If you plan to offer a subscription for your Space, deciding your price is an important step. Every Space is unique, so there’s no one-size-fits-all pricing strategy that works for everyone. To get a clearer picture of what might be best for you, start by asking and answering the questions below.
Strategy questions
Who is your target audience, and how invested are they in your topic?
- Use this to envision the size and dedication of your potential subscriber base, and where you might find them on Quora and elsewhere. Keep this audience in mind as you create content and manage your Space.
- For example, if you’re writing about software engineering, your target audience will likely consist of fellow engineers or those with an interest in the field. While this might be a smaller total potential audience than readers for a broader subject like business or movies, it gives you a niche that may appeal even more strongly to someone with this specific interest. You can use this information to invite people with certain interests, careers, credentials, degrees, or companies that will find your Space particularly relevant.
What is your audience’s motivation when they come to your Space? Are they looking to find a community, hear from a unique voice they admire, educate themselves, just have fun, or something else? How does your Space satisfy this motivation?
- Use this to think about your audience’s intent to purchase a subscription. If they have a strong motivation to come to your Space regularly, they will be more motivated to become a subscriber. If their motivation is more casual, they may be less inclined to make a purchase.
What is the most valuable aspect of your Space to this audience, and what does your Space offer this audience that can’t be found elsewhere?
- Use this to define your subscription benefits. While some Spaces’ most valuable asset is exclusive subscriber-only content, others will lean into a sense of community, while others will simply want to offer a “tip jar” for subscribers to support the work of its owner. Make sure you’ve communicated your subscription’s value proposition clearly in your Subscription Benefits section so that potential subscribers will know how and why their support matters, and what they stand to gain from subscribing.
Is your Space enrolled in Quora+?
- Quora+ subscribers pay $6.99/month or $47.88/year for a premium version of Quora, including access to more content and ad-free browsing. As a Space owner, you can enroll your Space for inclusion in the Quora+ content bundle, making yourself eligible to earn through shared revenue as subscribers engage with your Space.
- If you are enrolled to earn through Quora+, remember that potential subscribers will be asked to choose between your direct subscription option and a Quora+ subscription to access your content. If you are not participating in Quora+, you can still consider Quora+‘s pricing as a helpful frame of reference to know what others are paying for exclusive content, and choose to go over or under that price depending on how uniquely valuable your Space is to its audience.
- To keep your direct subscription most compelling, you should consider either setting a price that’s lower than Quora+ and/or outlining other compelling benefits that are exclusive only to your direct subscribers (for example, these could include community initiatives like meetups, subscriber-only discussion threads, or VIP treatment with subscriber-submitted questions and answers).
Experimenting with pricing
Keep in mind you can change your Space’s price whenever you want — although the price changes will only take effect for new subscribers.
If you aren’t seeing the traction you’d like to see, you may want to try lowering your price. Or alternatively, if you’re adding substantial new subscriber benefits that you expect will bring new momentum, you can experiment with raising your price. Select your Space from the Monetization tab of our profile or in the Admin dashboard in your Space, then select “Space subscription“ under “Your Programs“ to view and change pricing.
When it comes to setting pricing for a Space subscription, it’s most important to remember that you are the expert in your own Space. You know your followers’ habits, preferences, and motivations — and if you don’t, you can ask them! Consider setting up a poll, hosting an open thread for feedback, or messaging some of your loyal readers directly to get their ideas.
Pricing examples
Looking for inspiration? Consider these three examples of how different Spaces might approach their pricing and benefits:
Example A
Mark offers a subscription of $1/month for his career advice Space. His goal is to cultivate a large audience of loyal followers with “free-mium” content, and grow a paying subscriber community of 150+ paying members by offering exclusive content and VIP treatment in his first year. His followers are primarily early-to-mid career professionals, and he uses free Quora answers, his LinkedIn content, and his Twitter account to reach this audience.
- With a goal to acquire as many subscribers as possible, Mark keeps his price point low and offers a package of special benefits to incentivize readers to join.
- Questions in Mark’s Space are open for submissions from the public and can also be sourced from Quora's collection of existing questions in the career advice topic.
- He reserves his most comprehensive tips and answers for subscribers only.
- He also sets up his Subscriber Benefits to include prioritized answers to subscriber questions, guaranteeing that readers on his subscriber list will receive an answer within 48 hours.
- He incentivizes subscribers to join for an entire year by offering a yearly price point of $10, a $2 discount compared to monthly payments.
- Mark also enrolls in Quora+ and becomes eligible to earn both from direct subscribers and Quora+ subscribers.
Example B
Lana charges $6/month for a subscription to her Space about technology trends. Her goal is to offer thoughtful insider information to avid tech enthusiasts with a team of expert contributors, making her Space the go-to destination for news, commentary, and a curious community of like-minded readers. After becoming known for her expertise as a freelance writer and industry veteran, she aims to garner 50 subscriptions within her first year.
- In her Space, she offers daily content roundups reserved for subscribers only with insider takes on the latest news in tech.
- In addition to Space content, Lana hosts an an exclusive Slack or Discord channel where subscribers can chat and network.
- She also invites all paying subscribers to a monthly subscribers-only Zoom happy hour, helping to create a community of tech insiders.
- When people subscribe, they also get access to an exclusive email newsletter (which can be powered through a free service like Substack or Revue). This newsletter rounds up and links to new highlights from her Space.
- She incentives subscribers to join for an entire year by offering a yearly price point of $60, a $12 discount compared to monthly payments.
Example C
Kai offers a $3/month subscription for their poetry and photography Space. Their goal is to share their art for free, while facilitating an option for their most appreciative followers to support their work financially. By sharing their Space with their followers on other platforms, Kai hopes to gain 25+ subscribers comprised of friends, acquaintances, and long-time loyal fans in the art and writing community.
- Kai shares original photography and poetry on their Space, creating a go-to collection of the creative endeavors that they already share across Instagram, Twitter, Medium, and Tumblr.
- Given Kai’s goal of making their art accessible, they keep all of their content free for everyone.
- In their Subscription Benefits, Kai asks followers to consider subscribing as a way to support their artistic work directly, and thanks all new subscribers with a personalized “thank you” message.
With these ideas under your belt, we hope you feel prepared to define realistic goals, establish compelling pricing and benefits, and set yourself up for the next phase of your Space’s growth.