Survey Reveals 48% Spend Less Than $25 on all Subscription Services

The use of subscription services has been rising recently, especially with the growth of technology such as smart devices. Subscription services are products or services offered over a timeline (such as a monthly or yearly subscription, etc.) with recurring payments made at regular intervals. Likewise, there are several different subscription services such as streaming, music, gaming, groceries, food delivery, news & other publications, utilities, and more.

Over the years, consumer behavior patterns have significantly increased to the point where services such as traditional television are obsolete.

To gauge consumer subscription plan behavior, Real Research, an online survey platform, launched a survey on understanding consumer subscription plan behavior. Through the survey, Real Research aims to gather insights into the type of subscription services respondents mainly subscribed to, the total spending on all subscription services, and more.

Survey Highlights:

• 50.05% are subscribed to streaming services.
• 47.74% spend less than $25 on all subscription plans per month.
• 50.43% prefer a ‘monthly’ billing cycle for subscription plans.

A Large Majority Are Subscribed to At Least One Subscription Plan

The survey began with a poll on whether respondents have subscribed to any subscription plan. 63.32% have subscribed, 18.89% subscribed in the past but not anymore, 9.26% do not have a subscription but plan to acquire one, and 8.54% said no.

Furthermore, as part of understanding consumer subscription plan behavior, the survey revealed that a majority of 50.05% are subscribed to streaming services (YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, etc.), while the rest are subscribed to music services (17.54%), gaming such as PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, etc. (7.01%), news and other publications (3.53%), food delivery (3.04%), computer software (2.65%), and e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Ali Express (2.61%). 5.75%, however, are not subscribed to anything.

Number of Respondents’ Subscriptions

The consumer subscription plan behavior survey also revealed that 42% of respondents have at least 1-2 subscriptions, while 23% have 3-4 different subscriptions, and 15% have up to 5-6 subscriptions.

Accordingly, 38.38% said the longest subscription plan respondents have subscribed to were 1-3 months, 17.68% said 4-6 months, 16.19% said 7-12 months, and 12.39% said 1-2 years. Additionally, when asked about which type of subscription service had the longest subscription duration, 12.87% said streaming, 11.13% said e-commerce, 10.63% said computer software, 8.58% said music, and 7.24% said news & other publications, among others.

Average Cost of Subscriptions Per Month

Results from the survey to understand consumer subscription plan behavior also showed that 47.47% spend less than $25 on subscriptions per month, 19.17% spend between $25-$49, 12.95% spend $50-$99, and 6.86% spend up to $100-$149.

Subscriptions With the Highest Spending

The survey also found that a majority is spending the most on streaming subscriptions (13.24%), followed by e-commerce (11%), computer software (9.97%), music (8.14%), news & other publications (6.26%), food delivery (5.92%), and gaming (5.71%). Meanwhile, (13.39%) spend on none of the subscription services.

Survey Respondents’ Preferred Billing Cycle

Billing cycles for each subscription service vary; likewise, preferences of the billing cycle for subscription plans also vary. Many respondents (50.43%) prefer monthly billing cycles; others prefer a weekly billing cycle (14.08%), bi-monthly billing cycle (13.16%), bi-weekly (6.34%), and annual billing cycle (6.99%).

Factors that Affect Subscription Plan Choices

People choose various subscription plans based on several factors; for most, price and affordability are the most prioritized factors, as a whopping 11.92% agree. Others important factors include the ability to cancel anytime (9.15%), subscription reward systems (7.36%), flexibility of packages (6.43%), variety of platform options (6.38%), security (6.23%), customer support (6.21%), and performance (6.02%).

According to the survey on understanding consumer subscription plan behavior, respondents expressed what other additional perks they would like to see from subscription plans. The responses were: community feedback to influence future services (36.11%), loyalty system (22.38%), crypto reward system (19.02%), collaborations with other subscription services (8.31%), and special pricing based on subscription usage (6.63%).

Majority of Respondents Satisfied With Their Current Subscription Services

Finally, the survey asked if respondents were satisfied with their current subscription services. 34.38% are highly satisfied, 28.46% are satisfied, leaving 9% dissatisfied.