How to Price a Subscription Box

Choosing a price for your subscription box is hard. In fact, it can be downright agonizing. You calculate and recalculate, going back and forth between numbers, trying to decide where to land. 

You don’t want to charge too much - you worry your audience won’t subscribe if you do. But, you can’t charge too little - after all, your subscription box is a business and a business can’t survive without making a profit. 

Some beginning subscription box owners treat deciding on a price like an arbitrary guess, no better than throwing a dart at a wall. This is NOT the right approach. 

There is science - and a lot of math - to choosing the right price for your subscription box. There is also a bit of creativity and artistry involved. 

There are a few key elements you need to think about when you are deciding your price. Let's break them down.

The products you put in your subscription box make up the largest portion of your overall cost. Before you can determine how much you’ll spend on the items in your subscription box, you need to plan what those items will be. 

There are a lot of creative ways you can take basic packaging and customize it to match your brand and the experience you want to create. Check out this blog post for ideas. 

Subscription box owners can account for the cost of sales tax in two different ways. You can add it to the total cost of your box or add it to the purchase price each month as a separate cost to the subscriber. 

Shipping costs have continued to rise which makes the question of whether or not to include them in the price of your box more important than ever. 

When it comes to shipping costs, you have a choice. You can include it in the price of your box or add a flat shipping rate on top of the price of the box. 

Whichever you choose, it’s important to know how much shipping costs can vary depending on the carrier you use, how you ship the boxes, and the final destination.

Another cost you might overlook when setting the price of your subscription box is the cost of actually filling the boxes. 

Whether you fulfill the boxes yourself, hire a person or team to help you, or outsource fulfillment, you must figure this cost out and include it in your costs. 

Research other subscription boxes in your niche. How much are they charging? What are your ideal customers paying for similar boxes? 

Realize that you will not be able to compete on cost with some of the big subscription box companies. They simply have too much buying power and are able to absorb costs in other areas. Instead, focus on curating an outstanding experience for your subscribers. Give them what no one else can give them - you! 

For more about competing with big box subscription companies, check out this blog post. 

Your subscription box is a business, not a hobby. You are not doing this for free. A subscription box business is hard work and you are building a business that needs to support you and support its growth.