8 Digital Subscription Business Success Stories [2024]
Digital subscription models have become increasingly popular over the last few years. These businesses can offer anything from online courses to software, digital downloads, or access to content.
Customers typically pay a monthly or yearly fee for access to content, products, and services.
This typically involves some form of recurring billing where the consumer is billed at a predetermined interval for as long as they continue using the service.
Here are some real life success stories of starting a digital subscription business:
1. Draftss ($180K/year)
Junaid Ansari and Amin Memon co-founded Draftss.com, a productized graphic design and frontend code service. They started by providing graphic design services and later added frontend coding to their list of offerings based on customer requests. In 2019, they made $66,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR), and as of July 2020, they hit $9.6k in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). Their focus is on automation and improving their service to retain customers and scale their business.
How much they make: $180K/year
How much did it cost to start: $100
Current team size: 25
Draftss.com is a productized graphic design and front-end code service on subscription that made $66k ARR in 2019, has an MRR of $9.6k as of July 2020, and offers add-ons such as designers being added to team in interacting tools and front-end code services on WordPress using various page builders like Elementor and Divi.
2. WorthPoint ($6M/year)
Will Seippel, the founder of WorthPoint Corp, came up with the idea for his business when he realized the laborious process of researching items of unknown value while selling on eBay. Inspired by his mother's experience of being taken advantage of during a garage sale, he wanted to create a way for people to avoid costly mistakes when selling or buying items. With a focus on efficiency and democratizing pricing information, Seippel set out to create the Bloomberg of the collectibles and antiques industry.
How much they make: $6M/year
Current team size: 8
WorthPoint is a steadily growing online subscription platform, specializing in antique, art, and collectible price guides, which has seen a rate of five percent or more user growth per month and is predicted to ride the wave of the largest period of wealth migration in US history predicted to be worth over $30tn.
So... can you actually make money with a digital subscription business?
Of course. There are millions to be made in this industry.
But how?
- Research real, profitable businesses and see exactly how much money they make.
- Study exactly what works, and what doesn’t.
- Take action, because now you have the roadmap.
Join Starter Story and build your next big thing:
3. Coffee and Contracts ($3M/year)
Haley Ingram, the founder of Coffee and Contracts, came up with the idea for her business while working as a real estate agent. After experiencing the power of social media marketing firsthand and receiving requests for advice from other agents, she saw an opportunity to create a subscription-based marketing toolkit tailored specifically for real estate professionals. In just two years, Coffee and Contracts has helped over 7,000 agents build their brands and currently generates an impressive average monthly revenue of $165,000.
How much they make: $3M/year
How much did it cost to start: $500
Current team size: 3
Coffee and Contracts is a digital marketing subscription service for real estate professionals that has helped over 7,000 members in just two years, with an average monthly revenue of around $165,000, and has grown at a rate of about 5% each month through organic traffic from Instagram and word of mouth.
4. MiloTreeCart ($72K/year)
Jillian Leslie, co-founder of MiloTree Easy Payments, came up with the idea while running her first online company, Catch My Party. She needed to grow her Pinterest followers for traffic and monetization and built the MiloTree pop-up app to solve that problem. Based on the success and feedback from their own experience, they expanded MiloTree to help other bloggers and creators grow their real followers on multiple platforms.
How much they make: $72K/year
How much did it cost to start: $1.5K
Current team size: 2
Jillian Leslie launched two businesses, Catch My Party and MiloTree, to grow her social media followers and monetize her content, and recently launched MiloTree Easy Payments, a platform to help creators monetize their expertise, which is projected to generate $40k ARR by year's end.
So... can you actually make money with a digital subscription business?
Of course. There are millions to be made in this industry.
But how?
- Research real, profitable businesses and see exactly how much money they make.
- Study exactly what works, and what doesn’t.
- Take action, because now you have the roadmap.
Join Starter Story and build your next big thing:
5. Anytime Design ($30K/year)
Shubham Dhawan and Mitya Smusin, both coming from the agency world, had been working together on various design projects. During a weekly huddle, they discussed the idea of an unlimited design subscription, and with their existing design and dev team, they quickly built Anytime Design. Their subscription service offers UX design to startups and small businesses that can't afford an elaborate design team, and they already have a monthly recurring revenue of $2,500.
How much they make: $30K/year
How much did it cost to start: $10K
Current team size: 4
Anytime Design is an unlimited design subscription for app and web UI/UX design requirements, providing companies with a fixed-rate subscription of $2,500 per month to outsource their design requirements without laborious scope mapping conversations, long briefs, and extensive hiring processes.
- 4,818 founder case studies
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- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
