How To Create A Subscription Website

You can run your subscription business on a large e-commerce marketplace like Amazon or eBay. However, while these platforms offer convenience, they come with limitations.

They allow you little control over customization, branding, and direct customer relationships – apart from additional fees and costs that cut into your margins.

Managing subscriber registrations, payments, and cancellations through these platforms often entails facing restrictions and inflexibility.

Ultimately, this setup can present an array of challenges, such as difficulty in scaling your business and potential customer dissatisfaction due to delays and limited control over information updates.

Having your own subscription website or platform allows you to overcome many of these challenges.

A good subscription website allows you to:

✅ Automate key subscription functions, like recurring payments.

✅ Easily monitor interactions and your subscribers’ preferences.

✅ Deliver instant updates and notifications, such as renewal notices.

✅ Manage content and product offerings in one place.

✅ Scale your business without taking on unnecessary costs.

✅ Sell across multiple channels, allowing you to expand your reach.

By choosing to build your own subscription website, you gain the flexibility, customization options, and control needed to grow a successful subscription business.

When setting up subscription websites, it’s important to include the right features to attract new subscribers and keep your current subscribers happy.

You should consider the following:

1. Set up secure payment processing

It’s no accident that this is the first step.

If your customers face issues or errors while paying for your products through their preferred payment methods on your subscription website, it will instantly erode their trust in your subscription brand.

Without secure and reliable payment processing, your business will collapse before it even takes off properly—regardless of how good of an idea you have.

If you want your business to succeed, you need to set up payment gateways to ensure secure transactions.

🍿 The downfall of MoviePass

MoviePass ran a subscription service that allowed customers to watch multiple movies in theaters for a fixed monthly fee.

Subscribers often had difficulties trying to use the service, such as being unable to access movie tickets or experiencing unauthorized charges on their accounts.

They also failed to implement secure payment processing mechanisms, resulting in payment processing failures and issues with fraud.

Not having a secure payment system in place quickly sped up their decline.

2. Automate billing and invoicing

One of the most time-consuming tasks when running a subscription business is keeping track of billing cycles and drawing up invoices.

If your subscription website is set up well, it will handle these tasks automatically, saving you valuable time and reducing the risk of errors.

The results are twofold:

💪 Your customers are happy because they’re charged the agreed-upon amounts at the correct intervals.

💪 Your business successfully receives the correct payments on time, allowing you to cover your own expenses.

3. Make it easy to use and manage

Even if you’re tech-savvy, balancing the day-to-day running of your business with acting as its webmaster is challenging.

It takes time to become familiar with the workings of a subscription website, such as publishing content and updating prices and deals.

Therefore, you need to choose a platform with an easy-to-understand system, like a drag-and-drop builder, and direct integration with your subscription billing products to simplify the setup and management of your website.

In addition, make sure the platform provides built-in support to help you through any technical issues you encounter.

🚀 This is how simple it should be…

Have a look at the video below to see how easy and intuitive it can be to set up and manage your website:

4. Choose a good CMS

Publishing regular content is a great way to increase organic traffic for your subscription business.

Make sure your platform has a built-in content management system (CMS), or “blog” section, to keep your website fresh and engaging.

Three of the best website builders that allow you to publish regular content include:

📝 WordPress: Ideal for creating websites with regularly updated content.

📝 Wix: Offers built-in blogging tools, making it easy to create and maintain a blog.

📝 Subbly: Includes features to publish content to engage your audience.

Let’s say you design and sell beautiful notecards in subscription batches—your website’s content could, for example, include a blog section that outlines your latest designs in monthly newsletters.

This is exactly what Insert Human Here does with its blog section:

5. Ensure responsive design

Have you ever come across a website that looks great on your laptop but terrible on your mobile phone?

This happens when a website isn’t responsive. Instead of rearranging the content to fit smaller screens, it tries to display everything in the format used for larger screens.

Have a look at the example below—the website on the left is responsive, whereas the one on the right isn’t:

Unresponsive websites are difficult to read because the content isn’t scaled properly, pages are often cut off, and navigation becomes a hassle.

Research has found that responsive websites achieve an 11% higher conversion rate, which means that they effectively capture and retain more visitors.

When choosing your CMS or website builder, make sure it offers responsive options that make it easy for your subscribers to find and understand your offers.

6. Implement security measures

When you choose a website builder, make sure it has SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). This keeps all the information that passes between your site and your users secure.

For example, when someone logs in to your subscription site, SSL scrambles their login details and personal information so that no one else can see it.

This encryption prevents unauthorized access to their personal details, providing you and your subscribers with peace of mind.

🔒 How to tell whether a website has SSL

An easy way to check this is by looking at the website’s URL. If it starts with “https://” instead of just “http://”, then the website has an SSL certificate:

Smart subscribers will be aware of this and, if they notice your website doesn’t feature it, they might take their business elsewhere.

Source: Solid WP

7. Set up reliable hosting and storage

Once your subscription website goes live, you need to do everything within your power to keep it up and running smoothly.

