Join me in welcoming the “Who’s Really the BOSS?” show to the Earmark app. Earn free CPE listening!
This podcast by Marcus Dillon, CPA, and Rachel Dillon highlights the joys and challenges of running a CPA firm with your spouse.
In the first course, “The Secret to a Successful Accounting Firm,” Bruce D. Berndt, CPA, CGMA, shares his top two pieces of advice for building a thriving firm focused on exceptional client service and a positive team culture.
Re-focusing on unlimited CPE
An incredible 157 of you responded to this survey (which is a lot, considering it only went out to about 1700 or 1800). Thank you to everyone who participated!
We’ll get into the numbers, but first, here’s my takeaway from the feedback you gave me in the notes: Unlimited CPE is what you’re here for. The Media Player and the Premium Content were not so necessary to your valuation.
So we’re just going to look at the pricing for this Unlimited Subscription in the context of Unlimited CPE, which is what you’re getting right now. And then, as we add the Media Player and the Premium Content, we might add additional, higher-priced tiers to capture the value of those additional features once we have them.
The results
So back to the numbers.
The count of responses is 157.
The maximum that anyone would be willing to pay? — $600! Wow!
The median is a hundred dollars.
The minimum is $0. Plenty of you said, “Hey, I get free CPE now. I love Earmark, but I’m fine with just getting free CPE. I don’t want to ever pay for it.” And that’s okay because we also generate revenue from advertising. We’re always going to have a free option for Earmark that sponsors will support.
The average is $122.
The standard deviation is $117.
The analysis: $99 is the sweet spot
I grouped all of the responses into buckets of “would pay X or more.” For example, if you answered $80 to the question of what would you pay for an annual subscription, you’re counted in the row “$49 or more.” If you answered $600, you’re also counted in that bucket.
Right away, something stood out. The “$99 or more” row has the most significant chunk of recurring revenue, representing 45% of the total possible ARR.
So $99 per year is the place we’ll start. Because most of you said, “I’m happy to pay that.” And if we’re going to offer a single subscription price, this price will generate the most revenue.
The table also shows there’s a gap. We could be making 55% more money if we figured out how to create and sell both less expensive and more expensive subscriptions. We will figure that out as we continue to add 5-10 CPE courses every week.
Adding in a member community
There’s one thing that I want to add to this: a Member Community. As part of the annual subscription, you will get access to a community of fellow Earmarkers. You’ll be able to talk directly to the Earmark Team (including me) and tell us what you want from Earmark. What sort of content? What authors? What features should we build? You can help guide the development of this app.
The importance of member support
The community is critical because I want to make Earmark a member-driven organization. That’s important when upholding the quality of the educational content. We appreciate the support of our sponsors, but independence is essential, and financial support from our members is what makes independence possible.
Again, thank you to those of you who participated in the survey. If I missed something, hey, let me know. The team and I look forward to continuing to build Earmark with you. And I’ll come back to you with more info as we move forward to launching the subscription, hopefully in June.