/subscription-monetization-audit

name: subscription-monetization-audit
description: 'Use when analyzing a subscription or recurring-revenue business (news site, paywall publisher, SaaS-light, membership platform, e-commerce with subscription tier) for monetization gaps and revenue-growth levers. Combines outside-in detection (paywall structure, tier visibility, ad density, trust signals) with optional inside-out import of MRR / churn / cohort data from a Stripe / Chargebee / Recurly CSV export. Triggers include "wir verbrennen Geld und wissen nicht woher das Wachstum kommen soll", "MRR stagniert", "Abo-Konversion ist zu niedrig", "subscription revenue model review", "premium tier evaluation", "warum wachsen wir nicht mehr", "Burn-Rate vs. Revenue-Lücke schließen". Anti-Use: NICHT für reine transaktionale E-Commerce-Shops ohne Subscription (`channel-economics-analyzer` ist dafür), NICHT für B2B-Enterprise-SaaS mit Custom-Pricing (anderes Playbook), NICHT für Pre-Revenue-Startups (Skill setzt eine bestehende Subscription-Basis voraus).'
user-invocable: true
argument-hint: '[domain | --csv path-to-export.csv]'
allowed-tools: [Read, Write, Bash(node:*), Bash(curl:*)]
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Max Schottke
  version: '0.5.4'
  category: marketing

Subscription Monetization Audit

Overview

A framework for diagnosing revenue gaps in subscription / recurring-revenue businesses and identifying the five to seven monetization levers that close the gap. Works in two modes that produce different depth of insight:

• **Outside-In mode** — purely from the public website. Detects paywall structure, tier setup, ad-network density, trust signals, AI-shopping readiness. Lower confidence, no MRR / churn data.
• **Inside-Out mode** — adds a CSV export from the subscription billing system (Stripe / Chargebee / Recurly / Shopify Subscriptions / custom dashboard). Computes MRR, ARPU, churn, cohort retention, plan distribution. Much higher confidence.

The skill is consciously not vertical-specific. The same five-lever playbook applies to a news paywall, a SaaS plugin marketplace, a fitness membership site, or an e-commerce shop with a subscription tier — only the relative weights shift.

When to use

• Subscription business with stagnant or declining MRR
• Need to identify ARPU-lift options (typically a Premium-Tier introduction)
• Acquisition has slowed and the team needs to know where the next 50–100k EUR / month is coming from
• Investor or board needs a structured monetization analysis with a 12 to 24 month outlook
• Workshop or strategy session preparation where the question is "wo kommt das Wachstum her"

**Don't use for:**

• Pure transactional e-commerce without a subscription tier (use `channel-economics-analyzer`)
• B2B Enterprise SaaS with negotiated custom pricing (different playbook entirely)
• Pre-revenue startups (skill assumes an existing subscription base to optimize against)
• Pure ad-supported sites with no paywall (the levers don't apply)

YMYL notice

If the subscription business is in a regulated industry (medical telemedicine, financial advisory, legal advice, gambling), the action plan output by this skill should be reviewed by a domain compliance expert before publication or implementation. The skill treats all subscription models uniformly at the monetization-mechanics level and does not validate industry-specific regulatory constraints.

Two analysis modes

Outside-In mode (always available)

Anything the skill can detect from the public website without authenticated access:

| Signal | What it tells you | |---|---| | Paywall present? Where? | Hard / soft / metered / freemium model | | Number of pricing tiers | 1-tier = ARPU-Lift potential, 3+ tier = mature optimization needed | | Tier price range (lowest to highest) | ARPU ceiling estimate | | Trial period length / Reverse-Trial signals | Conversion-funnel design quality | | Annual-vs-monthly visibility | Yearly-bias often missed, ARPU-stabilizer | | Ad networks detected (Google, Plista, Outbrain, Ströer, Taboola) | Ad-revenue diversification status | | Newsletter sign-up prominence | Owned-channel-growth posture | | Live event / conference mentions | Event-revenue potential | | Affiliate / shop integration | Adjacent revenue streams | | Donation / membership CTAs | Genossenschaft-style stream | | Cancel-flow accessibility | Retention-engineering quality |

Inside-Out mode (CSV import, optional)

Hand the skill a subscription-export CSV (see CSV format below). The included `csv-import.example.js` script computes:

• **MRR + ARR + ARPU** (total and per plan)
• **Active subscriptions** by status, plan, billing period
• **Churn 30/60/90 day rates** (logo + revenue)
• **Cohort retention** (signup-month against active-after-N-days)
• **Plan distribution** (yearly vs monthly vs other)
• **Customer Lifetime Value** by plan (median + average)
• **Pending cancellations and MRR at risk**
• **Win-Back-Pool size** (customers with ended subscription, optionally still active on site)

Inside-Out doubles or triples the analytical depth versus Outside-In, because the levers can be quantified against the actual user base.

The five standard monetization levers

Each lever has a real-market vorbild documented so it does not read as speculation. Each lever has a default sizing formula that the skill applies to the user's actual numbers (Inside-Out) or to industry-typical benchmarks (Outside-In).

Lever 1: Premium-Tier introduction (largest ARPU effect)

**Mechanik:** A subscription base on a single tier at low ARPU (e.g. 9-15 EUR / month) leaves significant pricing-power unused. Introducing a Premium-Tier at 2 to 3x the base price, with three to four clear additional benefits (exclusive content, audio-version, no-ads, early access, premium newsletter), typically converts 15-30 percent of existing subs and 25-40 percent of new subs to the higher tier.

**Rechnung (Inside-Out):** New ARPU = (1 - premium_share) × base_arpu + premium_share × pre