I understand that what I am about to suggest would potentially eat into Totems sale of "a la carte" credits, but I was thinking that there must be some price structure that would allow for subscription and a set number of credits for loyal subscribers.
Right now, I pay $14.95 a month for 1 VG card per day, and I am continually tempted by Demos and the prospect of purchasing a la carte credits. The problem is that there aren't really any scenarios where the a la carte credits are worth it when you consider that I'm effectively getting a card for 50 cents under my subscription plan. The best a la carte purchasing option of 50 credits for $50 doesn't touch that value (and it gets even worse if I am not buying cards from the Demo carousel).
So, that leads me to think that there must be some sort of subscription structure that would allow Totem to make a little bit more money per month from subscribers while giving them the opportunity to purchase from the carousel when they are tempted.
The current subscription structure is like this:
- 1 card per day for $14.95 (effectively 50 cents per card)
- 2 cards per day for $24.95 (effectively 42 cents per card)
- 4 cards per day for $34.95 (effectively 29 cents per card)
Under a subscription and a la carte structure, I'm thinking of something like this
- 1 card per day and 6 credits per month for $17.95 (50 cents per card)
- 2 cards per day and12 credits per month for $29.95 (42 cents per card)
- 4 cards per day and 24 credits per month for $39.95 (28 cents per card)
Now, I understand that a structure like this would be less useful for people with large collections (but then the current 4 cards per day subscription is probably less than useful for these people anyway). But this way, Totem is guaranteed to get $3 more each month from me instead of $10 for 7 credits (also not really a good deal when you consider what you can get in a booster pack) every once in a while if I give in to my temptation to buy a la carte.
Not sure about others, but I'd be happy to increase my subscription by a few $ a month if it meant that I had some flexibility to buy a few random cards now and then.