VHX Adds Subscription Features to Help Creators Better Monetize Content

By Adam Flomenbaum 

VHX, a company that enables content creators to sell videos directly from their websites, has announced that beginning today it will expand to allow anyone to create their own branded video subscription services. Content creators will now have the tools to charge based on monthly, yearly, or unlimited access, and have control over different types of packages and offerings.

VHX is backed, in part, by Comcast Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and Union Square Ventures. The most successful users of the platform have been YouTube stars with large followings.

Black&SexyTV, YouTubers with 100,000 subscribers, claim that what they make in a year on YouTube they make in a month through VHX. Black&SexyTV began utilizing VHX’s subscription service in February and is on track to bring in $1 million on VHX this year.

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“Our audience has been very vocal about wanting to pay for content and see our network grow,’ Numa Perrier, one of the founders of Black&SexyTV tells LostRemote. “This didn’t happen over night though. We took our time getting into this by establishing trust and consistency with our programming and community building along the way. There was a natural and steady progression from largely self funding, to crowd funding, to single Pay-Per-View events on VHX for our series Season Finales, to now merging into monthly subscriptions.”

For artists like Black&SexyTV, YouTube and VHX go hand-in-hand: use the free platform (YouTube) to build and continue to grow your audience, and then make special, subscription-only content available on VHX.

Even with options like VHX, creators continue to rise to prominence on YouTube only to leave the platform for more lucrative options – a problem Google and YouTube are actively trying to combat.

“YouTube could look at things from a creator’s perspective and be more competitive in all areas to help plug the leak up,” Dennis Dortch, another founder of Black&SexyTV says. “The first thing would be competitive pricing. The 55/45 split is a huge chunk of your revenue and an instant turn off, when outside competitors are offering 90/10 in favor of the creators. And for that high price point you don’t even get access to your own subscribers and audience via email addresses or even an internal messaging system. These days, as amazing as YouTube has been to the world of online video, they feel more like a rigid wall between us, our money and our growth. We are building a business and VHX was the best solution for us, because they don’t stand between us and our audience.”

Outisde of its roster of YouTubers, VHX also works with media companies who do not need to devote resources to building a home-grown distribution platform. The platform is available via Chromecast, Roku, and iOS, and VHX counts Comedy Central, Red Bull Media House, and Vice Films among its media clients.

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