Paytm Subscriptions Can Increase Subscribers of Your Edtech Startup

As Covid-19 continues to spread in the country and the fate of regular classes hangs in limbo, subscribing to online courses is no longer optional.

The role of edtech companies is quickly becoming quintessential to India’s education system. Online education companies that offer quality courses will see an increase in subscribers.

Till last year, the major chunk of the new user signups that edtech companies got were from students who opted for free courses. As the reliance on online education platforms grows year after year, the industry will witness a definite increase in subscribers.

It is no longer a matter of, “Oh, I will take this course for free till this virus threat goes away and schools re-open.” Students have to think long-term as it looks like a hybrid model of education is going to be the route for the future. Just like one pays for education in schools, paying for quality education from edtech platforms will become a necessity.

The market size of edtech is already on a rise. The online higher education market is expected to grow from 90 million individuals in FY20 to 133 million individuals by FY25, according to RedSeer. The paid users are expected to increase from 1.2 per cent to 8.1 per cent in the next five years.

Thriving edtech business models

It goes without saying that unless and until online courses offer something more to students, getting parents to pay for them will be immensely difficult. Either through audio-visual cues that make basic concepts easier to understand, or bringing quality teachers on board, edtech companies must make their courses stand out from the hordes of other courses.

Once that’s taken care of, the next step is to build a robust business model around it. These are the prevalent business models:

Marketplace: A number of online educational platforms allow different course creators to come on to their platforms and charge them a flat fee. The platform itself doesn’t create or sell any course but simply acts as a marketplace.
Freemium model: This is the most popular revenue model. To instil confidence in students and parents in the course material a lot of edtech companies give free classes with limited features. If one requires access to premium features like connecting with a teacher to ask specific questions, download videos, etc, it comes at a price.
Consumption based: This model is similar to a pay-per-view cable TV connection. Students will have to pay for the course they want to enrol for specifically. They need not pay for the whole curriculum, but only for the subject they require extra assistance with.
Subscription: This model works when the edtech platform has meaningful course content planned for students. An in-depth study material, a competent set of teachers, and cutting-edge tech to explain difficult-to-understand theories will help edtech startups increase subscribers.

Problems edtech companies face with subscriptions

Having users subscribe to courses or the whole curriculum provides edtech companies clarity on their earnings. This is why edtech companies are doubling down on the subscription model.

However, subscription is a tough beast to crack. Determining things like right pricing, courses in demand, value-added features, types of courses (live or pre-recorded), etc, will require a lot of research and direct interaction with students, parents, and teachers.

While edtech companies are adept with taking care of course structure and adding tech around it to make it consumption-friendly for students, dealing with payments is still a problem.

Here is a simple breakdown of what could go wrong with digital payments:

Payment failure
Fewer payment modes
No auto-pay option
Integration issues

How Paytm Subscriptions can increase subscribers

Considering the rise in subscription-led business models and how consumers also love them, we created Paytm Subscriptions to make the process easy.

Paytm Subscriptions takes into account all the nuances of the subscription model so that edtech companies don’t have to worry about any of the issues regarding payments.

These are the top features of Paytm Subscriptions that will help edtech companies increase subscribers.

High success rate

While picking a payment gateway to handle subscription, edtech companies should never compromise on payment success rate. It’s painful for customers to deal with a payment that didn’t go through at the last minute. Since many of the subscribers will be coming from lower-tier cities who might be making their first online payment, this can be extra painful.

With Paytm Payment Gateway you can be assured of a high payment success rate. Our robust APIs and customisable SDKs make sure almost all the transactions are successful. It can inform subscribers if the server of a particular bank is not working at its full potential. It also gives them the option to pay through other payment methods.

Since more than 250 million cards are saved on our network, including over 100 million bank accounts, and 10 million-plus UPI IDs, the success rate of payments is higher than the industry standards.

Support for all subscription models

When it comes to increasing subscribers, one-model-fits-all almost never works. That is the reason edtech startups offer a mix of subscription models to students and parents to choose from.

Quite early in our journey we understood this requirement and built the product accordingly. Edtech companies can rely on Paytm Subscriptions to do its magic irrespective of the subscription model they have on offer.

Be it providing free trial classes first and then charging for follow-on classes or a fixed subscription plan, edtech companies can run any kind of model on Paytm Subscriptions.

Parents just need to choose the subscription plan and authorise the same on the bank page. This will link their payment method to the subscription. Paytm Subscriptions will deduct the payment automatically based on the chosen plan.

Easy collection of recurring fees

One of the ways to increase subscribers is to offer them easy payment methods. Give parents the option to pay through UPI AutoPay method for their subscriptions.

Integrating with Paytm Subscriptions is the easiest way to auto-debit fees via UPI AutoPay. Simply create the mandate for autopay by embedding our APIs. Alternatively, Paytm dashboard can also be used to create the auto pay mandate for subscribers.

These mandates are created instantly, after which there is no need for parents to enter their UPI ids for payments. These mandates can be easily modified, paused or even revoked.

Multiple payment modes

One sure shot way to reduce the payment woes of subscribers is to give them all the payment modes that are available in India. The major reason most of the subscribers default on payments is due to the lack of their desired method of payment.

Using Paytm Subscriptions will make sure such an awkward situation never arises. It supports a diverse range of payment modes including netbanking, all types of debit and credit cards, UPI, and digital wallets like Paytm Wallet. Subscribers can also opt for the buy now pay later method using Paytm Postpaid.

Subscription Links

Subscription links are one of the most powerful tools in our kitty that helps edtech companies to increase subscribers. It makes for a really easy way to pay and collect subscription fees.

One simply needs to create the subscription link by entering the payment plan on the dashboard and sharing the link with the subscribers. Parents can easily pay by clicking on the link and entering payment details after choosing their payment mode.

In a nutshell

Running a subscription-led edtech startup is not going to be easy if the payment channels are not sorted out. When potential customers come to an edtech platform and find it easy to pay for courses, the likelihood of them becoming a subscriber increases manifold.

Paytm Subscriptions gives edtech startups all the tools required to make payments easy. These are the tools that Paytm Subscriptions offers: