Coming at this from a different angle, it looks like to me you may be pricing yourself right out of business.

What it looks like are that your margins are way to low for such a 'support intensive' product, especially if you can't even breakeven on the back end after paying out a commission.

Can you increase your prices up to the next acceptable niche price point? Even a tiny 10% increase across the board on your back end should make a significant different.

Also loss leader products on the front end are great if you have deep enough pockets to absorb the upfront costs until you can make it up on the back end, but from reading the posts in this thread, it looks like your back end isn't priced properly to accommodate for it.

another option is to introduce a high margin product into the mid point of your sales funnel. In your case this should be a low support or no support product like an info product. Use the sales of this product to absorb your upfront costs and pad your pockets before they move further along your sales funnel.

On your monthly back end option to help offset your support costs you could also add an initial payment, something like $47 upfront + $27 per month. Call the $47 a set up fee and don't give a commission on it, but do give a commission on the residual, or flip it and give a commission on the set up fee and keep the residual for yourself.

Just a few ideas for you to consider.


Quote Originally Posted by Ralf Skirr
Dean,. the front end as well as the back end in that case are support intensive.
They are not simple downloads.

So both together must generate the money to fund everything.

As stated in my first post I'm happy to give 100% on the front end, but that means I'm going negative there since I have to cover expenses each front end customer generates. If I then give away 50% from the back end too, the thing will not be profitable.

In other words: there's a reason why I gave the specific options in my first post:
1) 100% for front end - nothing for back end, commission directly to affiliate's paypal account OR
2) 75% front end - 25% back end, traditional affiliate payment: payout once per month for sales that left guarantee period OR
3) 50% front end - 50% back end, traditional affiliate payment: payout once per month for sales that left guarantee period

Ralf