Subkit
Simplified provider onboarding
Overview
Design, Community, Engineering
Subkit is a B2B/B2C platform that enables small business owners, known as 'providers,' to offer their goods and services through subscription models to generate recurring revenue. Subkit stands apart from competitors such as Patreon and Substack by offering a flat fee, allowing providers to keep all of their earnings without sharing a percentage of their revenue with the platform.
Our team redesigned the provider onboarding experience, enabling them to independently and intuitively get from account creation to their first published subscription plan. Our design team improved provider onboarding through straightforward, step-by-step, plan creation. We helped providers form a stronger mental model of products & subscription plans, thus reducing confusion and streamlining the overall onboarding experience.
Discovery
Usability testing
We conducted usability testing by having small business owners walk through our existing subscription plan creation flow within our product. After a few tests, we were able to synthesize our findings to better define the pain points users were facing.
Pain points
Our current customers seemed to need a few 1:1s with our community team to get their subscription plans from zero to launch. To elucidate the pain points that disallowed our providers to get successfully set up on their own, we conducted a handful of usability tests with small business owners to elucidate the pain points our current customers were facing during onboarding.
Confusion adding products
Providers came to Subkit aware that subscription plans were a container for products offered. However, our existing interface did not provide clear inputs to add products to a plan.
"Features" referred to products within a plan and many providers failed to understand at first glance. This language only became clear after seeing the plan preview on the right-hand side.
Limited marketing opportunities
Our interface did not give providers opportunities to provide effective marketing elements such as product images, side-by-side plan comparisons, or clear shipping information—critical details that influence customer trust and purchasing decisions.
Using a progressive form
Minimizing cognitive overload and give users an indication of where they are in the process.
Improve product marketing
Detailed product info and media can help providers convey subscription value.
Infrastructure supporting physical goods
Supporting physical goods by mapping fulfillment details to better meet providers' needs.
Ideation
Defining product attributes
After analyzing the products featured in existing subscription plans on Subkit, we grouped them into three main categories: physical goods, digital content, and activities. Each category was assigned specific attributes, allowing providers to clearly market the components of their subscription plans to prospective subscribers. For the scope of this case study, we will only be considering physical goods.
A clear distinction between product attributes & plan attributes
Since providers needed to input details for both their subscription container and the products within it, we focused on minimizing any confusion about what was being edited at any given time. To ensure clarity, we aimed to clearly separate product-related details from subscription-related details, providing a more intuitive experience for providers as they moved through the onboarding process.
Design
Improving product creation
Realizing that products drove the value of subscription plans, we expanded product creation to include new attributes such as a description, details, retail value, media, and fulfillment details such as the delivery method and time & how they related to the cut-off time for subscribers.
Though this part of the user flow was longer, there were added benefits such as increased sales due to better marketing, ease of creating future subscription plans by re-using products, and ease in pricing plans by calculating the total retail value of all products included in the plan.
Smart pricing feature
After all of the products that would be included in a subscription plan were created, providers had the ability to set quantities of each product and set a subscription price. We built out smart features such as a calculator to suggest a price based on the retail value of everything offered inside.
Enforcing subscription limits
Since many of our providers offered handmade goods and similar items, we understood there was a limit to how much product could be fulfilled each cycle. To accommodate this, we enabled providers to set a subscription limit and automatically disable further sign-ups once that limit was reached, helping them avoid overcommitting their resources.
Plan page customization
We added infrastructure to help providers create a subscription plan page that would give potential subscribers context of the plan, the providers, and the products that were offered.
Connecting to Stripe last
By having providers first complete their subscription plan and product details, we created an experience that leveraged the 'Ikea effect,' where the effort invested in earlier steps made the plan feel more valuable and personalized. This approach motivated providers to take the final step of connecting to Stripe for payments, even though this step was often challenging. By strategically placing Stripe connection later in the setup, we saw improved completion rates, as providers were more committed to launching their plan after building something meaningful.
