WisePass is releasing a new plan that is more affordable, flexible and powerful
The Singaporean lifestyle app has traditionally used the subscription service as a revenue model but it started to test a new plan to fit the needs of a different segment of the market
On August 2016, WisePass got launched with a single plan priced 6,000,000 VND per month. During that time, it allowed its member to redeem a bottle to any listed bar, restaurant or club every night. You read that right, every night. The concept was not only unique. It was fundamentally disruptive for Vietnam, a country where most startups are used to bring a model from the West and just apply it locally.
The DNA of the company contains innovation at its core. That leads us to keep improving the user experience so we can build the best consumer product we can and let the rest of the world enjoy it. I have decided to take dedicate at least 10 years of my life to do that from Vietnam, says Lam Tran, co-founder and CEO of WisePass.
What is WisePass?
If you truly want to make it simple and let people understand it with a few words, we would say that it’s an access that anyone can pay for a flat fee monthly. People would then be able to PASS anything accessible on the membership once or more a day. But this is about to change. First, let’s give some context to explain how it led us to design something new for the market.
The move to Premium
Historically, the subscription service started with a 6,000,000 VND named standard plan. It would allow you to PASS once a day, for any service listed on that. A year later, the premium membership was born and was priced 15,000,000 VND a month.
It was more powerful letting members PASS twice a day or once a day for a premium item. It also let those members use anywhere WisePass was. It was a big move as that was the first time you would have such an app letting you use seamlessly in multiple countries without thinking any further. That made WisePass being perceived more like a premium service.
The move to Discovery
A year later in August 2018, WisePass released a new plan called Discovery priced at 3,000,000 VND letting people PASS 5 times.
This move was decided based on the feedback of some customers looking to use WisePass for some specific reasons. Some customers love the concept of WisePass but are traveling to Vietnam or Thailand for a short trip. Subscribing for one month wouldn’t make sense for them. Some other customers wanted to also try WisePass but starting at 6,000,000 VND would be a quite steep move. Eventually, some customers wanted to be able to PASS more than once a day without going premium.
The Discovery plan was the answer to this feedback. By letting people purchase 5 PASS for 3,000,000 VND and let them use it whenever they wanted, WisePass met the market demand.
Introducing WisePass Pay as You Go
When we listened to our existing users, we realized that we were still failing to meet the needs of a quite large market. Indeed, some of the people we met in the past 3 years are occasional drinkers, hence not necessarily looking for a membership that could allow them to drink regularly. Also, these occasional drinkers would need to go out once in a while for special occasions that wouldn’t be planned. Eventually, even investing 3,000,000 VND wouldn’t still be a fit for them as 5 PASS is way more than they need.
We took the feedback at WisePass and decided to introduce a new plan we call Pay as You Go priced at 750,000 VND a PASS.
More affordable
The first thing we decided to do was to start pricing under 1,000,000 VND. With Pay as You Go, you can still access anything with a PASS but you would be charged only when you use it. With some items that can cost up to 2,000,000 VND retail price, the value someone can get is quite straightforward.
More flexible
Pay as You Go is only charging when the end user PASS any item. That is a big deal for WisePass as the model used to be subscription based. Every time a member wouldn’t PASS that day, they would lose their PASS. It created some anxiety for some members that felt they were losing out when they didn’t PASS. With Pay as You Go, people are in control and can decide whenever they want to use WisePass or only when they need it.
More powerful
Pay as You Go is also more powerful for people that want to be able to PASS more than once a day without subscribing for a Premium or Discovery membership. Indeed, the plan allows to PASS as much as the customer wants within the same day. That request came especially from businesses that would want to leverage WisePass for some team building purposes that require more powerful access for more specific times.
What’s ahead for WisePass in 2019
The truth is WisePass has received VC funding the past couple years and with now 2,000 PASS per month. The company is set to grow to 20,000 PASS per month within less than 12 months. With some global partners such as Pernod Ricard, Starbucks, CGV and the Marriott group, WisePass is set to expand to more than 1,000 venues and serve South East Asia within less than 18 months.
Our journey is just beginning.
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