Last evening we officially released support for a new way to sell 3D models on Thangs: Canonical Plans. You can demo the experience by creating a new Membership Plan as a commercial designer here.

What are Canonical Plans?

Canonical plans are subscriptions that support releases of content on a monthly cadence, where the longer that customers are subscribed to a plan, the more content they get.

Canonical plans for Thangs can come in two flavors:

• 🕒 Monthly releases, where the designer puts out new content each month. By default, subscribers gain access to the month’s content in which they joined the plan, with options (up to the designer) for getting access to prior months as well.
• 📚 Chapter-based releases, where the designer sets up a plan with a linear progression from Chapter 1 to 2, etc. Subscribers by default start at Chapter 1, and progress forward each month with new content, again with options on the plan for getting access to future chapters, etc.

Of course, our traditional plan structure is still available as download-based plans. This gives users the freedom to pick what they want to download from your full back catalog. Since this is what most Thangs users are used to, those plans are still an excellent choice.

Work-Life Balance and Supporting Creators and their Members:

1. This plan structure is an alternative way for designers to sell on Thangs, and it is rooted in our mission to create sustainable incomes & lifestyles for creators. Instead of releasing models every week, designers now have the flexibility to offer “monthly drops” instead, giving designers the ability to restructure their marketing schedule as a monthly release to paying members.
2. This also makes it easier for members too. These new plans give membership supporters something to look forward to every month and also allow designers to plan marketing around the big drop as well. Members will not “miss out” on a release, since they always know to check for new models during the monthly release date and even have it automatically downloaded to their account.
3. As a bonus, members have an incentive to stay on a membership plan for longer, because of the loyalty rewards that come with it!

Marketplace Features

As is typical for Thangs, we like to try new things and innovate! Here’s a couple of the improvements we’ve made to canonical plans compared to existing platforms out there:

1. Options for additional access to previous or future chapters. Designers can use this feature to offer multiple Canonical plans with the same content — one where you have access only to each month as it becomes available, and others where you retain access to previous months, or gain access to the entire catalog, etc. Today many designers do this manually in Google Drive or Dropbox, and it’s not automated. We automated it!

1. More Buyer Friendly: Members receive automatic downloading/removal of access to content within chapters as each month rolls around, depending on the settings of the plan. Today, many designers have to direct their members to other platforms manually to download. We do this automatically so members will always have their download from that month, even if they forget to log in. No more support tickets!
2. Automatic promotion to the Thangs Marketplace (now known as Model Store). As a model rolls out of a particular month, it can automatically be made available for individual purchase instead, letting designers implement Loyalty Rewards for staying subscribed to their plan while still allowing users one-time sale options, if the month has passed. Easy!

Many of you have been waiting for this feature, so we’re happy to say, thank you! You shared with us ways to improve, and we listened ❤️

For more membership information see our membership basics tutorial and our Thangs Academy all about memberships.

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