What a paying subscriber actually costs you
Every channel on the same definition, so paid and community sit side by side. A signup is free and takes 30 seconds, so the only number that matters here is the paying one.
Paid spend, 30 days
$14.8k
Meta and X combined
New paying subscribers
826
From 11,710 signups
Blended cost per payer
$17.97
Lifetime value is about £20 monthly, £59.99 annual
Best paid channel
Meta
$22.00 per paying subscriber
Channel performance
Sorted by cost per paying subscriber. Community channels carry no spend.
| Channel | Spend | Signups | Paying | Signup to paid | Cost per payer | On annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M Meta Paid | $4.8k | 3,180 | 220 | 6.9% | $22.00 | 22% |
X X Paid | $10k | 6,420 | 388 | 6.0% | $25.77 | 14% |
R Community | None | 1,240 | 96 | 7.7% | No spend | 31% |
D Discord Community | None | 870 | 122 | 14.0% | No spend | 44% |
What this view is for
- Annual buyers are worth about three times a monthly one. Discord sends the highest share of them and costs nothing. X sends the lowest share and costs the most. That gap is invisible without this table.
- Signup volume is a vanity number here. X sends twice the signups Meta does and converts a smaller share of them into subscriptions.
- The decision this drives is where the next thousand dollars goes, reviewed every week on what the table says rather than on which channel feels like it is working.
The hidden cost
$2.1k
Inference spent on the 10,884 signups that never subscribed
Signup is free and every turn fires dozens of AI calls, so a badly targeted click costs twice. Once in ad spend, once in tokens. Cutting the sources that produce free-only players is the fastest saving available.
Concept view on sample data sized against your real inputs: £5.99 monthly or £59.99 annual, roughly 30 percent monthly churn, and the current X budget. Live numbers replace these once the pixel and events are wired.