50+ Subscription Business Ideas for Digital Products (with Examples)
Subscription business market is in full boom and you can start small with multiple subscription business ideas. Not everyone can start their own Netflix to sell subscriptions to digital products, but there are plenty of smaller-scale subscription business models inspired by already existing companies and brands.
And did you know there are multiple, high profiting smaller scale subscriptions? For instance businesses like ClayShare, Find What Feels Good, or league of comic geeks are small scale and very niche subscription business examples.
That said, if creating another Spotify or Apple Arcade is too unrealistic an undertaking for you, let’s consider more ideas manageable for solo entrepreneurs or small teams!
How to Sell Digital Products Using a Subscription Model
Before you even dive into these ideas, how to actually distribute your content packaged in subscription plans?
Using your own website
You can come up with business ideas for subscription and sell digital subscriptions on your site. Herein, you will have full control over pricing and branding of your business ideas. To create a site, you can use any CMS including WordPress with subscription plugins like ARMember.
At the same time, you can integrate third-party software into your website, such as Kajabi, Podia or Teachable that allows you to sell digital subscriptions to your content, either accessible online or with downloadable materials.
Using external platforms
The most obvious benefit of this approach is that you don’t need to build and maintain your own site or spend time on marketing. You just build special membership site content and choose ways to monetize it with subscriptions according to the platform’s requirements and options. Marketplaces like Patreon or Substack (for newsletters) work in such a way.
If you develop software, also consider selling subscriptions through app stores (iOS App Store, Google Play Store). In any case, you will need to pay a platform fee.50+ Subscription Business Ideas for Digital Products
Wanna dive deeper into how the real business operates and get inspired with more ideas? Let’s get down to the list of subscription based business ideas.
A Micro Niche Platform for Streaming Content
You can start a streaming platform, too, where digital content can be steamed by your customers. Or, you can simply create your account and upload your content to already popular platforms. But this can be something very narrow-niched like bird watching, crafting, or vintage car restoration. Thus, it will be easier to market such a digital product.
For example, here is a small online car restoration club that has free and paid videos.
To unlock premium videos, a digital subscription is required.
Such a platform can simply provide access to a collection of exclusive how-to videos, documentaries, or podcasts for which you can charge a monthly fee. Your own website powered by the membership software is one of the best ways to sell content in this way and push your new business ideas.
Let’s sum up some of the ideas:
- Bird-watching streaming.
- Handcrafting.
- Vintage car restoration.
- Content with regional and cultural focus.
- Music documentaries.
- Masterclasses on a specific cuisine.
- Comic book series.
- Anime Series Content
- A platform that is a collection of short films
Membership Communities
Membership communities are one of the most profitable ways to earn money for your business. Selling subscriptions with plugins like ARMember, you get multiple customization options to boost engagement, e.g. offer free trials, and monthly or yearly payment options. Membership subscription based business ideas can help you build a highly engaged and niche community.
For example, the Cutting Edge Dance Studio offers membership subscriptions with numerous video syllabuses and lesson plans.
They offer various subscription levels based on the needs of the members.
As for ideas on creating a membership site and offering exclusive content and resources, the narrower the niche, the better the subscription business ideas.
- Weekly choreography tutorials.
- Golf lessons and tutorials.
- Live meditation sessions.
- Yoga classes memberships.
- A children’s book club with interactive activities.
- Special designing and editing lessons
- Professional association memberships like bar association, lawyer’s society, medical association, etc.
- A community of travellers or musicians
SaaS for professionals
This might be a more complex and time-consuming business idea because identifying a niche, developing, supporting, and marketing a SaaS product is a matter of years (a lot of things depend on the size of your team).
However, since more and more businesses are looking for automation, CRM, bookings, and other ways to simplify and speed up their workflow, there is always a need for a brand site with software for specific professionals.
For example, look at tools like Banktrack, which is a comprehensive budgeting tool that offers clients subscriptions to get access to integration with over 120 banks, strong expense tracking, and real-time financial insights. Or tools like Trello, Slack, and Click Up that support business functions in various ways.
Such software is a good example of a subscription business ideas of a digital product for which you can set any pricing model. From a monthly or yearly subscription fee to a one-time payment, the decision lies in your hands.
What kind of SaaS or tools for specific site CMS’s can that be?
- Scheduling tool for local yoga instructors or personal trainers.
- Client management app for freelancers or solopreneurs.
- Lightweight invoicing or budgeting tool for small teams.
