Quarterly subscription membership sites make a little less subscription revenue overall, but you have the advantage that you have more capital upfront from your members to invest in your site. You also have a guaranteed member for three months to sell additional products to. You do need to keep in regular contact with your members, however, as they don’t have a regular monthly or weekly payment going off their credit card to remind them about the site. This model is better suited to a site that has time consuming content. One example of this type of content would be training courses that take place over a period of several weeks.
The annual subscription model is ideal for sites with very high content value. To convince your members to pay a full year’s membership fees up front, you will have to prove that your site is worth the investment. You might consider a short trial period with limited access or a money back guarantee within the first month if they are not satisfied. This model will usually generate less subscription income overall than the previous models, but again you will have the capital sooner to invest in your site. You will have guaranteed members for a year, but you will need to remind them to visit the site regularly with targeted marketing and newsletters.
The one-off subscription model, also known as lifetime membership, is ideal for membership sites that are designed to gain more revenue from selling products, affiliate programs, and advertising, than from membership subscriptions.