Creating a subscription site: A quick guide to getting started
Thinking about setting up a subscription site? Here’s a quick guide to getting started.
Subscription websites are all the rage right now. From service subscriptions like Netflix and media newspapers to user-generated content subscription websites like Patreon, OnlyFans, Twitch, and YouTube, internet users these days are more than happy to support the content they love directly, rather than experiencing ad-based content for free.
However, whether you’ve got content or a product you want to promote and offer under a subscription-based business model, setting up a subscription service is not a walk in the park. Today, we want to talk you through some of the top[ tips you need to know to ensure your website can be as successful as possible.
Getting started
To begin with, you’re going to need a website. Start by creating this as you would with any other website. You may have one already that you’re ready to turn into a subscription website, or you may be starting from scratch. We’re not going to dive into this point in detail because it’s all about creating the content your website has to offer, which is something you should already have some idea of what you’re doing.
Setting up payment systems
Let’s say your website is up and running, and you have some content uploaded that is ready for your users to access. The next step is setting up the subscription model, which basically means that people will be able to sign up, usually paying a monthly cost, and then will have access to whatever you’re offering them.
The easiest way to take subscriptions is to use a payment gateway that offers subscription-based income, like Razorpay. The most important thing to remember is that you want your chosen payment gateway to allow you to take automatic monthly payments, allow users and customers to manage their subscriptions, and handles all the sensitive financial information in a secure, and encryption way that minimizes the chances of theft or fraud.
Set up your customer service
Even if you were taking straight payments for one-off purchases, it’s important for the integrity of your business that you have some kind of customer service system in place to handle any problems or queries that your customers will come to you with.
This is especially important when offering a subscription-based service because someone may have questions or may want to cancel their term and so on, and you need to offer this kind of support. If you don’t, you’ll end up getting negative reviews, and people will try to steer clear of your business.
Ready to start your own subscription site?
As you can see, setting up a subscription-based payment system on your website is not that difficult, especially with the number of services and platforms designed to make it easy.
The bit you need to focus on getting right is making sure your customer experience is as streamlined and as easy as possible to ensure that people actually want to sign up and can trust the service you’re offering. If you can tick these boxes, then your subscription website will surely be off to the best start possible.
