Bike subscription is a concept where a customer does not own a bike but instead rents its use on a recurring basis. This service is offered by businesses that have a subscription and billing management process. Here, customers can access and use the software application on a pay-as-you-go basis. This type of subscription allows users to save on upfront costs, since they only need to pay for what they use. In addition, it also provides flexibility and scalability, since users can increase or decrease their usage as needed.
The term ‘bike subscription’ was coined in 2006 by Mike Samuelson, a serial entrepreneur and early investor in the sharing economy. Samuelson came up with the term while brainstorming with his co-founder on how to describe their new business model of offering unlimited bike rentals for a monthly fee. The term ‘subscription’ was chosen to convey the recurring nature of the service, and ‘bike’ was selected as the primary mode of transportation to be offered.
Since then, the term ‘bike subscription’ has been adopted by other companies offering similar services, and has become a popular way to describe this type of business model. Today, there are many different types of bike subscription services available, each with its own unique features and benefits.
In contrast to SaaS subscription models that is usually purchased by businesses, bike subscription is mostly used by individuals or customers. This means that while businesses are more likely to be interested in long-term contracts, individuals maybe more likely to cancel their subscriptions as per their requirement when they don’t need service on a regular-basis. With the bike subscription model, there’s usually no minimum commitment period, so you can cancel at any time. However, with most software subscriptions, there’s usually a minimum commitment of 12 months.
Some of the other advantages of a bike subscription model is that, it can help businesses to better manage their cash flow and reduce their overall costs. In addition, it gives them greater flexibility in terms of how they use and consume the software. And because there is no need for upfront investment, businesses can get started with using the software much sooner than if they were to purchase it outright.
