Membership Pricing Strategy for the Rich Sage Underground

When I introduced the Rich Sage Underground, I made a mistake in pricing it.  I made the same mistake that Apple made pricing their iPhone.

I charged a $67.00 fee per month for the membership, after a 30-day trial.  That was too much.  Most people don’t realize the true value of my membership –where I share all of my powerful domains with their monetizing efforts.  That alone is worth the price.

My feeling is that people don’t want to put up much money for any online business opportunity because they have failed at many others in the past and they see the “Underground” as just another business opportunity.

Well, I don’t agree.

There are several reasons that make the “Underground” and what I teach very different. But, none of that would get noticed if the pricing was kept high, while giving away my tools.

More lessons as my discussion continues…

Old Pricing Plan vs. The New Discounted One:

• In the old pricing plan I had a 30-Day trial.  I’ve kept that because I want Members to take a look around and see if their local area is available for them to manage before paying a regular monthly fee.
• The only barrier that I could see then was the $67.00 monthly fee.  Many people said that it was too much.  I agreed, and now I have lowered it to $27.00 per month, after the 30-day trial.
• In the old pricing plan, every Member also got a Platinum Membership Tool set.  I have eliminated the Platinum set and given a Gold Tool Set with each membership.  Now, when Members need to tools to help their Clients, they will have to upgrade at a certain point.
• The affiliate program was paying $25.00 per referral per month and I’ve lowered that to $10 per active Member referral.  Obviously, I am paying the commissions after the trial period.

My pricing change is very similar to what Apple went through with the iPhone. Their 2007 launch priced the phone around $600.00 and some hefty monthly fees.  The next generation iPhone is now subsidized by the mobile phone companies and priced around $200 with a two-year contract.  I still feel the monthly pricing is very high, but customers seem to accept it month after month on a 2-year contract.

It makes a huge difference when the entry level price to a product is reduced. Of course, I didn’t think the $67.00 fee was too much. I fully expected my Members to earn by building locally targeted Wordpress sites.  But they looked at the potential outflow of funds.  Wrong attitude!  The value of what I’ve created is how it enables Members to build a legitimate business.

Obviously, I also expected them to see a lot more credibility in what I was doing.  That too didn’t happen as I had predicted.

The only solution in that case is to lower a price and see how potential members behave under the circumstance.  My goal is still the same –to reach around 500 Members by the end of the year.

I’ll get to work, reaching that.
Carpe Diem,
Rich Sage