebooks, audio files and more.

5. Subscription boxes

Want to offer your subscriber more bang for their buck? Offer subscription boxes instead of individual product drops.

Product drops are normally a mystery, but you can also let customers know what they’ll receive in each drop to boost their confidence in subscribing.

Subscription boxes are different. They’re designed to be mysterious so customers can be surprised by what you have to offer every month.

Subscription boxes are an easier way to get into ecommerce because they don’t require you to create your own products.

You still have to handle packaging and shipping on your own, but it can be a fun way to earn recurring revenue while also sharing your favorite products with your audience.

At the same time, you can just as easily create your own products for your subscription box, if you wish.

Sellfy is a suitable ecommerce platform to use for this purpose as well.

6. Automatic reordering

If you already have an ecommerce store, consider letting your customers subscribe to specific products.

Most ecommerce platforms allow you to do this, including Sellfy, which offers subscriptions natively.

The feature doesn’t really have a set name, but you can refer to it as “automatic reordering” or simply “product subscriptions.”

Either way, the process is the same: instead of ordering a product one time, your customer chooses to pay regularly to receive the product on a continuous basis.

If you already offer products, it’s a fantastic way to offer more value to your customers.

It makes it easy for them to acquire products they need on a regular basis.

7. Exclusive access

This technique is similar to product drops, but it’s meant to be a lot more laid back.

You essentially charge your viewers for access to specific products in your store.

The reason why it’s more laid back is because the products aren’t nearly as high end as the products you offer as product drops nor do you market them as aggressively.

This feature can be used for products that are a little more high end than your regular products, or it can be used for products that are normally in low supply.

The choice is up to you.

Either way, this type of subscription model is a little more difficult to set up. It’ll probably require you to get a little more technical with how you set your ecommerce store up, so you may want to steer clear of this method.

The easiest way to do this would be to create a WooCommerce site, then restrict specific pages to paying members only.

8. Coaching

If your niche can be taught, consider offering a high-end service to your audience by coaching them.

Coaching is not a cheap business. You’re offering to dedicate a lot of your time toward improving the lives of your audience, and you’re also offering them access to knowledge and experience you have in your niche.

As such, coaching can be an incredibly lucrative business.

You can set up subscriptions for your coaching with any platform that offers digital subscriptions, including Sellfy.

However, a community or membership platform may be a better fit. That way, you can also offer community features and online courses as part of your coaching service to sweeten the deal.

9. SaaS products

Finally, let’s talk about SaaS products.

SaaS stands for software as a service. You use these types of products everyday. They include streaming services, graphic design tools, productivity tools and more.

As a creator, you won’t have an easy time creating SaaS products, especially if you don’t know how to code.

However, there are a few different routes you can take to make things a little easier.

The most effective would be to come up with a unique and useful idea for an app, then ask your audience to help you crowdfund it.

Once it’s live, you can charge your audience subscriptions for access to the app.

There are plenty of tools out there that can convert your website into an app, including Mobiloud, Median and AppMySite.

But creating an app that offers content from each of your content marketing channels while also including additional features is a lot more complex.

Still, if you can find a way to make it work, an app would generate recurring revenue while also encouraging your audience to become more engaged with your content.

Final thoughts

With search and social media algorithms being so volatile, the subscription model offers a way to ensure that you can keep your business going if the worst happens.

The good news is that there are plenty of types of subscription-based business models you can choose from.

Start with one that makes the most sense for your business. But don’t limit yourself to just one. 

Once you’ve developed the first subscription model, layer more on top. Take things slow and build each one in turn. 

You can use revenue from the first to help get the next one off the ground faster. Be prepared to outsource tasks where necessary. This will help to ensure each revenue stream flourishes without hindering the others.

Remember the old proverb: Small streams make big rivers.