Pricing and monetization · Two-stage online survey of basic and premium users, analyzed with principal-components measurement validation and structural-equation modeling; the publisher page reports a two-week separation between survey waves.
What drives subscribing to premium in freemium services? A consumer value-based view of differences between upgrading to and staying with premium
Matti Mäntymäki, A.K.M. Najmul Islam, Izak Benbasat (2020). What drives subscribing to premium in freemium services? A consumer value-based view of differences between upgrading to and staying with premium. Information Systems Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12262.
Plain-English take
For upgrading, enjoyment and perceived price value predict intention to move to premium. For retaining premium, ubiquity and discovery of new content predict intention; social connectivity has a small negative retention effect, while advertising intrusiveness does not significantly affect either outcome. For your marketing: Use this as a pricing or packaging hypothesis and define outcomes to measure; estimate effects with your own customer mix and willingness-to-pay evidence.
How much weight to give this
3/5 Moderate evidence for a specific setting
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
Two-stage online survey of basic and premium users, analyzed with principal-components measurement validation and structural-equation modeling; the publisher page reports a two-week separation between survey waves.
Finnish Spotify users: 467 usable responses after cleaning (208 basic/free and 259 premium users), recruited from a Finnish university student database and university-related Facebook groups; the study also interviewed 11 active Spotify users to develop two measurement constructs.
Based on the publisher-described design and comparison; see the article for complete analysis.
Publisher record was fetched directly; full text was not assumed open.
Double-blind? Blinding was not established from the retrieved publisher record.
Research question
What the authors investigated
Do the consumer values driving free/basic users' intention to upgrade differ from the values driving premium users' intention to retain a paid freemium subscription?
Design
Two-stage online survey of basic and premium users, analyzed with principal-components measurement validation and structural-equation modeling; the publisher page reports a two-week separation between survey waves.
Sample and setting
Finnish Spotify users: 467 usable responses after cleaning (208 basic/free and 259 premium users), recruited from a Finnish university student database and university-related Facebook groups; the study also interviewed 11 active Spotify users to develop two measurement constructs.
Reported result
What the study found
For upgrading, enjoyment and perceived price value predict intention to move to premium. For retaining premium, ubiquity and discovery of new content predict intention; social connectivity has a small negative retention effect, while advertising intrusiveness does not significantly affect either outcome.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
Explicitly stated: the study covers one subscription-based freemium service in one country, so broader contextual coverage is needed; the authors also note that survey research makes it difficult to control the zero-price effect.
Possible founder application
Use this as a pricing or packaging hypothesis and define outcomes to measure; estimate effects with your own customer mix and willingness-to-pay evidence.
Evidence access
Publisher abstract/metadata retrieved; consult the linked paper for full methods and tables.
The publisher abstract says the model is tested on a leading digital content freemium service and explicitly contrasts upgrade versus retention drivers. The empirical section reports 467 Finnish Spotify responses, and the limitations section identifies the one-service/one-country scope. Direct publisher-page retrieval was recorded on 2026-10-09; profile summarizes the accessible record and does not claim independent review of inaccessible full text.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.