Boston Globe $3.99 rate after a $0.99 intro: most total revenue
Test run byMarketingExperimentsResearch publisher
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsA $3.99 regular weekly rate after a $0.99 four-week intro produced the most total revenue for The Boston Globe's digital subscriptions, 163% more than the $4.99 rate.
MarketingExperiments (MECLABS) ran the five-way price test and published it.
The $0.99 control won on sign-ups and kept the most subscribers, so the winner depends on which metric you care about.
- Total revenue from test traffic: the $3.99 regular rate produced the most, 163% more than the $4.99 rate.
- Subscriptions: the $0.99 control won, and sign-ups fell with each step up in the regular rate. Higher prices cost subscribers.
- Cancellations: the lower the regular rate, the lower the cancellation rate after the intro period ended.
- Revenue per subscriber: the $4.99 rate was highest, but it brought in too few subscribers to win on total revenue.
The change
Same intro offer; only the regular weekly rate after four weeks changed.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A digital subscription with a $0.99 introductory rate for four weeks, then a regular weekly rate that also stayed at $0.99.
Variant
The same $0.99 intro offer, then higher regular weekly rates across four treatments, up to $4.99. The $3.99 rate was the third treatment.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- $3.99 seems to balance price and volume: high enough to earn more per subscriber, low enough to keep enough people signing up and staying.
- Because everyone saw the same $0.99 intro, the regular rate mainly shaped whether people subscribed and whether they cancelled later.
- Judging on sign-ups alone would have picked $0.99, which earned the least per subscriber.
Caveats: Sample size and duration were not shared, and the exact figures appeared only in charts. The winner depends on the KPI: $0.99 won on sign-ups and retention, $4.99 on revenue per subscriber, and $3.99 on total revenue.
Who ran it
MarketingExperiments ran this test and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on MarketingExperiments →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we raise the regular price that follows our intro offer, then total revenue from new visitors will rise up to a point because higher revenue per subscriber outweighs fewer sign-ups and more cancellations.
- Primary metric
- Total revenue from test traffic over a fixed period
- Guardrails
- Subscription start rate
- Cancellation rate after the intro period
- Revenue per subscriber
- Who should test it
- Subscription businesses, including publishers and SaaS, that use an intro discount before the regular price. Tests like this need enough time to see renewals and cancellations, so they are hard for low-traffic products.
Questions
What price should follow an introductory offer?
Test several levels and judge on total revenue over time, not sign-ups.
Here the middle-high $3.99 rate beat both the lowest and the highest prices.
Which metric should decide a pricing test?
Pick the one tied to your real goal before the test starts.
In this test sign-ups, retention, revenue per subscriber and total revenue each pointed to a different winner.
Do higher prices increase cancellations?
In this test they did: cancellation rates rose as the regular weekly rate went up.