This Subscription Weekly covers trends in subscription models and digital payments, the new NFL and Tesla subscription services, and Amazon price changes in Europe. Subscriber growth by Spotify and T-Mobile, Visa’s Q3 revenue increase, and an overview of the UK’s adspend recovery. 

Coming up: Micro-subscriptions

Recurring revenue companies are shaking up the subscription space with micro-subscriptions. Continuing with the stable revenue stream, this micro version of its larger counterpart allows businesses to be smarter with their revenue margins while giving consumers the option to customize their usage and what they’re willing to pay. Learn more on Protocol. 

NFL+ is here, the NFL’s own streaming service

The National Football League has debuted its own streaming subscription service, which launched on July 25th. NFL+ offers access to live preseason, local and primetime regular season, and postseason games, and more.” The service costs $4.99/month or $39.99/year, and fans can upgrade to NFL+ Premium for $9.99/month or $79.99/year, which covers everything on NFL+ plus game replays and the All-22 Coaches Film. Read more on NFL.com.

Tesla ends its unlimited Standard Connectivity

Connectivity had been Tesla’s flagship offering, enabling useful features for customers and used by the brand to collect data for improvements. However, drivers will no longer enjoy lifetime Standard Connectivity, which is now restricted to an eight-year time limit. Learn more on Electrek.

Amazon Prime membership costs increase in Europe

Amazon has just shared that it’s hiking up its Prime subscription prices in Europe by up to 43% in some markets. French customers are expected to feel the brunt of this price increase with the full 43% added to their €49 cost. There will be a 30% increase in Germany and a 20% increase in the UK. Read more on TechCrunch.

UK adspend recovers in Q1, 2023 looks rough

Overall, Q1 was strong, especially for digital publishers who saw an increase in search and display (including social), as the market share reached 74.9% for online channels combined. While adspend recovered, the AA/WARC’s expenditure report shows difficulties, like the rising cost of living and geopolitical uncertainties, for a tumultuous second half of 2022. Learn more on What’s New in Publishing. 

Defying recession: Spotify & T-Mobile power subscriber growth

Some brands seem not to be affected by the rising cost of living. That’s the case for Spotify– which grew 31% on ad-supported revenue and 19% on YoY monthly active users, and T-Mobile– which added 723,000 new subscribers thanks to its cheaper monthly plans. 

How can DTC brands adjust to the reimagined consumer needs during economic uncertainties? Learn more on this Recurly on-demand webinar. 

Visa increases revenue during Q3

The company reported a 32% increase in net income and a 19% rise in revenue, resulting from cross-border travel, goods, and services spending. Al Kelly, Visa’s CEO, says the company isn’t seeing any signs of a U.S. recession at this point. Read more on Payments Dive.

Crypto payments are most popular in LATAM

Latin America is leading crypto-asset transactions. Earlier in June, Mastercard’s Payments Index showed that Latino consumers look for convenience and flexibility in payments. According to Deel, during the first half of 2022, 67% of crypto payments were conducted in LATAM, followed by the EMEA region (24%). Learn more on The Bit Times.

From the Recurly blog: