Subscription products worth putting your name on.
Malahide Studio helps independent media brands turn an audience that trusts them into products people pay for. We design them, build them and stay to run them.
Start a conversationWho we work with
We work with a few brands at a time. The ones we do our best work with have three things in common.
An opinion
You stand for something. Your audience comes to you for your judgement, and they trust it.
A narrow focus
You know exactly who you serve and you go deep for them: Japanese joinery, trail running, rare plants. The more specific, the stronger the bond.
A hopeful view of the world
Your work leaves people more capable, more curious or better connected, and they come back for more of that feeling.
Subscriptions work for brands people trust, and trust grows from standing for something, for someone specific. More on who we work with.
What we help with
Most brands come to us with one of these questions in mind. They're closely connected, so we look at all of them together.
Media products
Turn a newsletter, show or archive into a product with a clear promise, a dependable schedule and a reason to pay.
Audience engagement
Build the weekly habits that bring your audience back, designed from the moments that already hold their attention.
Subscriber retention
Keep subscribers past the first few months with better onboarding, stronger habits and billing that recovers failed payments.
Product strategy
Decide what to build next from evidence in your audience, with a written plan you can act on.
Subscription revenue
Design, price and launch a subscription people are glad to renew, on billing infrastructure that holds up.
Monetising your audience
Earn directly from the people who already follow you, with products that strengthen the relationship.
Before starting the studio, Stephen Han led subscription infrastructure at Vox Media for The Verge and New York Magazine: a $50M platform serving 15 brands, taken from 99% to 99.99% uptime.
About the studioThe brands we build for
Every format earns differently. We know the economics of each.
Newsletters
Grow a paid newsletter without losing reader trust: paid tiers, archives and community add-ons, plus the cohort numbers that show what works.
Podcasts
Ad-free feeds, bonus episodes, transcripts and listener communities: how to build a podcast membership listeners pay for and keep.
YouTube channels
Turn loyal viewers into members, course buyers and email readers. How video creators build income beyond AdSense, and what to measure.
Independent publishers
Paywalls, print and digital bundles, archives, events and billing that holds up at scale: a subscription strategy built around your editorial cadence.
Online communities
Membership tiers, marketplaces, directories, member tools and events: how enthusiast communities charge without losing what members come for.
Guides
What we've learned about subscriptions, retention and paid products, written for the people running them.
How to find out what your audience will pay for
Validate a paid product idea before you build it: mine replies and search, analyse your archive, interview engaged readers and run a pre-sale.
Membership, paid newsletter or community
Compare subscription business models for creators: paid publications, memberships, communities, tools, courses and bundles, and what each takes to run.
How to price a paid newsletter or membership
A practical guide to pricing a paid newsletter or membership: monthly vs annual, tiers, founding members, regional pricing and when to raise prices.
How to launch a paid subscription
A step-by-step guide to launching a paid newsletter or subscription to your existing audience, from founding members to the first 90 days of metrics.
If your audience is asking for something you don't sell yet, we should talk.
Start a conversation