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I'm part of the Customer Success team here at  the company, and I am working closely with our clients in helping them grow their membership-based businesses. As we continue to work with more customers and help expand their business I'll also be sharing significant lessons learned and the results we're seeing in relation to general membership strategies.

The topic that has been the most popular that our customers have been discussing is the subject of cost increases. Our customers are making inquiries about:

• "How can I tell if I'm in a position to raise prices without creating a major churn event?"
• "How can I boost price?"
• "When is the ideal time to boost the price?"

Clearly, there's no one-size-fits-all solution here. If there isn't a plan in place it's very risky of raising prices. However, since as I've been in the course recently with several of our clients and I'm confident that there are certain signs to indicate that price increases are possible without the risk. These indicators include:

Many people are taking annual plans as compared to. monthly plans

A membership with an impressive organic adoption of annual plans over the monthly plan are in a position to provide significant price. If memberships have at minimum 70% new members who purchase an annual membership over an interval of four months, that is evidence of the membership being priced at an undervalued.

In these cases, an increase in price by 10 20 to 10 percent is most likely to be received well by the customers.

The content formats continue to evolve.

Memberships that constantly expand the content they offer will raise their cost regularly (i.e. each year, once). The benefits of membership, for instance, were traditionally focused around periodic newsletters. The expansion of these benefits to different formats like videos, podcasts and other formats could increase the value of membership.

In the case of content that's been reused or completely new content Content expansion can create the opportunity to increase costs which range between 5% and 10% each 12-18 months.

In a market that is not well-served

Memberships that operate in under-served areas can have higher costs. The it is difficult to compete and there aren't many competent experts in the marketplace.

Memberships that offer deep analysis and the latest research in a particular topic, will attract high-profile business leaders, thought leaders, as well as innovators from other market. This is a market willing to invest a substantial amount to understand the impacts on their clients and businesses. Members that serve similar groups can be expected to implement significant price adjustments.

Statisticians and guidelines

Below are some general themes we've observed in our study:

• Customers who have seen the greatest success with price hikes do so slowly - never over the number of price hike every 12-18 months.
• If the pricing strategy required each year's price rise 10% per year are easily absorbed by the customers.
• The annual renewal of memberships which haven't previously raised rates (or for longer than one year) and keep the retention rate at minimum 75% or more will likely raise the price by up to 20%, with no negative impact.
• The results from the customers reveal that the pace of price rises is more relevant than the price increase itself when you are within the 10-20 percent price increase range.

Hope this can be helpful. I'll share more of the knowledge as we continue to move forward!

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