Percentage of Premium Members

[+edexter]

Does anyone know what percentage of geocachers are Premium vs Regular members? Or where stats on such things might be available.

[+HHL]

Does anyone know what percentage of geocachers are Premium vs Regular members? Or where stats on such things might be available.

 

Where is the GPS relevance?

[robertlipe]

It seems highly unlikely that anybody that knows this number can talk about it, but the tech group is certainly not the right place. Moving.

[+niraD]

Based on Groundspeak's Media FAQs, there are "approximately 3 million active geocachers worldwide".

 

According to Glassdoor, Groundspeak is a private company with annual revenue of "$10 to $25 million".

 

Assuming the lower number ($10M) and that premium membership is about 10% of that ($1M), then they have about 30k paid premium members (not counting free premium memberships offered to law enforcement, park services, etc.).

 

With 3M active members, and 30k premium members, that means that about 1% of active members are premium members.

 

But this is just a SWAG based on a couple quick Google searches and a couple baseless assumptions. Someone with access to real data would be able to provide a more accurate number. But of course, as robertlipe indicated, it's unlikely that they would be able to share that more accurate number.

[+narcissa]

Percentage may be a misleading way to express the success of premium membership. Members aren't eliminated from the database when they're inactive. Additionally, when premium membership expires, the member reverts to basic. Over time, it's possible that the raw number of premium memberships could increase while the proportion of premium relative to basic could be static or even decline.

[+noncentric]

It seems highly unlikely that anybody that knows this number can talk about it, but the tech group is certainly not the right place. Moving.

^^^THIS.

 

Of course someone knows what percentage of geocaching accounts are PM vs BM at any given time. That information would be accessible in GS's database. But I'd be extremely surprised if those people shared that info with us in the forums, or anywhere else.

[+lee737]

Pick several hundred urban type hides, count the first 100 finders, allocate into Premium vs Member, might give you a rough estimate.....

[+Viajero Perdido]

when premium membership expires, the member reverts to basic.

Groundspeak fixed that, remember?

 

Auto-renew would skew the stats.

[+Mineral2]

I'd be more interested in estimating the proportion of premium members that don't utilize the benefits of a premium membership beyond access to more cache types on the app. So many premium members still come asking what to do with the (basically defunct) "Send to GPS" button never having set up and run a single Pocket Query.

 

That's a topic for another thread.

[+edexter]

I'm curious about both the percentage and raw numbers of "active" premium members as a measure of what is going on in the game because in general I prefer to be aware of reality when possible. Without some data, it's difficult to understand the trends in geocaching. It is my impression that the percentage of premium members is low and is declining. But I have no data. What I can see is that the total number of active caches and cachers is now roughly the same (3 million each) and that most of the folks that were caching in my area ten years ago are no longer active and now have Basic Memberships but seldom actually seek out caches. If those counted as currently active cachers on average have placed one cache each, and the folks that I know who have essentially dropped out (though they are still counted as active) placed on average 20 caches each, this suggests most new active cachers do not place any caches. I think most folks become and remain Premium members because it is a way to both support and use the game's infrastructure, however if the actual percentage of premium membership is very small, this means the majority of revenue comes from the sale of other things, not from membership "dues". This would seem to have real long term consequences for both the owners and players.

[+WearyTraveler]

Active vs inactive and PM vs BM are all interesting numbers. And all at a snapshot in time.

 

I immediately started PM in 03 but went BM / inactive for a couple of years (work and life took over). Now I'm back and an active PM again.

[+noncentric]

What defines a cacher as being "active"?

[+L0ne.R]

if the actual percentage of premium membership is very small, this means the majority of revenue comes from the sale of other things, not from membership "dues". This would seem to have real long term consequences for both the owners and players.

 

I've been thinking the same thing.

I'm not sure about the consequences.

Any concerns?

If this new push for a healthier database is a result of pressure from the advertisers/sponsors, maybe that's a good thing.