Should I make my Substack premium membership dramatically cheaper?
There’s this quite good conspiracy podcast that I’ve listened to for years, what I love about it is that it has no annoying, interrupting midroll ads trying to sell me VPNs, mattresses, or whatever. The way the podcaster supports himself is $8/monthly or $96/yearly subscriptions for paywalled deeper-dive content (“the second hour of the interview”). A lot of creators have a similar business model, and it’s a higher-integrity way of making a living than pitching sponsors (especially when they are unrelated to the actual content you’ve tuned in to listen to!)
Listening to his membership pitch for the hundredth time at the beginning of the most recent episode, I thought to myself…
If this premium content membership were like $10/year, I would have signed up a long time ago…
I seldom look at the monthly cost of subscriptions, I try to look at the yearly cost and when something is about a hundred dollars, I start asking what the opportunity cost is of spending a hundred dollars on this instead of something else. And there are always a lot more responsible ways to spend a hundred dollars...
Food prepping seems like a really smart idea at this time.
Buying Bitcoin during the crypto bear market just about guarantees a good long-term ROI.
Health is really a priority for my family, and there's always some new supplement or Biohacking thing that I want to invest in.
And there's always some sort of hundred-dollar investment that I should make back into my own business.
….than for pay-walled content, because there’s no shortage of interesting, educational content that the internet has to offer (for free!) The conspiracy show I like is really just entertainment, I get little-to-no pragmatic value out of it, so it hasn’t made it onto my budget.
We aren't poor but my wife and I are very fiscally conservative…
We dress up and do our date nights at home most weeks because it's cheaper and we figured out how to make it as fun as dining out.
We have NO entertainment subscriptions.
I don't throw away clothes until they have at least two holes in them.
The only time we spend on entertainment is if it's going to be for a mind-blowing experience that we'll treasure till death do us part (recently, we rented a cabin in the mountains to watch the Persaids - the shooting star show in the Balkan skies).
But we are not terribly miserly, we don't mind tipping a waiter for great service or spending a few bucks extra to support a local business. I bought our wedding rings at a store on our very street, a stone’s throw away from where I’m writing this, instead of shopping around online for the best deal. Maybe you’re like us.
The big difference between my content and the conspiracy podcast (or any number of podcasts about current events), is that mine is hugely pragmatic…
If you need more brainpower, focus, and motivation to get ahead in your career, business, endeavors, or studies my content on Nootropics and smart drugs will save you a bunch of time and expense in trying things that might not be ideal for your needs and goals.
If you’ve got health problems holding you back in life, my Biohacking content will avail you of some transformative tools that might provide just the breakthrough you need.
If you’ve got a long-term view of life, my longevity and anti-aging deep dives will give you the prevention tools you need to enjoy a long life of joy, meaning, and beauty.
If you’re a single guy, tenaciously implement what’s in my seduction, dating, and relationshacking (relationship-hacking) stuff and you will get the kind of beautiful girlfriend or wife you’ve always desired.
If you’re a digital nomad, my travel content will clue you in to some awesome places you may want to call home for a few weeks or months.
If you struggle with some sort of addiction, my mindset content will give you some little-known tools and strategies for finally liberating yourself.
The reason you should sign up on Substack to pay for this content is that when you pay for something you get one of the most powerful motivational mechanisms working for you, sunk cost.
You’ll discover an extra degree of discipline in implementing what you learn; you’ll live just a little more consistently with your higher principles. Paying for something is a way of signaling to your deep unconscious mind that “this is something we’re taking seriously” and you’ll find yourself self-sabotaging (in ways great and small) less.
While I offer all my content (with the exception of one of the two books I’ve written) unpaywalled on LimitlessMindset.com, when I started publishing this Substack people started pledging $8/monthly in potential subscriptions, I like the number seven so I offered $7/monthly subscriptions (or $84 yearly). And am pleased that now about 10% of you support me financially (thanks!)
However, maybe you’re fiscally conservative like us (or struggling financially, as so many are in the current year) and you just haven’t gotten around to upgrading to support this substack because there’s always something a bit more pressing to spend $7 or $84 on.
I’m curious how many of you might support me on Substack if it was just $10 a year…
The risk I run, decreasing dramatically the price of my yearly Substack membership, is making my current supporters feel like they’ve overpaid or gotten a worse value than those who came after them. And secondly, they might say “Oh, I can get this cheaper now,” and downgrade their memberships.
But I’d really like for more than 10% of my subscribers to have sunk-cost motivation working for them, pushing them to new heights. And of course, the real value that the paying subscribers get is from how much they actually implement what they’ve learned. The only way my Substack is a bad value is if you pay for it and don’t implement anything.
With the $10/year option, you would have two reciprocal obligations
First, I would ask you to share at least one of my pieces a month. You could simply share it on one of the social media platforms, but what would be more impactful would be sharing…
In some sort of online group related to the content (there are a million personal development or health-related groups on Facebook, Reddit, etc where I’d like to see my content shared more).
Send my content privately (via email, message, or text) to someone it might help (Do you know a single dude disappointed with online dating? Send him some of my dating content!)
If you have a blog, Substack, YouTube channel, or podcast share, discuss, and backlink one of my pieces there that you stimulating.
This sharing will help this Substack grow and justify the significant discount.
Second, at least once a month, leave a thoughtful comment on one of my pieces to stimulate edifying conversations here.
So if you’re so fiscally conservative that you seldom pay for internet content or if $10 a year is all you can afford, let me know - simply respond or drop the comment $10 below this article.
And I’ll hook you up with a coupon code for a yearly membership.
By the way, if you prefer to pay with Paypal or crypto just message me privately and we’ll make arrangements.
