What is a membership site? – .com

A membership site is an online business model that allows us to set up a scalable, sustainable project with recurring income.

Much has been written and much has been heard about membership websites, and much more is yet to come, since it is a model applicable to all types of companies. From small freelancers to large companies and corporations can choose to transform their business into a membership site, thanks to software and technologies that allow us to create one without large investments.

And it is that the interesting model of monthly fees that a few years ago focused on services such as gyms, telephone companies or medical mutuals has made the leap to the online world.

Maybe you are already part of one

All kinds of services, products, content and communities are created day after day behind a paid website. Perhaps without knowing it, many of us are already part of a membership site, and we had not even realized it.

Do you pay a monthly fee to listen to music on Spotify? Well, you are part of a membership site. Are you subscribed to Netflix? Well, it’s also a membership site. A dating website? A Patreon channel? A monthly or annual payment software? They are all membership sites.

And although creating one might seem like a complex and expensive process, nothing could be further from the truth, because thanks to today’s technology and open source software, we can do it with virtually no investment.

Definition of membership site

It can also be called “paid website”, “subscription website”, “membership website” or “premium content”, but in the end it is always the same concept: A membersip site is a website to which you must subscribe to have access to a product, content, service or community. Here you can see the .

So we see two key concepts: subscription and the access. We make a subscription in which we must give our data and optionally make a payment, in order to access what is offered to us.

For example, let’s imagine an online yoga class academy that offers us, in exchange for a monthly fee of €15, access to certain videos and classes to learn yoga from home. Well, in this case it is a membership site of monthly paymentwhich gives us access to content, in this case videos, for a month.

Membership site fee

In the same way, that same website could offer an option of annual payment €150. In this case, it would still be a membership, but in exchange for an annual payment, it gives us access to those same videos for a year.

We could do the same with quarterly or semi-annual payments. As we have mentioned before, Netflix and Spotify are also membership sites. In exchange for a monthly payment, we have access to their entire catalog of movies, series or music for a month, without advertising.

Thus, despite the fact that the most common is the monthly recurring payment membership site, we can establish the payment frequency or frequencies that we want, as well as free trial periods, so that those interested can try before paying. You can know more in the episode.

Summary and conclusion

A membership site is a website that offers a service, product, content or community in exchange for a recurring payment. A business that can offer a lot of stability, compared to the typical eCommerce, with more variable billing in the context of the moment.

If you are interested in knowing how to create one, you can take a look at , or at if you have an online store, and at if it is 100% virtual.