Other payment options?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


Are there other ways to subscribe to Pathfinder than the month by month option? Can I just subscribe for six months or a year and pay at the beginning?


Nope, month-to-month subscription is your only option. Personally I would love to have a 6-month or 12-month sub option as exchange rate fluctuation can really hurt us Aussies sometimes.

Olaf the Stout

Paizo Employee CEO

Olaf the Stout wrote:
Nope, month-to-month subscription is your only option. Personally I would love to have a 6-month or 12-month sub option as exchange rate fluctuation can really hurt us Aussies sometimes.

The big reason we are only offering month to month subscriptions is because the cost of reminding people that their prepaid subscription is expiring and to renew is SO expensive that for some people, the cost Paizo had to pay to get them to renew ate up all the profits from that subscription. Which you really can't do too much if you want to stay in business, pay salaries and stuff. With month to month, we never have to worry about getting people to renew. We just keeping charging their credit card until they tell us not to. Much easier on Paizo and a heck of a lot less expensive.

-Lisa

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

...and easier for you, because you don't have to worry about missing a month because you renewed a couple of days too late. Just set it up and forget about it until you want it to stop.


Lisa Stevens wrote:
Olaf the Stout wrote:
Nope, month-to-month subscription is your only option. Personally I would love to have a 6-month or 12-month sub option as exchange rate fluctuation can really hurt us Aussies sometimes.

The big reason we are only offering month to month subscriptions is because the cost of reminding people that their prepaid subscription is expiring and to renew is SO expensive that for some people, the cost Paizo had to pay to get them to renew ate up all the profits from that subscription. Which you really can't do too much if you want to stay in business, pay salaries and stuff. With month to month, we never have to worry about getting people to renew. We just keeping charging their credit card until they tell us not to. Much easier on Paizo and a heck of a lot less expensive.

-Lisa

What about 6 or 12 month subscriptions with only e-mail notices to renew? E-mails aren't costly.

I can understand you wanting to use an option that is easier and cheaper for you. However, you may be missing out on some subscribers because they only want to subscribe if there is a 6-12 month up-front subscription option. Surely the fact that you get the all the cash flow up front must be worth a little to Paizo?

Olaf the Stout

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Olaf the Stout wrote:
What about 6 or 12 month subscriptions with only e-mail notices to renew? E-mails aren't costly.

E-mails aren't costly, but they're unfortunately not terribly effective, either. Magazine industry experts suggest that most people won't renew until they've had at least three notices in at least two different forms, and our own experience bears that out.

With Dragon and Dungeon, e-mail notices get a tiny chunk of folks to renew. Printing a "this is your last issue" or "next to last issue" wrapper on the magazine itself gets another chunk. And sending a separate letter gets the biggest response. Unfortunately, by the time people respond to the letter, they've often already missed the deadline to get the next issue, and then we have a customer service problem to deal with.

So we've spent money on printing the wrapper, and more money printing the letter, and more money on postage for that letter, and, if they choose a method other than online renewals, data entry, and then we *still* potentially have an unhappy customer.

Believe me, getting advance payment is a real boon to cash flow, but the cost—both in dollars and in customer dissatisfaction—makes it an unpleasant option.

This is why so many businesses have moved away from that sort of model, and switched to an ongoing model.

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