- Multi-vendor platforms for local communities or businesses.
Online Business Ideas for Educational Content
To sell access to education content, all options are good: a personal site, a dedicated platform, or a mobile app. However, on your personal site, you can tailor the pricing system and content management systems better to your unique needs.
What subscriptions to educational content can you offer to your clients?
A lot of education happens outside traditional schools and universities. Informal education is very common and if you structure it well, it has a huge selling potential.
For example, ClayShare sells very specific tutorials, workshops, and full-length classes of pottery tutorials.
Here are a few popular examples to offer vocational, informal, and adult education online via digital subscriptions:
- Pottery tutorials.
- Monthly culinary courses (bread making, traditional cuisine of different countries).
- Downloadable educational kits for kids, like STEM activities.
- Employee skills and productivity workshops.
- Coding bootcamps.
- Educational games
- Documentaries.
- Podcasts.
- Crochet or other skill based platform as subscription business ideas.
- Certificate courses for students and professionals to skill up.
Business Ideas for Subscription Based Digital Resource Libraries
Checklists, tutorials, templates… There are many hobbies and businesses that require them on a regular basis, when they need to deal with dynamic workflows, evolving trends, and project-based structures. Releasing new kits or templates regularly, you can keep your paid subscribers with you.
For example, Linguahouse offers teachers ready-made lesson plans and worksheets for foreign languages. Paid subscription is $99/year.
Here are a few subscription business ideas for digital products that may count as libraries:
- Lesson plans, course outlines, and study kits.
- Patterns, project kits, material lists for sewing, knitting, or woodworking.
- Seasonal recipe kits.
- Real estate’s client documentation kits.
- Checklists for gear, location planning, and editing workflows for photographers.
- Seasonal planting guides, seed kits, and care templates for gardeners.
- Itineraries, packing lists, and destination research templates for travelers.
- Hand-drawn icons or illustrations for web developers.
- Music or sound effects for specific music and movie genres.
Subscription Business Ideas Beyond Digital Products
A subscription business model works well not only for digital products but certain physical products and services as well. Herein, let us look at some of the new business ideas for subscription to physical products and services.
Business Ideas for Physical Product Subscription
Subscription box business is becoming more and more common across the world. People like to choose their essentials or types of products they need and hand it over to subscription businesses. Now these businesses curate a box as per customer preferences and ship it to them. It can be weekly or monthly or a duration set by customers. Here are some of the ideas of the subscription box business.
- Weekly food ingredients kit for PG and hostel students or even busy working professionals.
- Weekly curated outfits box for people who need a new look every day.
- Fun and puzzle kits for children of varied ages.
- Subscription boxes for couples.
- Monthly skincare or haircare subscription business ideas.
- Weekly fruits and vegetables subscription.
- Beauty box.
- Snack box for healthy eating.
- Fandom or merchandise based subscription business boxes.
- Crochet or seed planting kits with guides.
The ideas for subscription box business are limitless! With busier lives, people opt for more and more subscriptions to ease their weekly and monthly management tasks.
Business Ideas for Subscription to Services
There are certain services like cleaning, laundry, or even beauty treatments that are needed on a regular basis. You can package them as a subscription business and provide various levels of subscriptions. Your customers can choose the plan based on their requirement and get their services sorted. Are you ready to explore the online business ideas to cater to services as subscriptions?
- Car Washing Subscriptions.
- Deep Cleaning of House/Office.
- Beauty Treatments like Waxing, Threading, Haircut Services.
- Subscribing to a Cook
- Babysitting or Pet Sitting Subscriptions.
- Chauffeur Services.
- Nail Art or Makeup Subscriptions.
These kinds of services can easily be packaged as a subscription type business. Moreover, you can define the number of times you would provide a service per month for a specific plan. Based on that, the audience can call on you as per their convenience.
Based on these ideas, you can plan your subscription business model beyond digital products. As these physical products and services are needed by customers on a regular basis, the chances of them opting for a subscription increases.
Final Notes
Once you pick a subscription business idea, dedicate enough time to promote and support your project. It will take some time but will definitely kick off gradually. To aid you in this regard, we want to finish this article with a few more tips:
- The more specific the niche, the more passionate the audience, and the easier to compete on the market.
- Have your marketing plan ready on how your target audience will find your services.
- Handy website navigation, high-quality content, and device compatibility are essential.
- Profitable monetization comes with subscription fees, ad revenue, and premium content tier analysis.
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Brian Denim
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