subscription — James Saye

Businesses of all shapes and sizes have fully embraced the subscription model over the last ten years with a huge swathe of new companies starting up under the subscription business model. I count myself having around 10 subscriptions (with a relatively loose definition), but here’s my top three.

1. The Economist

This is a new subscription for me. I’ve been subscribed to The Economist for only about a month but already I’m extremely impressed with the quality of content. I’ve always followed them online but the limitations of the paywall were always quite annoying so I decided to subscribe.

An Economist subscription gets you the print edition delivered every Friday and of course access to all the online content plus the audio edition and something I find very useful, The Economist Espresso. This is a daily rundown of the most important stories delivered on a separate app - great for a quick read on the morning walk to work.

The full subscription (Print + Digital) costs an initial £12 for 12 weeks and then renews at £53 per quarter which over a year works out at just over £3/week. Alternatively they do yearly subscriptions which get cheaper the more years you subscribe.

All the details are here: https://www.economist.com/subscribe

2. Pact Coffee

The staple of every morning routine, a good cup of coffee. Pact offer a range of really flexible coffee subscriptions depending on frequency, budget and type of brewing you do. The thing I like about Pact is that all their coffee is ethically sourced directly from the farmers meaning they pay much higher rates to the farmers than fair-trade sourced coffee. They also deliver in recyclable packages and their pods are also 100% recyclable. In 2016 they released a transparency report which details all of this and more.

So, with Pact you start off by selecting your package type; Filter, Pods, or Espresso machine, then decaf or ordinary, then the size of the grind which all depends on the method. Then you get to choose your budget. Here they offer three options; House, Select and Micro Lot (see the screenshot below). Finally, choose your frequency, and you’re done. The flexibility and choice is huge.

Each time you get a different coffee delivered to your door with a little sheet explaining where it’s from and the sort of taste to expect - I’ve not had a bad one yet. Of course you can also adjust your subscription at any time and if you run out mid way through you can get your order sent out straight away.

Personally, I have two subscriptions. One is a fine ground for my Aeropress which is great for just one cup at a time, and another is a coarse ground for my Cafetiere - perfect for a few cups.

All the details on their website, and using the code 'JAMES-98790A' gets us both £5 off. :)

3. Charged

Charged is another news subscription but is much more curated than a subscription to a large news site such as The Economist. Charged is all about tech news and is run by a great writer called Owen Williams (you should follow him on Twitter as a minimum).

With Charged you get a daily briefing (here’s an example) and access to a community (via a forum and Slack channel) which is a great place for discussions. You get all this without any adverts too which is nice. In addition to the paid-for briefings and community access Owen also has a free weekly newsletter and a (sort of) regular Podcast.

The subscription is just 8 EUR per month or 80 EUR for a year.

All the details are on the website char.gd and I think you can use the code ‘bestfriends’ to get 25% off for three months (that code is not affiliated to me at all)

We're all well aware of the popular business model that is 'X as a Service' (XaaS) where by, typically a business, will pay for something like Software but it is delivered remotely, in the case of Software via a Thin Client rather than via Download or a CD (whatever those are). This means that users always have the latest version and resource intensive applications can be run on less resourceful devices. This is great for services where a physical product is not required but what about when there is? Well, now there's a business model that is growing massively in popularity and that is the 'subscription economy' or maybe it should be EaaSub (Everything as a Subscription)? There's now hundreds, probably even thousands of businesses offering products via subscription and there's really no limit as to what you can get. We all know about the usual ones like Netflix and Magazines/Newspapers but here's some you may not know about:

It's even spawned new support businesses such as Zuora who now provide subscription management software to businesses.

For businesses this model has a lot of positives, it provides a predictable revenue stream and by encouraging customers to pay upfront it gives the cash flow required to support operations. In high competition industries it also locks in the consumer and stops them heading for the competition. For the consumer it's a hassle free way to get the consumable products they require often.

It's important though that there's some flexibility as consumers don't want to think they're paying for something that they don't need e.g. if they get a toothbrush monthly but only really need one every two months then they're likely to cancel.

So what's next for the subscription model, could we see typically service orientated businesses offering subscriptions, maybe something like unlimited Uber rides for £X/month? Subscription Hotel rooms? Could we see Apple expand it's iPhone Upgrade Program to it's other products, could Samsung start offering TVs and other large consumer electricals by Subscription?