Most studios require you to sign up for long term deals. Why don't most sites allow you to buy scenes à la carte? Edited by - Mister Fahrenheit on Aug 12 2014 Edited by - Mister Fahrenheit on Aug 12 2014
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Mass Facialties Deactivated User
"Facialized Vol. 7" 2021 AVN Awards Winner: Best Oral Movie 9308 Posts 9/13
Posted - Aug 12 2014 : 5:43AM
From what I've seen, the cost for a single scene when compared to the cost for, say, a monthly membership to a site makes the membership the better, more economical choice for us. It'd be one thing if you could buy a scene for a buck, but it's likely that a la carte scenes would go for like 5 bucks each if top studios like HardX and Jules Jordan Video made that an option. As a buyer, I'd rather have access to everything a site has to offer for $10-$30 a month rather than forking over like half of that for just a scene or two. Generally, whether it's DVD rentals or eating at a restaurant, I've found that "a la carte" means that you're essentially paying more for less. I assume that most sites/studios have considered it, but they probably determined that not too many customers would be up for it.
Same here. It takes an exceptionally narrow focus to not find your money's worth for even a one-month subscription on any of the major portals and studios when that's the equivalent of just 3-7 scenes bought à la carte (or 1-2 movies on VOD). And quite frankly, most people who do exhibit such a narrow focus on either a particular starlet or particular sex act seem quite prepared to spend more money than the average porn consumer, so why make it easy for them with an à la carte option when you can probably get them to pay a full subscription anyway? Edit: And I half-suspect the people behind the major sites also don't care for the inevitable run-in with that one guy who has no impulse control at all, ends up buying 300 scenes at $5 a pop in two months, and then goes on a public crusade about the porn site "stealing" his money or somesuch. They have an alternative business model that works well enough, no need to invite potential headaches. Edited by - shalalin on 8/12/2014 6:21:22 PM
Bumping this because I constantly ask myself this question. Studios could offer either monthly subscriptions or scenes a la carte. It makes no sense to me that they don't do this. This past weekend I wanted to watch Ana Rose's scene for Amateur Allure. The only way I could watch it was by signing up for a month at a reduced rate of $29.99. I am not willing to pay that much to see one scene. I would have been willing to pay $6 or so. I didn't watch it, so they didn't get any money at all. Seriously, why aren't sites offering stand alone scenes? I don't get it.
"Pornography: That which excites, whether from approval or disapproval." ~ Leonard Rossite 2346 Posts 12/17
Posted - Mar 19 2018 : 11:15AM
I actually have a great business idea - imagine being able to buy an adult DVD with only the scenes you want on it - just think how much money studios would be able to recoup. Sinful Scorpio, Passionate Aries
I used to be rather skeptical that this could work as a viable business practice. However, I noticed that Prince Yahshua recently launched a new site with exactly that model. You can purchase individual scenes from his movies or web updates for about $4 per scene (it looks like if you purchase multiple scenes you get a reduced-rate deal) It seems to be working pretty well thus far. I guess there was so much traffic initially that it crashed the site a couple times. If it proves to be successful in the long run, I'd be curious to see if other networks and stars emulate. I actually bought a scene myself, purely because it was included in a DVD that I largely wasn't interested in except for the one threesome.
I'm surprised more companies haven't done the same model EvilAngel has. $9.99USD/m - nice low price for such a great package, best deal is they don't bullshit with their payment system and it rebills at $9.99USD if you "renew" (really meaning forget to cancel :D) You also have the option to buy scenes pre-release at $2.95USD, so if you're really eager to see a scene you can buy - often I buy memberships just for a few scenes and then end up downloading a whole lot more - but with this arrangement, you get the best of both.
To GGG: I don't see anything wrong with your suggestion but I fear that while you have no problem paying 6$ for one video. I have serious doubts that your average porn fan will be willing to do that and therefore the site would have to charge a lot less and that might mean the difference between making a profit on a video and losing money. To Whyspers: While that is also a good idea. You have to realise that the only reason a dvd cost as little as it does is because it is mass produced but that's not what you are suggesting so therefore the production cost would be significantly higher than what it is when you produce a thousand units and the other problem is that unless the company could have leased material from multiple studios than your dvd would basically be a mix of scenes from only one studio and I suspect it would be easier and cheaper to join the studios website and downloading the scenes and making your own dvd on your computer. To high: I like his price but there is one possible problem. Are these scenes exclusive? If they aren't then you might be better off joining a different site that gives you access to most of those scenes. The other problem is that it's a very small library of content so unless he adds a lot more content over the next few weeks or months than interest will quickly wan and no one will remember that he had a site.
