24 Comments
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Ronald A Yoder's avatar

I think the question you ask is a dangerous one. It shouldn't be either / or. Either I keep my job or I quit my job and do this blog full time. The approach I suggest you consider is building your blog up so high with free subscribers that you can ask for a lesser amount, from a larger audience. The most common substack subscription price I keep seeing, over and over again, is $50 a YEAR. So, consider that as your benchmark, meaning HOW MANY PAID SUBSCRIBERS at $50 a year do you need to replace your income coming from your current job?? And build your free blog following high enough such that even if you lost 90% of your free subscribers when you switched to a paid model, you still had enough subscribers sticking with you paying up to cover your monthly/yearly obligations. At least that's how I would do it, if it were me. Good luck!

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The Crude Chronicles's avatar

You’re probably correct. I’m learning a lot from this exercise as well. I am getting an idea of what my true conversion may be, how high a list i would need to go, price point as well as the infamous youve stated. Thanks for the help!

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Edward Brown's avatar

I like your stuff. I enjoy reading it and appreciate it. Unfortunately I am a modest retired guy who invests a little here and there but doesn’t pay much for info. I subscribe to Seeking Alpha but that is about it. I wish you well and hope there are others who see the value in your writing who agree to fund it, so you can follow your passion. I am just not that guy, and I am afraid, most of your readership might be kind of like me, unfortunately. Best wishes and good luck!!!

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The Crude Chronicles's avatar

Totally get it sir. I appreciate the support and follow and feedback.

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Daniel Schoonhoven's avatar

Hello, I am a drilling and completions engineer and really enjoy reading your work, but I’m not really using it to take investment action. However, if you were to publish a book on comprehensive history of the industry, I would 100% purchase that! Thank you for all the wonderful information you share and all the work you’ve done, I hope you find a way to turn this into income.

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Christian Garrido's avatar

I am a stimulations engineer who just came back to the industry after long 4 years out, and as you I am also trying to build up my savings again, I really love your work and I subscribe to the above regarding the book

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The Crude Chronicles's avatar

Hahaha. I show my wife some of my stuff and her only comment is “you need to spell and grammar check”

Idk if i could do a book! Welcome back and thanks for following

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The Crude Chronicles's avatar

Thank you so much. Man, a book would be a massive task and i fully admit I am. It the best at grammar. Data and charts, yes. Books not so much. Thanks for the feedback and support

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Daniel Schoonhoven's avatar

Each one of your articles could just be a chapter! I would enjoy a book in your casual writing style. But I was thinking of a book more as a reference resource. You’ve created such a wealth of information and charts, having one place to reference would be great and avoid having your work be lost over the years.

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David's avatar

Like what a lot of people say here, you're pricing out "retail" at $80/month. I'm willing to pay you something like $50 a year and maybe more if you provide more commodities related data that I don't get anywhere else.

I'm paying more for other substacks like Doomberg ($300 a year) and other ones that provide model portfolios with actual trades and analysis for why they make those trades. You'll find that a lot of people are willing to pay you more if you're providing more actionable information.

Doomberg doesn't provide financial advice or a model portfolio but his analysis is so good and it's not something that I can get anywhere else. You have been going in that direction. But you've been focused on historical data which is nice. What about what's happening right now?

I want to know digested information on the gas/oil production ratios of producers in the Permian basin. How much has gas been going up compared to oil for the different companies? That's actionable information. This kind of information is available only for institutions, too expensive for retail. But if somebody is willing to dig this up from SEC filings of various companies, I'm willing to pay for it.

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Todd Gerch ⚜☘⛷'s avatar

David nailed it. To me, Doomberg is at the high end of what anyone can charge for a Substack subscription - $30/month. When Doomberg announced it was going from free to paid and said it was $30/month, I wasn't sure if it would survive. The vast majority of Substack subscriptions are $5-$10/month. But Doomberg puts out articles that are high enough quality and quantity that they have been able to make it work. And, as noted by David, some of the Doomberg articles have actionable information (never as obvious as explicit instructions to "Trade X" or "Buy Y" but still actionable). In any case, I have never seen $80/month so I think you are going to be out of luck there.

I would suggest reading some of those free Doomberg articles (if they are still free) to see how they made the calculus of when to go from free to paid and at what monthly price.

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The Crude Chronicles's avatar

Thanks David. There is definitely a consensus out there. I am pretty glad I put this feeler out there to get your opinion. Appreciate the follow and the honest feedback.

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David's avatar

Retail investors focused on commodities will pay for actionable information. You don't have to offer investment advice. You can analyze oil/gas companies and compare them in a way that is actionable for us.

Another example is this: I built a spreadsheet of oil refiners like VLO, PSX, MPC, etc and their refining throughput capacity. As well as revenue and margin per barrel of oil refined. It was time consuming and it's has to be kept up to date every quarter. If somebody does this and puts one chart out like this once a quarter with some analysis, we can see which company is best positioned and we can invest accordingly. I'll pay $300/year (same as Doomberg) for information like that.

All the finance sites like yahoo finance or macrotrends can only compare companies based on revenue or gross margin. But that's meaningless unless the revenue and margin is normalized by barrel of oil refined or produced.

Same with gas producers. I would love to see revenue and cost and free cash flow per Mcf produced to compare the companies on the same metric.

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Conor Mac's avatar

$80 p/m prices out retail and is cheap for institutions. Sounds like no mans land of pricing to me. That said, it depends who you think your paying subscriber is, and who you want them to be.

Just came here to say that if you go paid, make sure to keep some form of recurring free segment (not just previews of paid) to allow you to grow the top of funnel.

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FinTwit Blog Enjoyer's avatar

$80/month is extremely steep. Maybe a year or $5-10/month I could justify. As good as the content is, most retail types like myself with small accounts wont be able to achieve the returns necessary to justify spending four to five digits on subscriptions....

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The Crude Chronicles's avatar

Thanks for the feedback. And i totally get it it. Appreciate the follow and we shall see what happens.

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Gregory's avatar

Personally I like the .99 cents per song model Apple came up with. I suggest .99 per month and make it a truly monthly deal. I have a WSJ online sub now for $4.50 per month. It’s a 12 month special deal. Make it a high value low cost mass market deal.

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Daniel's avatar

I want to support you and will, but the price point mentioned is too steep at this point.

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DK's avatar

I may support up to $100 or $200 per year. Then feel free to increase or have different tiers (something like Doomberg).

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s h's avatar

I agree totally with Mr. Edward Brown. He wrote you a very kind note, and said nice words.

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Dave Moorman's avatar

I am a contributor and love your analysis but I already subscribe to almost $2k in pubs/advice a year, both focused on energy....I am up to my ears in energy....over 100 stocks in the space and I have a hard time justifying another $960 per year......

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The Crude Chronicles's avatar

Yup, thank you for the feedback. Yes you have been a contributor and I really appreciate the kind words in the pst and future

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Seb Kennedy's avatar

Sympathise hugely with the agony and your comments about personal/family sacrifice. Self-publishing is a truly tough gig.

In my experience, charging $30/m, you can expect 3-4% conversion rate but plan for 1-2% and build up from there. If you dive in at $80/m then you’ll be at the very lowest end of the spectrum.

Institutions will pay much more but how many are on your list and truly engaged? If your strategy is to target a few big clients, you might need to approach them directly. Totally different sell.

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Shankar Bhat's avatar

Agree with Roland Yoder comment

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