Why is It So Hard to Get People to Pay $5
But So Easy to Get Them to Pay the Big Bucks
First Workshop of 2025 (Free)
How to Create A Monetization Strategy for 2025
Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 4:00 pm MTN/6:00 pm EST
I regularly go and enjoy bougie coffee. I love checking out cute little coffee shops around my town and in places that I’m visiting. Similar to folks who enjoy checking out breweries or a sneaker heads. Coffee is a drink I enjoy, love to talk about and is my thing. Very rarely are those drinks less than $5 dollars not including tip. I happily pay for a Lavender Oatmilk Latte, or a Black Sesame Matcha Latte. These purchases bring me a bit of joy during my day. I don’t really care that I’m spending $6 or $7 on a drink.
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Why Am I Sharing This?
After years of building products and services online I’ve often seen chatter that references the following issue:
People are often very willing to pay high ticket prices and unwilling to pay lower ticket prices for resources that could help them. Even when the high ticket prices harm their personal finances and the product or strategy might not actually work for your brand.
What is an equity focused content creator supposed to do?
I’ve purposely built out resources that range from free to high ticket. My high ticket products are almost exclusively available to Corporate, Non-Profit or For-Profit Entities.
You know-the folks with deep pockets.
I don’t want to pass along high cost goods and resources to the people that I serve. Yes, I do charge money for certain things (I’m not a charity) but I’ve thoughtfully curated a brand that is affordable to the people that I’m serving.
Why?
Because I was the community member that I’m currently serving. The person who cares about certain issues so passionately and wants to better the world that I’m in. I didn’t have tons of cash in the beginning to pay for the skills and resources I needed to help me grow my impact. There was a point when I found that I naturally started to pay for things such as better software, conferences, courses and books. The longer I created content online the more my skills improved and I naturally ended up spending money to make money (I don’t like this last cliche phrase even though it’s true).
Instead of asking “Why won’t people pay at lower prices (and are weirdly sometimes more challenging to work with…” let’s reframe this issue.
The Role of Free Content
I share content on a weekly basis for almost all of my brands. Free content that I share includes, but isn’t limited to the following:
Free editions of my newsletter
Podcast Episodes
Website content (posts)
Social media content
Free content for my ideal community member or collaborator helps to do the following:
Establish my expertise
Builds a body of work in the space (portfolio)
Shows what my bias is-Important these days
This helps to attract or repel people to me.
Top of funnel into my brand
Most importantly, my free content often gets me PAID. I can communicate what I would like to be hired for. In 2025, I’m particularly interested in getting paid speaking gigs and am sharing that in my content and HOW to contact me.
The Role of Low-Cost Content
$5-$47
Think of low-cost content like Happy Hour at a new to you restaurant. It’s a great way to try something new without paying too much. If you like it, you’ll head back for another meal or become a regular during happy hour-driving up your annual spend. The coffee shops that I regularly hang out at are making what almost could be considered the equivalent of a non-commital subscription fee off of me.
What If People Don’t Buy In?
This is the hardest part about these low-cost products. If you’re trying to build a newsletter or other low-cost product how in the hell do you get people to say “yes” to what you’re offering?
Create deeper clarity in the copy around your product, good or service. Is it clear what the benefit is to the person you’re trying to persuade to make a purchase from you?
What is the problem that it solves?
How does it help them?
Is there a quick win?
Sell Your Product-Are you selling your product(s) aggressively? I don’t mean being in people’s faces all the time telling them you have a product that they could purchase. What I mean is actively selling your products on a daily basis.
Do You Understand the Metrics-Learning about the percentages that people actually convert into paying customers really changed some core aspects of my business.
Shifted to Growing My List-It was very clear that I need to build a bigger brand eco-system so that I could get in front of the people that I would like to serve. They would need to connect with me MULTIPLE TIMES before ever deciding to make a purchase.
Selling your low-ticket products sometimes feels like the hazing process-painful, crazy and wild all at the same time.
