Crooked Media – the progressive media company that is home to Pod Save America among other shows – is launching a new three-tiered subscription service that may put its fan base to the “how much do you love me?” test. The “Friends of the Pod” service will be splint into three tiers -- Close Friends, Friends with Benefits, and Best Friends – with benefits growing as users pay more. The cheapest plan will cost $6.99 per month, the most expensive will be $19.99 per month, what may be the most of any podcast monthly subscription plan.
The first tier, Close Friends, comes with members-only Discord access, and the ability to chat directly with Crooked hosts, staffers, and join fellow listeners in subscriber-only chat groups. They will also have access to each show’s weekly producer notes.
Friends with Benefits includes all the benefits of Close Friends, in addition to exclusive weekly bonus episodes from company founders Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor. They’ll also have early access to all of Crooked Media’s limited-run series and get a $20 gift card to the Crooked Store.
Best Friends, comes with all that the lower tiers have, as well as a Vote Save America Quarterly Political review which shows users how their donations are being put to good use each month. This tier also includes a Vote Save America swag bag and a $9.99 donation to the progressive political action committee.
Crooked Media – which built the program with Supercast – is soft-launching the program among a select group of members. It says from launch, there will also be a one dollar discount for early subscriber groups in the first two plans (Close Friends & Friends with Benefits). Yearly discounts at $69.90 and $99.90 will be available for the first two plans as well.
Users will be able to pick from several podcast players that support private subscription fees, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Castro, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Podcast Republic, Downcast, RSSRadio, Podkicker, and others.