If your subscription website crashes, you risk losing potential customers who are trying to find you online, and existing customers may become frustrated because they can’t access their subscription details.

By using reliable hosting and storage services, you’re guaranteeing consistent uptime and smooth website performance.

8. Facilitate integration

If you’re unfamiliar with data-gathering apps like Google Analytics, you might want to integrate them into your website to analyze performance.

Similarly, if your business needs more detailed tools, such as extensive customer support features, integrating an app like Zendesk can boost your business.

Make sure your subscription website can easily integrate with these apps from the start; otherwise, you may have to compromise and revert to less optimal third-party choices.

9. Include analytics and reporting

Even though you can add an app to get detailed analytics, it’s not always necessary if you choose a subscription platform that already includes these features.

This built-in functionality can save time and provide essential insights into your business’s performance without needing extra integrations.

Make sure that you can at least get insights on the following:

📊 Churn rate: The percentage of subscribers who cancel their subscriptions over a certain period. For example, if a subscription box service had 1,000 subscribers in January and 50 canceled their subscriptions by the end of the month, the churn rate would be 5%.

📊 Monthly recurring revenue (MRR): The monthly revenue you gain from active subscriptions. For example, if a software subscription business has 100 subscribers paying $20 per month each, the MRR would be $2,000.

📊 Customer acquisition cost (CAC): The cost of acquiring a new customer. For example, if a marketing campaign costs $500 and attracts 50 new customers, the CAC would be $10 per customer.

Now that you understand the features you need when setting up your website, it’s time to choose your platform.

There are two main options when you’re determining how to create a subscription website:

A) Base platform + subscription plugins

Some platforms, like Shopify, Wix, and WordPress, don’t automatically offer subscription-specific functionality.

If you want to manage your subscribers effectively, you need to add a plugin, such as WooCommerce, to ensure that your website features the following:

Subscription management: Allows customers to manage their subscriptions, such as upgrading, downgrading, or canceling plans.
Trial periods: Offer free trial periods to attract new customers.
Discounts and coupons: Add discounts or coupon codes to get more subscribers or encourage renewals.
Product variations: Offer different subscription options, such as monthly, quarterly, or annual plans.
Email notifications: Send automated emails for subscription-related events, like renewal reminders or failed payments.
Recurring payments: Automatically charge customers on a recurring basis for their subscriptions without manual intervention.
Payment retries: Automatically retry failed payments so that billing issues are addressed immediately and don’t pile up over time.

However, you might find that WooCommerce isn’t ideal for advanced subscription models or specialized industries that offer digital downloads or memberships.

In such cases, you may need to explore alternative plugins, such as MemberPress for membership sites or Easy Digital Downloads for digital downloads.

Adding these additional plugins means you’re now using two subscription plugins. If it turns out that you need more features, this list will continue to grow.

Multiple plugins increase your expenses and add complexity to your subscription website, potentially leading to software conflicts and crashes.

🤔 Who should choose this option?

If you already have a website set up with a base platform, such as WordPress or Shopify, you may prefer going with the plugin route rather than starting from scratch.

However, keep in mind that there are ways to migrate your existing website to a new platform.

For example, Subbly allows you to transfer all your existing subscription data, customer information, and other relevant content to the Subbly platform.

The migration itself is free and, as a bonus, you will get your first 6+ months free. To find out how to make this switch, click here.

B) All-in-one platform

Instead of juggling a list of plugins to meet different needs, consider the simplicity of an all-in-one solution like Subbly.

With Subbly, you get the best of both worlds:

🙌 General subscription website features: Enjoy secure payment processing, automated billing and invoicing, user-friendly website management, responsive design options, and SSL encryption for security.

🙌 Specialized subscription functionality: Gain instant access to trial periods, discounts and coupons, product variations, email notifications, and analytics and reporting tailored to subscription businesses.

Subbly gives you access to website templates, allowing you to easily set up and manage your subscription website according to your preferences.

Within a few hours, you may have your subscription business up and running with all the functionality and features you need.

🥊 The knock-out round: Cost comparison

According to WebFX, if you choose to use one of the following platforms, then this is how much you can expect it to cost:

WordPress: $7 to $1,200 per month
Wix: $17 to $159 per month
Shopify: $29 to $400 per month

However, on top of this, you need to consider an extra $600 for the range of plugins that you will probably need to use alongside your main website.

In contrast to this, Subbly is an all-in-one subscription solution that doesn’t require any additional software.

The cost you see on the surface is, in fact, the full cost that you will end up paying to run a successful subscription website:

Subbly: $29 to $499 per month

Now that you’re aware of what you need for your subscription site, it’s time to set it up.

Let’s say you want to launch an adventure subscription box service for outdoor enthusiasts, complete with gadgets, maps, and adventure-themed snacks.