Although it's different type of site that doesn't offer original content, FYRETV offers the ability to buy subscriptions to a studio, to a movie, or to an individual scene. I don't know if this has worked out as a strong business model since FYRETV doesn't seem to be as strong as it once was since their updates are far and few between and very inconsistent. I would imagine for a studio creating original content being able to buy individual scenes wouldn't be a great idea. Buying a subscription that allows you to see the entire package would encourage you to try and get into girls you probably would skip over otherwise. The newer and lesser known girls probably wouldn't be bought nearly as often as the more popular girl. Once the site sees that certain girls get more purchases they'll start making scenes with those girls at the expense of other girls. And in the end the site probably would make less money. Think about it... the reason anyone wants to be able to buy just the scenes they want is to save money. Better for them to have people pay 30 bucks for a month's subscription than maybe 12 in a month for a couple of scenes.
But what would they have to lose? Currently, the only option is paying the much higher price of a monthly subscription. The consumer who won't pay $6 for a scene has the option of paying for a month and if they don't pay for the month or the single scene, they weren't going to give the site money anyway.
Edited by - Gore Gore Girl on 3/21/2018 10:47:52 AM
^Between you and me. Unless there is some kind of technical issue that makes it very hard or very expensive for them to sell just one of their videos than I would say that there is nothing to lose. They might make less money from fewer people buying a monthly membership but make significantly more from the selling of individual videos and there would be the added bonus that they would quickly see which of their videos are more popular and thereby making it easier for them to know which type of video to shoot and which models to hire. That said I would say that 4$ is probably the highest anyone should charge for individual videos because technically speaking a dvd normally has 4 scenes and these retail around 20$ (so 5$ per scene) but there is a production cost involved in making a dvd but very little in downloading videos so the price should be less than if someone was buying a dvd.
I can speak about this from the viewpoint of a smaller producer. Adding an a la carte system to an existing subscription site costs money, maybe even a whole lot of money depending on what kind of software you are using. Most smaller companies will not have their own programmers. Billing for smaller amounts is relatively more expensive, the chargeback rate is also a lot higher. So the chances are that only the bigger companies do this, or smaller companies when they are building a new site anyway. It's a cost and resources versus profit calculation that is different for every producer. Jacco
There is a third option of waiting for the site to go on sale and then watching/downloading the scene there (most major sites have deals every few months where they go down as low as $10 a month, but non-recurring), but the question then becomes whether people will remember to come back when the sale comes around. There's a definite cost/benefit analysis that goes on, and I guess the answer is that they'll make more money, for example, getting 20 people to signup up to the site for $20-30 a month for one scene than the 50 that will pay $4-7 for that one scene if the alternative option exists. Edited by - whatsatelephonebill on 3/21/2018 7:14:27 PM
Better to be pissed on, than to be pissed off. 248 Posts 1/15
Posted - Mar 22 2018 : 1:34PM
I'm often wishing it was the other way around. There are so many clip stores with enough content for a membership site, and it would be much more affordable if they would make all of the content available for a membership fee. I guess the same is true in reverse - if you run a clip store, there is a large cost barrier to building a paysite.
^That's likely never going to happen for the simple reason that the numbers aren't there. If your average b/g vaginal only scene cost 2000$ to produce than you have to sell at least 100 downloads at 20$ a pop just to break even but you need at least twice that many downloads if you want to have enough money to film any other videos after that. In fact you probably want to have a buffer of money for those scenes that cost the same to produce but don't sell as well. So that means that you need on average about 300 downloads at 20$ a pop to have enough money to pay all your bills and be able to keep shooting porn. If you sell downloads at less than 20$ than you need to sell a lot more of them to cover your cost. That's why prices per videos on clips stores are so high and that's why few individual clips stores will want to band together in the hope that they can make more money than they currently do by being alone.