Change Your Product Design
If people aren’t opting to make even a $5 purchase from you here are some of the questions you may need to ask yourself.
Am I Giving Away Too Much For Free? Are you giving so much for free that there’s no compelling reason to say “yes” to the paid option?
What is behind the Paywall? Is it compelling enough to trigger curiosity, want or need? Does your community member say to themselves the following…
I’m curious about this?!
I want this!
I need this!!
Are You Publishing Often Enough? Are you creating and sharing your paid content often enough that you can make a compelling argument that people should make a purchase from you. Be honest with yourself.
Did You Promise Too Much? Sometimes as content creators we find ourselves overthinking the offers that we’re making. Then we fail to deliver what we said we would because we promised too much. Can you deliver on what you promised?
Change Your Expectations
Last year I was hanging out with a friend of mine at an event. We were talking about our businesses and this friend made a really interesting comment that I spent a lot of time reflecting on.
“I don’t worry about whether or not people pay $5 for the resource that I’ve built. That money is just icing on the cake.”
Why did my friend say this?
Because they’ve diversified their income and make money with high ticket products and services. That money subsidizes the time spent on the lower ticket product which is important to their business but isn’t the primary revenue focus of their online business.
Why Offer a $5 Product?
It’s really interesting to me how resistant some creators are to charge money for goods, services, etc. Even resistant to charging $5 for one of their own products.
Here’s a list of $5 products that people likely are currently paying for….
Google Monthly Storage Subscriptions
Ebooks
Cookies-Seriously, the ones you eat.
Coffee
Bougie Bottled Water
Stickers-About to order some for my water bottle
Lip balm
Denver Light Rail Day Pass (it’s actually $5.50)
Again, Why Offer a $5 Product?
To create an entry level product
To solve a problem that the people you are serving may be dealing with.
Because some content relies on YOUR LABOR and in order to produce that work-you need to be compensated for it.
Why not?
To build confidence
And finally, to build trust in you. I do think it’s important to know that the percentage of people who will make a purchase is low and you’ll need to market and grow your lists with that in mind.
Ultimately Free vs. Paid Is This
If you’re struggling with how to decide what to charge for, below is a simple breakdown.
Free Content=The concepts and strategies
Paid=How to implement the concepts and strategies. Paid is the content that takes time to answer.
Where In the Customer Journey is Your Community Member?
This is an important question to pay attention to. Is your community member at the point where they actually need the items that you’re selling? Maybe they have every intention to buy from you but…
They’re just not there yet.
This is why am often shocked when content creators get mad at their audience/community members. Did they even consider that it just might not be the right time or the right fit for audience member-right now?
What If They Skip The $5 Option?
The first year I focused on building my newsletter, I made a surprising amount of money considering the size of the list. What I discovered was that many of those warmed up audience members didn’t NEED the $5 product and instead purchased higher ticket products and services.
This behavior should remind people to stop disparaging their audience members who stay at the free tier. Again, going from free to paid for a newsletter can be between 3%-10% depending on the creator, platform they’re using and other factors.
A Final Question for Content Creators
What Are YOU Buying?
If you’re creating and trying to sell products I have a question for you. What product are you buying from other creators. What problems are other creators solving for you? If you’re unwilling to spend with other creators…why should anyone spend with you?
Here’s My Incomplete Buying List:
Conference Tickets-Yep, I purchased almost $700 in tickets from several conferences to gift to my audience.
Books-I buy books from independent authors on a weekly basis. I especially love reading romance books written by independent authors. For those of you who might not know, I have a romance pen name LOL!
Workshops-I don’t know everything and I love learning skills from other people.
Newsletters-Currently I pay for 5 newsletter subscriptions.
Merchandise-Those stickers that I mentioned earlier in this post are from an online content creator.
Coaching-I’ve paid for one-on-one and high ticket coaching
Conference Registration-I attend conferences!
I’m not saying to just buy stuff to be buying stuff. What I’m saying is that it’s important to recognize your decision making process as it relates to finding solutions that address your needs as a content creator.
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