Donation or Subscription - the way forward

How to Donate to Patterform
martinkil
Posts: 3413
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 9:55 am

Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby martinkil » Thu Dec 26, 2019 4:55 pm

The Patternform.co.uk domain name was first registered in 2002 and I've published this site for free ever since. I'm a one man band and administration of this site, getting results, generating the various Patternform cards, user admin, site development etc is now taking a significant amount of time and the most obvious way forward would be to turn some of the site into a subscription service. Before I do that though I've decided to try the donation model to see if that can work.

The Christmas appeal for a backup laptop attracted donations from 15% of the user who logged in. If I can increase that percentage to 45%-50% of users overall then with a £10 donation four times a year I should be able to raise enough. This would work out at under a £1 a week.

If I move to a subscription service model then I would expect to lose much of my user base and I would probably set the subscription level at £10 a month to compensate.

If I move to a subscription model then any donations in the preceding 3 months would be automatically transferred to membership fees. So if someone had donated £30 in the previous 3 months, they would have the next three month membership paid already.

Well that's the plan and I've opened up this thread on the forum to discuss it.

PuzzledLook
Posts: 571
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2017 2:02 pm

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby PuzzledLook » Thu Dec 26, 2019 7:04 pm

Hi Martin,

I will be happy to pay either;

1) £10 per month (By Direct Debit preferably to save forgetting on all these options)

or

2) £4.33 per month which equates to £1 per week if enough "subscribers" are willing to make this viable for you.

or

3) £30 per quarter

I do not think any of the above are unreasonable for the info that you supply on a daily basis so I think for some (from your figures it seems the majority) it's time to pay up or lose their subscription.

Weasel89
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:31 pm

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby Weasel89 » Thu Dec 26, 2019 10:07 pm

Hi Martin

I am more than happy to do the £10 monthly subscription.



Cheers

Dale

GMBing
Posts: 97
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2015 8:59 am

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby GMBing » Thu Dec 26, 2019 11:08 pm

Count me in. I would be happy with a £10 per month subscription.

sutoski
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 7:58 am

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby sutoski » Fri Dec 27, 2019 6:21 pm

Hi Martin,

I would be happy with a £10 per month subscription.

Thank you for all the work you have done over many years for free.

Richard Sutton.

Dommydomster
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2015 4:07 pm

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby Dommydomster » Fri Dec 27, 2019 7:08 pm

Happy to pay £10 per month :)

Cheers,
Dom

bootsnspurs2017
Posts: 35
Joined: Tue Oct 31, 2017 9:01 am

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby bootsnspurs2017 » Sat Dec 28, 2019 5:13 pm

Hi

I'd be happy to pay either as a donation or as a subscription. 10 a month is fine.

Just an idea - you could try just taking donations voluntarily each month and you could have a thread where you name each member who has donated each month. It might shame the freeloaders :lol: Might also be a pain in the proverbial to keep up though

Whatever you decide I'm in anyways

boots..

martinkil
Posts: 3413
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 9:55 am

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby martinkil » Sat Dec 28, 2019 9:47 pm

The idea I'm currently mulling over might include the following and I asked for the username of donators for a reason.

Stage two is that users who didn't donate will towards the end of January have a personalised message on the log in screen asking them to consider making a donation.

Stage three is that users who haven't donated will have a message on every patternform screen reminding them that they haven't donated.

Stage four would be to have adverts on every patternform page for those who haven't donated.

Then repeat every 3 months.

Those who have donated should not be aware of any of this, apart from the three monthly reminder to consider a donation.

But I have some software to write over the next few weeks.

millow
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 1:20 pm
Location: bristol

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby millow » Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:53 pm

Hello Martin
I am happy to donate in what ever way you decide.
All your hard work should be compensated.
I apppeciate the time and effort you put in to keep this site going
Thank you

tyamber
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2018 11:51 am

Re: Donation or Subscription - the way forward

Postby tyamber » Sat Dec 28, 2019 11:44 pm

I find it hard to believe there is a resource like this available without subscription to be honest and I've been using this site for a while.

I still struggle to find a winner, but I think that fault lies with me and not the info provided - it's a great resource and I, for one, would be more than happy to pay a small fee if it means this site continues.


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