Ning provides Data Point for “Freemium” Pricing Model

3% of Nings customers actually pay for premium services…

This is a good data point for all start-ups (including mine) that are contemplating the “Freemium” pricing model.  This pricing model is certainly the most popular on the web and allows a company to get a large customer base of free users to monetize with ads along with some subscription revenue from the power users.  I have heard some entrepreneurs state they plan to get 10-20% of their user base to pay for the premium features…but that is probably not going to happen.  Obviously this percentage depends on a lot of factors such as pricing, features, market and others, but I think the 3%  figure that Ning is reporting seems to be the ballpark for the premium component of the Freemium pricing model.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ning_500000_networks.php

500,000 networks is a big number…what is even more impressive is the fact that 65% of them are active.