11 money-making subscription business ideas for digital products and services

If you struggle to ride the waves of a feast and famine cycle, it’s time to incorporate recurring subscriptions into your income stream.

Implementing digital subscription business ideas ensures your income stays consistent, even during months when you barely sell individual products or work with clients.

In this article, we break down what subscription-based businesses are, share some ideas you can try, and highlight tips to help you run a successful digital subscription business.

What is subscription-based business income?

Recurring subscriptions are products or services people pay to access on an ongoing basis or for a set amount of time. It can be a digital product—like access to paid newsletters—or services you offer in the form of a monthly retainer.

Although subscription businesses aren’t a new concept, they continue to grow in popularity as more businesses realize the benefits of adding subscriptions to their offerings.

You might even use a physical subscription business yourself, like the meal-prep subscription HelloFresh, or digital options like Kobo’s monthly ebook subscription.

Any niche can introduce a recurring subscription, and you have unlimited power to customize your subscription to fit your business.

And when you use Kit, you can set up your recurring subscription in minutes (we’ll show you how later in the article).

Why subscriptions are a good business model for creators

You may wonder: are subscriptions a good business model? The answer is yes!

Here are three reasons why subscription-based businesses are worth your time:

• Easy to run and manage: Most creators are at capacity managing their businesses. Thankfully, adding a subscription to your offerings doesn’t need to take up large chunks of time. The Membership Geeks surveyed over 2,000 membership creators and found that 46% of subscription owners spend less than 20 hours a week maintaining their subscriptions. If you can carve out a couple of hours each week, you can run a healthy subscription-based business.
• Stability and peace of mind: Nothing is worse than starting a month wondering how you’ll cover your expenses. Subscriptions minimize the ebbs and flows of business by providing cash upfront so you can start each month with money in the bank. Over 50% of subscription creators surveyed say their members stay subscribed for over one year, giving you major peace of mind every month.
• Automatic payments: When invoicing clients, you often need to wait 15, 30, or even 90+ days for payment. But with subscriptions, you set up recurring payments to happen automatically, which requires less mental energy than chasing down payments, allowing you to focus on creating incredible content.
• Scale faster: Unlike client work or one-on-one coaching, where you can only work with a specific number of clients before your schedule fills (or worse, you get burnt out), subscriptions let you serve more people without extra work or more hands to pay.
• Increase upsells: You’ve likely heard how much easier it is to sell to an existing customer than a new one. When you’re constantly interacting with your subscribers, they’ll get a taste for the products and services you offer. As they become more familiar with you, their trust will grow, making it easier to convert them with larger offerings. As a result, your income grows even more.

The best membership and digital subscription business ideas to earn more money

There’s a wide range of digital subscription products and services. Before we delve into the business ideas, let’s answer two common questions about subscription businesses:

What is a subscription product example?

A subscription product is any product delivered over a period of time that can be paid for on a recurring basis. Some examples of subscription products are paid newsletters and community memberships.

What can you sell as a subscription?

You can sell anything from paid newsletters, community memberships, live classes, and book club memberships as subscriptions.

1. Paid newsletters

Ideal for: Experts who enjoy writing and want to share exclusive content.

If you have a loyal audience who eagerly awaits each email you send, why not launch a paid newsletter? You don’t need a massive audience for a profitable newsletter, but you do need to follow some best practices:

• Solve a problem your audience has
• Pack your paid newsletter with highly relevant information
• Consistently search for ways to delight your readers each time you land in their inbox
• Infuse each newsletter with your unique voice and personality

Newsletter subscription example: Brianna Graham’s Freelance Flow

Freelancer Brianna Graham shares freelance work opportunities in her Freelance Flow newsletter. This supports her freelance income and allows her to help other freelancers find work.

Newsletter subscription example: Barrett Brook’s Career Capital

Career coach Barrett Brooks runs a paid newsletter called Career Capital, in which he provides tips to help his readers become high performers in their careers.

2. Coaching and teaching-oriented memberships

Ideal for: Creators who teach subjects that require ongoing support or where the subject matter changes frequently.

If you’re in the business of teaching and have courses or coaching programs, consider turning them into a subscription. Under this model, subscribers pay to access your knowledge on an ongoing basis.

Coaching works well in niches that need ongoing support, like fitness or personal development.

Fitness membership example: Leah Jantzen’s The Scrappy Athlete

Mental performance coach Leah Jantzen offers 1:1 coaching to help her clients develop mental fitness, improving their focus and goal-oriented efforts. Leah also works as a motivational speaker, which complements her coaching offering.

Instagram membership example: Sherri King’s Girl on the Go VIP club

Marketing strategist and graphic designer Sherri King also runs the Girl on the Go Instagram community, where she coaches members, providing weekly motivation and business tips.

3. Book club subscriptions

Ideal for: Avid readers who want to lead thoughtful book discussions or authors who’d like to feature their books as reading material.

