Cost Effective Sales – Platforms vs Own Web Site with CC, Crypto

Everyone complains about the money the platforms take.

Fair enough. But, in mainstream it really isn’t better – both Apple and Google demand a huge slice of sales from in game purchases, for which they did, what, exactly?

Twitch takes 50% from it’s streamers.

Platforms

Take a large chunk, but are generally well put together and generally fix problems.

Everyone starts on platforms, and then everyone starts to wonder if they can do it better and cheaper on your own site…

Your own site

Your own site will have a cost of between £100pa and serious money depending on whether you totally DIY it (just pay for hosting) to various degrees of design need. £30-£60pa are the normal range for a “designer tweaking a template, and providing hosting etc”, serious thousands is when you want something totally unique with special photoshoots etc and loads of extra functions. .

Now, having your own site is a good idea even if you don’t sell directly from it. You can, for example, list all your content, with links to the platforms, but using the “real words” to describe it. You can discuss FSSW, or direct prepaid camming using normal video chat services.

Credit Card Sales – your own site

You’ll need to pay Mastercard and Visa $500 pa each simply to offer CC.

You’ll then be looking at processing fees that, whatever their “marketing number”, seem to boil down to 12-15% for sites with your expected revenue. This might improve over time if you have a low rate of chargebacks.

Note – you need to follow the CC rules re content, words and if you do FSSW, you’ll need a different site for that side of the business.

Crypto – your own site

And by Crypto, I mean Bitcoin. You can forget about all the others when it comes to actually selling things.

You keep ALL the money. 100%. Which is great, but, as yet, not many buyers use crypto. Some do – I have made bitcoin sales.

You can sell anything legal, and use any words you like.

IS IT RIGHT FOR YOU? DO THE MATHS

Work out your platform GROSS turnover.

Work out your total loss – compare your sales on the platform with the actual money that reached your bank.

Would it be better value to take client money by CC direct?

Note that a lot of fans won’t move to paying direct, so you are really thinking about growing your future income this way. Based on your place in the industry, how long will it take to grow your fan base on your web site?

The short answer is that unless you are making gross sales of at least £1000 a month, platforms are better than your own site with CC. At around £1000 a month it’s worth crunching numbers and taking a view, esp if you are on an upward earnings trajectory.