I'm wondering if you would actually make more money by only having free accounts.
You already stand to make a ton of money from affiliate commissions AND heavy cash on hand.
The value of a customer is way over $7/month just based on these two income sources alone.
Free accounts might help getting the on the fencers to sign up, while you still capture the users that would have signed up for $7/month.
Something else to think about -- If you decide to definitely go freemium, consider having a third option. There is a ton of research showing people are most likely to take the second best option given a menu of choices. Three plans makes the second best option still one that gets you paid each month.
Like SHOwnsYou said, you will probably make more money from affiliate commissions, so I would completely remove the paid plan and only leave free accounts/signups (with the current premium features included too), it will be much simpler this way and you won't have to deal with the subscriptions hassle.
How much money can Amazon affiliate commissions generate? A lot of bloggers say they don't make much off Amazon, but I'm wondering how much dedicated sites like this could make. Do you know of any good examples?
http://www.coolmaterial.com/ is a website dedicated to affiliate referrals. While they do use a bunch of affiliate programs, it seems like Amazon is their primary source of income.
Unfortunately I don't know anything about their conversion rates, but it looks like they've got pretty good numbers on compete.com (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/coolmaterial.com/). Maybe someone on here knows?
If your only source of income is affiliate commisions, then it is extremely risky. What happens when amazon decides they don't like your site any more,and cancels your affiliate account?
Im sure you don't want to be posting here 6 months from now saying "amazon killed my startup"
If OneFatPig is bringing Amazon revenue, why would they try to kill it off? I mean, certainly there's ways to make someone mad at you, but from a business sense if OneFatPig "plays nice" I don't see why Amazon would arbitrarily do that.
Sure, Amazon shouldn't want to kill it off, but what if they do anyway?
Remember the guy who posted a few weeks ago on HN about how 'google fired me'? It's pretty easy to make a small violation of the TOS without realizing it.
I'm just making a suggestion - don't put all of your eggs in one basket. If you depend on one company for 100% of your revenue (Google, Paypal, Amazon etc)that's a huge risk.
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Great idea, can't praise it enough.
I'm wondering if you would actually make more money by only having free accounts.
You already stand to make a ton of money from affiliate commissions AND heavy cash on hand.
The value of a customer is way over $7/month just based on these two income sources alone.
Free accounts might help getting the on the fencers to sign up, while you still capture the users that would have signed up for $7/month.
Something else to think about -- If you decide to definitely go freemium, consider having a third option. There is a ton of research showing people are most likely to take the second best option given a menu of choices. Three plans makes the second best option still one that gets you paid each month.
Like SHOwnsYou said, you will probably make more money from affiliate commissions, so I would completely remove the paid plan and only leave free accounts/signups (with the current premium features included too), it will be much simpler this way and you won't have to deal with the subscriptions hassle.
How much money can Amazon affiliate commissions generate? A lot of bloggers say they don't make much off Amazon, but I'm wondering how much dedicated sites like this could make. Do you know of any good examples?
http://www.coolmaterial.com/ is a website dedicated to affiliate referrals. While they do use a bunch of affiliate programs, it seems like Amazon is their primary source of income.
Unfortunately I don't know anything about their conversion rates, but it looks like they've got pretty good numbers on compete.com (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/coolmaterial.com/). Maybe someone on here knows?
If your entire business model is such that you can basically force people to use affiliate links, it isn't too bad.
Assuming 1000 piggy banks at $10/week allowance puts your monthly take at 40k. Virtually all of that money eventually gets spent.
At the lowest level of amazon commissions (4%), you're looking at $1600 per month. If you were at the highest level (8.5%), you're at $3400 per month.
It's not awesome at 1000 users, but it pays some bills.
If your only source of income is affiliate commisions, then it is extremely risky. What happens when amazon decides they don't like your site any more,and cancels your affiliate account? Im sure you don't want to be posting here 6 months from now saying "amazon killed my startup"
If OneFatPig is bringing Amazon revenue, why would they try to kill it off? I mean, certainly there's ways to make someone mad at you, but from a business sense if OneFatPig "plays nice" I don't see why Amazon would arbitrarily do that.
Sure, Amazon shouldn't want to kill it off, but what if they do anyway? Remember the guy who posted a few weeks ago on HN about how 'google fired me'? It's pretty easy to make a small violation of the TOS without realizing it.
I'm just making a suggestion - don't put all of your eggs in one basket. If you depend on one company for 100% of your revenue (Google, Paypal, Amazon etc)that's a huge risk.