Book clubs are buzzing. Even celebrities like Reese Witherspoon and Andrew Luck have started their own. But you don’t need celeb status to run a thriving book club. Host your book club by sending out book recommendations and meetups to discuss the readings.

Book club subscription example: Odessa’s Akwaaba Akademy Children’s Book Club

The Akwaaba Akademy hosts book clubs for children ages 4-6. Each month, they deliver the book selection along with state-standard questions to help kids get the most out of each book. Host Odessa is a kindergarten teacher who also offers tutoring services for kids.

Cookbook subscription example: Chef D Malfi’s Plant-Based Made Easy Cookbook Club

Chef Daniella Malfitano puts a twist on the traditional book club by hosting a cookbook club instead. She sends out one e-cookbook a month with her recipes. Instead of discussions, she hosts live cooking lessons on Facebook and YouTube.

4. Memberships for online communities and networking

Ideal for: Leaders who can cultivate a group of like-minded individuals.

Individual networks are shrinking, and people are searching for new ways to connect. If you enjoy organizing events and hosting meetups, consider creating a paid community for your audience to network.

Networks don’t need to be large to be effective, either. You can start a paid online community with only a handful of people. Add things like a private Facebook community or periodic Zoom meet-ups to keep your communities engaging.

Marketing membership example: Aleia Walker’s The Speakeasy Bar

Marketing agency owner Aleia Walker runs The Speakeasy Bar, a marketing community for marketers and C-suite executives. She keeps her subscription engaging by hosting monthly happy hours for members.

Community membership example: Maurizio Leo’s The Perfect Loaf Community

Maurizio Leo’s The Perfect Loaf Community is geared toward sourdough bread fans who want to improve their baking skills. Maurizio now has nearly 2000 subscribers paying $50 a year, and this membership program accounts for over 25% of his total income as a creator.

5. Fan club subscriptions

Ideal for: Bands and public figures with devoted fans.

If you’re a public figure, there’s a good chance you have devoted fans who crave the chance to be part of an exclusive club. Use your fan club to host virtual meetups, show behind-the-scenes, share exclusive discounts, and give access to one-of-a-kind merch.

Fan club example: Pink Martini’s Patreon Fan Club

The band Pink Martini gives members of their fan clubs everything from discounts to signed merch to meet and greets at their shows via Patreon.

6. Live classes and workshops

Ideal for: Creators who want to cultivate a community through live sessions rather than pre-recorded classes.

This is great for activities that are more enjoyable in real time, such as workout classes and creative workshops. You can connect with others, get instant feedback, and be held more accountable.

Live class subscription example: Blythe Steven’s Yoga & Dance group classes

Blythe Stevens is a dance and yoga instructor who hosts live dance classes for her subscribers. Because she isn’t confined to actual studio space, she can host unlimited people. She also offers personalized coaching and in-person classes.

7. Retainer packages

Ideal for: Freelancers and service providers.

If you don’t sell products, you might think recurring subscriptions aren’t for you. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Freelancers and virtual assistants (VAs) can offer clients monthly retainer packages in return for a set amount of work.

8. Subscriptions to digital resource libraries

Ideal for: Creators with vast collections of content and resources.

If you’re constantly creating new content but don’t know what to do with it, bundle it up in a library and offer members unlimited access. You can put just about anything into your resource library, but here are a few ideas to get you thinking:

• Fonts
• Stock photos and videos
• Webinars
• Worksheets and printables
• Graphics
• Templates
• Audio and music
• Meal plans and recipes
• Sewing patterns
• DIY tutorials

To keep people around for longer than a month, fill your library with content that people won’t be able to consume within 30 days.

Basket Weaving subscription example: Textile Indie’s Basket-A-Month Club

Textile Indie is a family-run business that teaches people how to do various DIY crafts including sewing and basket weaving. Their Basket-A-Month Club is a subscription service that teaches people how to make 12 different basket-weaving styles in the course of a year. Customers can either sign up monthly or annually.

9. Sponsorships or donations

Ideal for: Creators who share valuable free content with their audience.

If you don’t want to commoditize your content but still want reliable recurring income, consider asking your audience for sponsorships and donations. With all the free content swirling around, you might feel like people won’t donate, but that’s far from the truth.

People want to pay their favorite creators for the hard work they do. Even social media platforms like X/Twitter have created tip jars to help creators earn a living.

However, you must provide your audience with highly valuable content if you plan to ask them to sponsor or donate to you. Otherwise, they might not see a purpose in their donation.

Donation subscription example: Brandi Stanley’s This Plus That Podcast

The This Plus That podcast host Brandi Stanley uses Kit to set up recurring donations monthly, quarterly, or yearly to support her podcast. Offering different tiers of support makes it easy for your audience to donate in an amount that fits their budget.

10. Online advertising opportunities

Ideal for: Creators who have an engaged audience but don’t want to create any new offers at the moment.

You may love the idea of a subscription but have no bandwidth to create any additional products. The solution? Advertise someone else’s product by offering advertising opportunities to other businesses that serve a similar audience to you.

