Which Subscription Models Does Advantage Offer? Four Ways to Subscribe With Advantage

At AdvantageCS, we have more than 40 years of experience managing all types of subscription models through Advantage and Members Advantage, our industry-leading subscription and membership management platforms. Over the years, we’ve added support for several different models of subscriptions to our software, empowering our clients to set up their businesses with the flexibility they need to succeed. 

In this blog, we’ll explain the defining characteristics and differences between the four main subscription models we offer: digital access subscriptions, product subscriptions and collections programs, standing orders, and issue-based subscriptions. Let’s get started!

Note: the following descriptions serve as general overviews for each subscription type Advantage supports. For more specific information on any of these subscription types or the Advantage application, contact us or check out our free whitepapers!

Digital Access Subscriptions

Let’s begin by discussing Advantage’s Digital Access Subscriptions. This subscription type provides the ability to set up, maintain, and collect payments for digital content access or other time-based services. Some of the key features include:

• Easy subscription maintenance: view, evaluate, and modify key details, such as the subscription's access period, billing plan, entitlements, and subscriber information.
• Flexible content access criteria: specify exactly how much access a subscription's members are granted based on your business criteria. (Example: you might present several offers that grant tiered levels of access.)
• Digital fulfillment: Advantage seamlessly integrates and communicates with content providers, allowing content to be served and granted via the organization's preferred method.

Digital Access Subscriptions are our most popular subscription offering! Highly configurable and complemented by a robust set of processes and reports, they are a great fit for almost any type of organization that wants to provide digital content or other services via a time-based revenue model. If you're a digital content provider, membership organization, or looking to add digital products or other services to your organization's offerings, contact us today to learn more about Digital Access Subscriptions!

Product Subscriptions & Collections

In addition to access-based subscriptions, Advantage can also be used to offer product subscription programs of all types and configurations. Think of a typical box subscription or a “book of the month” club – this subscription type works best for organizations offering sets of related products which are released sequentially over predefined time periods.   

Let’s talk about how this subscription type works! To sum it up briefly:

• An Advantage user sets up a subscription program, determining the sequence and shipment frequency for their selected products.
  
• Customers join the subscription program via the organization's preferred method – this can be by "opting in", purchasing a qualifying product, or using a designated promotion code.
• Once a customer joins a program, Advantage generates and fulfills orders automatically as defined by the business rules. The customer automatically progresses through the program.
• Customers can be granted control over their subscription – they can change personal details, return products, pause, restart, or cancel subscriptions, or even "choose their own path" for the products they receive in the future.

Advantage’s product subscription & collections program features are expansive and easy to implement for virtually any type of product. So, whether its books, razors, meal kits, or beauty products, you can use Advantage to offer flexible, highly configurable product subscription programs to your customers.

Standing Orders

As a variant of our product subscription and collections program, Advantage also offers standing orders for organizations that want to offer product subscription programs with what might be considered “irregular” aspects. While this subscription type shares most of its defining characteristics with our typical product subscription program, the key differences that define standing orders are:

• Flexible product series criteria: Create a standing order series based on any criteria Advantage supports. Want to create a series for every print product published this year by American authors with the last name "Jones"? No problem! Advantage will build it based on the criteria you provide. 
• Automatic updates: Any product that meets a standing order series' criteria can be automatically added to the series. For example, if an author named "Jones" publishes a book this year, and you add this product to Advantage, Advantage will automatically evaluate and add this book to the appropriate standing order series.
• Standing orders are perpetual: Consider a situation where you've created a standing order series for all of an author's present and future works. Once a customer receives every published product, they can stay in the program to receive future publications, even if the author publishes them on an irregular schedule.

For organizations that require maximally flexible product subscription programs, Advantage's Standing Orders are an excellent choice!

Issue-based Subscriptions

And finally, let’s cover the subscription type that most of this blog’s readers are probably familiar with. Initially designed for print media publishers (magazine, newspaper, newsletter, etc.), Advantage has supported traditional issue-based subscriptions for decades. 

Advantage users can create publications within the application and configure key details such as publication frequency, issue dates, and region-specific pricing (to name just a few of the many configuration options). 

After a publication is configured, Advantage users can choose from an extensive list of processes to perform or automate actions like subscription renewals, issue distribution, and detail adjustments. These processes can be applied to a single customer or for all subscribers of a publication (or, if you’d like, everyone in the system!), making day-to-day subscription management tasks extremely efficient.

If you’re a traditional print publisher looking for a flexible subscription management platform, Advantage is certainly a great choice for you! 

Conclusion

Advantage provides organizations with several subscription models to offer their customers. Depending on the type of organization, one subscription model might work better than others – this blog serves as a general overview of each model’s defining qualities. 

Want more information or a demo on any of the topics we’ve discussed? Feel free to contact an AdvantageCS representative, schedule a demo, or download our free whitepapers!