^ Which is why most successful clip stores do at least one of three things: a.) Are owned/operated by one or more of the performers in the video, to cut down the amount of external talent you have to hire b.) Primarily hire true amateurs (i.e. not represented by any agency), so you can pay them lower rates c.) Focus on content that isn't penetrative intercourse
Most of the major sites are available for $10/month (or less) pretty much all the time actually through places such as idealgasm.com and discountedporn.com. Some networks have the "standard discounted" price point around $15 on these sites, but even those usually get deeper discounts around every couple of weeks or more often, one just needs to check frequently. (Jules Jordan and Perfect Gonzo come to mind as notable exceptions, being set at $20 and almost never discounted further.) So yeah, paying $6 for a single scene from any mainstream production company doesn't sound all that appealing to me, when the great majority of them offer access for a full month for barely twice that money. And I suspect most people who are money-conscious enough to look for à la carte options also know about discounted monthly subscriptions already, which limits à la carte's usefulness. That said, the $2.95 early access thing that Evil Angel does, that's perhaps in the right ballpark both in price and incentive (i.e. getting a scene that regular subscribers can't access yet).
People routinely ask why dvds still sell. This is the reason for me. I can't subscribe to 5 or 6 sites and afford the monthly paymnts; but I can afford a few dvds every now and then. The down side is that I miss out on studios that don't produce dvds.
You can purchase individual scenes from many studios at adultdvdempire.com PervCity also has begun releasing some scenes via the ala carte method as well. Maestro Claudio and the Perv City Twitter will announce them and you can also check the Maestro Claudio thread in this forum. Edited by - Liloleme on 4/30/2018 6:46:45 AM
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Mass Facialties Deactivated User
"Facialized Vol. 7" 2021 AVN Awards Winner: Best Oral Movie 9308 Posts 9/13
Posted - May 1 2018 : 12:27AM
For me it's the opposite...I can find membership discounts for just about all the porn sites I like, usually like $9.95 for 30 days, whereas back when I used to buy DVDs (years ago now) I could never buy a new/relatively recent DVD for under 20 bucks. Buying DVDs in this day and age just doesn't make sense to me...like why would I buy a HardX DVD for $20+ when I can purchase a HardX.com membership (which also gives me access to EroticaX, DarkX, and LesbianX) for like $10 a month? Another reason why purchasing site memberships over DVDs is a no-brainer for me is that I get full photo galleries with every scene, whereas as a "photo gallery" on a DVD only gives you a couple pics.
^ I think maybe the reason I'm the opposite is due to having very restricted porn tastes. G/G accounts for 90% of what I watch, so having access to HardX, EroticaX etc doesn't mean anything. I don't like gaping or breast worship scenes, so even LesbianX membership won't save me money. I've bought 4 dvds since the site went up for about $14 a go. If I watched tons of porn I might re-think.
Newbie question; if what I like is on MissaX and GirlfriendsFilms, can I purchase VOD scenes to watch via Adult DVD Empire and the money goes back to those studios? I like the movies with stories and usually fast forward all the wham bam thank you m'am. Though I love the Blair Williams and Robby Echo / Dean Taylor scenes on MissaX so far.
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ReturnOfTheDude Deactivated User
110 Posts 9/18
Posted - Sep 10 2018 : 10:56PM
I think 4/5$ is perfect for a scene. Make total sense to buy those. I seen sometimes "a la carte" scenes being way too expensive, like 20$ a scene.... cmon now. Even if the scene is uber hot and kinky, thats a "think twice about it" before a buy.
Not quite what you are looking for, but try hot movies.com (or whatever). They are a pay per view site, but you just pay by the second or minute I think. Huge selection, and if you find something you like you can download for like 3-9 bucks, usually around 5.
They have a lot of studios, including premium ones, but not all of the studios content makes it to the site. It is also not so current, ie, not sure how long it takes a video to get there.
However, if you find a star you like, an older one, you can find huge numbers of her scenes, scan a bunch of them, then purchase what really works for you.
Even newer starts have a good amount of content on the site.
I would love if all the major studios offered single scenes. I often sign up for a site for a month, just for one scene. Of course i download some of the other scenes, but the real driver is the single scene. recently i joined blackedraw for a month for liya silver, and just this week, ECG for gabbie. These two girls are stunning, and worth the monthly subscription.
Dirty Wives Club 43 - review by Captain Jack
Posted - Aug 12 2014 : 4:51AM