For example, sell ad space on your blog for a monthly set fee. You can use a WordPress plugin like Ad Inserter to insert the ads into your content automatically. Or, if you have a private community like a Facebook group, offer businesses the opportunity to promote their offerings within your group. You can also offer newsletter advertising opportunities.

11. Access to Software as a Service (SaaS)

Ideal for: Developers who can create useful tools and software to help their audience accomplish a task.

Big brands like Kit, Monday, and Adobe’s Creative Cloud instantly come to mind when you think of SaaS. But you don’t need to become the next Kit to dip your toes into the world of SaaS.

How to create a subscription-based product with Kit

Ready to set up your recurring subscription? Here’s how to do it in Kit.

After creating a Kit account, head to Earn > Products.

Next click the Create a product button.

Give your subscription a name and set its price. You can add monthly, quarterly, or yearly pricing options.

Choose what type of subscription you plan to offer:

Then, customize your domain name.

Next, create your product description to encourage people to sign up for your subscription. You can quickly add your own text, photos, and change the colors. After you’re happy with it, make any necessary adjustments to the checkout, confirmation, and receipt email and hit publish.

After publishing, a screen will pop up with details on how to share your product.

And that’s it—you’ve officially created a product with recurring payments. Kit will handle the recurring payments so you can focus on providing exceptional content to your members.

Tips to make your subscription business idea successful

Making a success of your subscription business can seem impossible. These tips will help you make things work.

How to package your membership or online subscription idea

Our recurring subscription ideas will open a world of possibilities for your subscription business. But how do you choose and package the best option for your business? Consider these three factors:

• How much time do you want to invest? Decide how much time you’d like to spend on your subscription business and choose options that suit your schedule. For more hands-off subscriptions, offer digital products that don’t take much time to create or deliver. If you want to invest more time, offer coaching or live classes.
• What does your audience want? Survey your audience to see which subscriptions they’re most interested in. Look for repetitive questions your audience is asking. These questions tell you exactly what your audience wants from paid products. Use Kit tags to poll your audience with 3-5 membership benefit ideas and see the most popular ones. Then, keep your audience in the loop about the results and let them know the membership is coming soon.
• What interests you? You need to create ongoing content for a subscription, so make sure what you choose is something you’ll be excited to create. You can either pick one to start or bundle multiple options together. For example, you might love the idea of offering group coaching sessions but also have a resource library full of great resources. You can bundle both into one unique product.

How to promote subscription-based products

Before you launch your subscription-based product, you’ll need to decide where you’ll host your community. With options like Discord, Slack channels, Facebook Groups, and Patreon, creators are spoiled for choice. All of these options integrate well with Kit.

Once you’ve launched, you can start promoting your subscription. Here are some ways you can promote your subscription business.

• Attract new email subscribers with a great lead magnet: Use Kit landing pages and an appealing lead magnet (e.g., a digital product sample) to collect subscribers. You can then nurture email subscribers into signing up for your membership.
• Craft a product launch email campaign: Build a product launch email sequence in Kit to tell people about your subscription-based product.
• Send them to a product landing page: Use Kit landing pages to ask people to join your membership and share the benefits.

Market your subscription-based product on all your platforms: Don’t be shy about publicizing your new subscription business. Talk about it on social media, in your newsletter, and even on your blog—and do so often, so people are constantly reminded to try it out.

How to build a lasting subscription-based creator biz

The work doesn’t end once your subscription-based business is off the ground. You need to make it last so you can retain old subscribers even as you gain new ones.

Create a result-driven community with your membership

Community is a large part of memberships, whether through your own coaching and support or the communities.

People want to join spaces where they can interact with like-minded people. By giving them resources (either through you or each other), they’ll get the results they want from your membership and become long-term members.

Create a community within your membership by offering benefits like:

• Channels for members to talk to each other
• Daily, weekly, and monthly topics to discuss
• Scheduling AMAs with you, community members, or other experts
• Having members opt-in to 1:1 calls to get to know each other
• Hosting virtual training or happy hours
• Offering in-person meetups in popular cities

Keep up to date with trends and what your subscribers want

If you run a paid newsletter, invite readers to reply to you often and survey them at least once a year to make sure your newsletters are meeting their needs. With memberships, focus on the smaller administrative tasks that keep your membership rolling, add new benefits based on member feedback, and figure out how to house more members as your community grows.

Stay up to date on what your members need from you and what you can do to improve their experience (these can be free add-ons or upsells).

It’s also worth keeping up to date with what other influencers and brands in your niche are offering so you can set yourself apart.

Use Kit to create and scale your subscription business

Kit’s creator marketing platform tools, like Kit Commerce, allow you to sell recurring subscriptions, use landing pages to turn your online audience into members, and harness visual automations to take you out of the onboarding process.

This allows you to spend all of your time focusing on your members and how to keep improving your membership.

Kit Commerce also gives you the option to sell digital products and collect tips from your subscribers, allowing you to test and try different streams of revenue for your biz.

Want to get off the feast and famine rollercoaster? Get started with Kit today.