When a Bonus Becomes an Obligation

An author decides to delight subscribers with an extra live session as a bonus. Then adds another one, followed by a breakdown and some bonus material.

It feels like the product is only getting stronger. But there’s a catch: every recurring bonus quietly expands the promise of your subscription.

What first feels like a pleasant extra gradually starts to feel like part of the plan. At some point, the subscriber no longer thinks, “Nice, we got an extra live session.” They think, “Don’t we usually have a live session?”

The author never formally promised it. But the expectation is already there.

As a result, the subscription price stays the same while the list of obligations keeps growing: posts, live sessions, breakdowns, replies, extra materials.

And removing something later becomes difficult. Subscribers may see it not as the absence of a bonus, but as a downgrade.

That creates a paradox: constantly giving more may increase your workload more than it increases the perceived value of the subscription.

That’s why it helps to separate two things.

The core subscription — what people are guaranteed to receive and what they are paying for.

Extra value — what you can occasionally add on top without turning it into a permanent obligation.

If you want to delight your audience from time to time, vary the bonuses themselves. Today it might be a live session, next month a guest author, then an extra resource or a breakdown.

This way, extra value stays extra, and the product doesn’t keep expanding forever.

Ask yourself one simple question:

Is there anything in your subscription that you never promised, but already feel afraid to stop doing?

If yes, the bonus may have already become an obligation.

You can set up a paid subscription with Tribute. After that, it’s worth tracking not only the value you add, but also the obligations you quietly create for yourself.