You can follow these steps to launch your subscriptions or membership site:

1. Plan your business

The first thing you need to do is prepare your business plan, which should clearly outline the following:

🎯 Target market: Make sure you have a clear understanding of who your subscribers might be. Will your boxes target all adventurers or, for example, only adventurers who enjoy water-based sports? Do they live in the U.S.? How old are they?

🎯 Unique value proposition: You need to know what distinguishes your business from its competitors. If a competitor of yours already offers adventure boxes, how will your boxes be different? What sets it apart?

🎯 Pricing strategy: Determine how you will price your subscription boxes to ensure profitability while remaining competitive. Will you offer tiered pricing? Will you provide discounts for longer subscription commitments or bundle deals?

🎯 Marketing plan: Develop a comprehensive strategy to promote your subscription box service and attract potential customers. Will you use a mix of digital marketing channels or a single channel? What are your target audience’s preferred communication channels?

Create a business plan where you outline all of this and use it as a roadmap for your decisions.

2. Determine your subscription model

Armed with the knowledge from your business plan, you can now determine what kind of subscription business you’ll be running.

At Subbly, we’ve narrowed subscription models down to the following options:

🎁 Product subscriptions: This is when you offer regular deliveries of physical items, such as beauty products, snacks, or clothing.

💼 Service subscriptions: If you provide ongoing access to subscription services like online courses, cleaning services, or software subscriptions.

🔨 Replenishment subscriptions: When you sell a base product such as a desktop printer range that requires regular refills of items that users can subscribe to.

🤝 Membership subscriptions: If you give subscription members exclusive perks, content, or access to a community or platform, you have a membership model that needs a membership website.

🔀 Hybrid subscriptions: This is a combination of different subscription models, such as a subscription box that offers products as well as exclusive services.

Let’s say after having considered these categories, you realize that your adventure subscription box falls under the product subscription model.

This knowledge will further inform your decisions regarding product sourcing, pricing strategies, and marketing tactics.

3. Choose your website’s platform

As we saw in the previous section, you have a choice: Use a platform-plugin combination or opt for an all-in-one solution.

Before you make a final decision for your adventure business, you read some comparisons of Subbly and alternative options, like Shopify and WordPress.

You decide to choose Subbly as your platform because you’ll be gaining the following advantages:

🏆 Easy scalability: Subbly offers scalable solutions that can grow with your business, allowing you to easily expand your offerings and increase website traffic.

🏆 Dedicated support: With Subbly, you gain access to dedicated customer support from experts in subscription commerce, ensuring guidance whenever you encounter challenges.

🏆 Brilliant subscription features: Subbly has flexible billing options, customizable subscription plans, recurring subscription payments, and advanced analytics tools.

4. Make your website your own

After browsing the subscription website templates on Subbly, you decide that the Homeplants Demo matches the natural feel of the website you want to set up.

After selecting this option, you can start customizing it to suit your adventure-themed boxes by adding your own content and images.

This is also the right time to create essential pages, such as your About section, which gives paying members or subscribers some background about your business.

5. Set up your subscription management

Next, you’ll want to determine which subscription features you need for your business.

This will depend on your subscription model (aka product subscription) and the details you outlined in your business plan.

Based on this, you decide to make sure the following is set up:

🧭 Customizable subscription plans: Offer different adventure box options tailored to varying preferences, such as beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of adventure.

🧭 Trial periods: Provide potential subscribers with the opportunity to receive a single trial adventure box without having to commit to a full subscription.

🧭 Flexible billing and shipping options: Implement flexible billing cycles and shipping frequencies to accommodate the diverse needs and schedules of adventure enthusiasts.

6. Promote, launch, and monitor

Now that everything is in place, you can start marketing your subscription website according to your marketing plan.

Once you’re confident you’ve created strong enough interest, take the plunge and officially introduce your adventure subscription box service to the world.

At the same time, you keep a close eye on its performance from day one by analyzing metrics and customer feedback to make informed decisions and tweaks as necessary.

Right now, we’re particularly impressed by the following subscription sites:

1. Island of the Month Box

Source: Island of the Month Box

Even though they haven’t launched yet, Island of the Month Box already has great content on their website, including a video that explains exactly how their product works.

2. I Love My Pet

Source: I Love My Pet

Their site features wonderful social media integration, showing thrilled subscribers unboxing their pet treats.

3. Jewels With Intention

Source: Jewels With Intention

This subscription website knows exactly how to capture attention with its clever calls-to-action and pop-ups that easily convert new subscribers.

Launching your own subscription website involves careful consideration and planning.

You must ensure a proper setup that includes trusted payment gateways, mobile-responsive functionality, and a CMS.

On top of this, you must cater to subscriber needs, such as offering free trials and hassle-free subscription preference changes.

The simplest route to achieving all this seamlessly is by choosing an all-in-one platform like Subbly.

With us by your side, you can get your business off the ground and benefit from built-in functionality to scale it effectively later on.

Want to learn more? Discover what we offer here.

How To Create A Subscription Website

Why Your Subscription Business Needs Its Own Website