Chicken and Egg Problem for NZ Subscription Marketplace - Feedback Please!

AssociatedLgunnbot123 @ kiwisubs.nz on 26/07/2026 - 18:23
Last edited 06/08/2026 - 21:08 by 1 other user

Hey fellow Cheapies~

Over the past few years, as a broke student, I've always wanted a way to split subscriptions, such as Spotify Premium, with people who wanted to do the same. Unfortunately, none of my friends or family were interested because they either didn't use Spotify or already had their own subscription arrangements. Following my journey to lower my subscription costs, I eventually found a few platforms that offered exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately, they were all based in the US or Europe, meaning they either didn't support New Zealand properly. (We're too small haha)

I ended up building KiwiSubs, a marketplace where people can share subscription plans and save money.

At this moment, I'm looking for a small group of people who'd like to lower their Spotify Premium costs and are willing to give the platform a try. The first two months will be absolutely free, and I'll happily subsidize the family plan cost; you can decide if you want to continue with the plan for $8.99, no pressure at all :)

The biggest challenge I'm facing is the classic chicken and egg problem

1. Hosts don't want to list their spare spots if there are no joiners.
2. Joiners don't want to sign up if there aren't any available spots.
3. No reviews/testimonials yet, so both hosts and joiners have no reason to trust the platform.

I've built a waitlist for anyone interested, so anyone interested, please feel free to join!
Any feedback, suggestions, or advice would be greatly appreciated

Update (6/8):
This plan is now full. Thanks to everyone who joined.

A waitlist is available for the next one, so if you'd still like a seat
you can leave your email, and I'll let you know the moment one opens:

KiwiSubs homepage
2 months of free Spotify Premium offer

Related Stores

kiwisubs.nz

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  sigma on 26/07/2026 - 19:20

  i see the issue you are trying to resolve but is that allowed in their t&c's? may want to check to prevent a lawyers letter arriving one day. those platforms can get pretty intense with legal demands

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    Associatedgunnbot123 @ kiwisubs.nz on 26/07/2026 - 19:49

    Yes, good point and I've looked into this as well. This is exactly why KiwiSubs isn't positioned or marketed as a platform that provides or sells subscriptions, but rather as a marketplace where people with available spots can connect with people looking to join shared plans.

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  doubledowndan on 26/07/2026 - 19:44

  You're making a fair mark up on this. Spotify Premium costs 33.99 a month. You're selling 6 spots for 8.99ea ($53.94). I can understand a small fee but that's more than 50%. All you need is 4 people total to split the cost

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    Alan6984 on 26/07/2026 - 22:00

    You're making a fair mark up on this. Spotify Premium costs 33.99 a month. You're selling 6 spots for 8.99ea ($53.94). I can understand a small fee but that's more than 50%. All you need is 4 people total to split the cost

    I'm not in the market for this myself, nor do I know the OP at all, but that seems more than reasonable to me.

    If you don't need the service, then there is no reason to pay, but if you do (because you can't find anyone you know to split with), you would still be saving money.

    Being cheap is one thing, but not wanting to save money simply because someone else will make something out of it doesn't make any logical sense to me at least.

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    Associatedgunnbot123 @ kiwisubs.nz on 26/07/2026 - 20:05

    I completely agree if someone already has 3–5 friends or family members who want to split a plan, then organising it privately would definitely be cheaper. The problem KiwiSubs is trying to solve is for people who don't already have that network and want an easier way to find others interested in sharing a plan.

    The biggest factor behind the pricing was to incentivise more hosts to join the platform! So this means hosts will only pay 33.99/6 = $5.67/month (apologies for not mentioning it in the post). Hosts don't pay any commission at all, and the additional fee is only applied to joiners. Another factor is covering the platform costs involved, such as Stripe transaction fees and Stripe Connect fees (as host payouts use Stripe Express). One more factor I considered was keeping the price below the existing Spotify Student plan, which is currently $10.50/month.

    I'm still testing the pricing model. It's definitely something I'm open to adjusting based on early user feedback. lmk what you think :)

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  Karens Hate Winners on 26/07/2026 - 22:51

  I've never been on a family plan before and can't be bothered doing the research. Is there any specific reason why you can't join a shared plan with someone based in the US or Europe?

  Is it just an account region limitation? For example, if the host's account is registered in the US or Europe, does Spotify prevent them from inviting someone from another country?

  I would assume there are ways around this. For example, you could use a VPN to create a new account in the same country as the host (e.g. the US), join their family plan, and then use something like Wise or Revolut to pay in the same currency. Done.

  After that, you could use a service like TuneMyMusic to transfer your playlists from your main Spotify account to the new account and keep the playlists synced between accounts. TuneMyMusic is fairly cheap, and worst case, you could just get Claude to create a simple tool to transfer playlists for free (I've actually done something like this for myself).

  At that point, your new account would have the same playlists while getting access to the Premium benefits. If your new account gets banned, no problem, you'd still have your old account. I haven't been banned at all and I've tried various dodgy methods in the past to get Spotify premium, or to download music directly via their now obsolete API, among various things.

  Also, what are the main reasons people usually get Spotify Premium? From the people I've spoken to, most seem to want:

  • An ad-free experience
  • Unlimited skips
  • The ability to queue songs and control playback

  Those are probably the biggest quality-of-life improvements that Premium offers. Personally, those are the features I care about the most. I couldn't care less about the higher music bitrate quality, I honestly can't tell much of a difference.

  If those are the only features you want, there are alternative ways to save money by using free solutions. I'm not going to list them here, but there are various projects available on GitHub that you can look into. Most of them work by blocking certain Spotify API endpoints through host file entries.

  The result is essentially:

  • No ads
  • Unlimited playback
  • Unlimited skips
  • No interruptions

  Setup usually takes less than five minutes. On Android, it's a bit more complicated nowadays, but there are still working ways people to get premium features without paying.

  There's also Youtube Music as an alternative. You can get premium on that pretty easily on Android and just use TuneMyMusic or something to keep the playlists between Spotify and Youtube Music in sync. I have both Spotify and Youtube Music and the latter is my fallback/backup option, in case one day I decide to completely give up on Spotify altogether. At least, my music is backed up and I don't lose anything if I were to switch platforms.

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    Associatedgunnbot123 @ kiwisubs.nz on 27/07/2026 - 09:52

    Thanks for your comment I’ve enjoyed reading through it!

    The general consensus is that if the host and joiners reside in the same country, then as long as the address is the same, the family plan should generally work without issues. However, Spotify can tell if you’re streaming outside your region through IP address checks and network data. Even if you use a VPN, set your account region to the US, and set up payments using Revolut or Wise, there’s inherently a higher risk of a ban or suspension since you’re not residing in the same country. Hence Kiwisubs provides a local platform for those who’d rather avoid that risk in the first place.

    As for why people use Spotify Premium in the first place, I don’t have the right knowledge to give you a good answer. Indeed there are a plethora of alternatives to Spotify and to be frank streaming in general (you seem quite well versed in them). Why pay for netflix when you can sail the high seas? However, the fact that these services exist and remain popular suggests they create enough value to justify the cost for the average person (though that’s debatable given how high prices have gotten). Perhaps some people enjoy Spotify Wrapped, which is huge with the younger crowd, or Spotify Jams, or the countless other features Spotify offers.

    Or arguably, some people just pay for the convenience of avoiding all that hassle. And yes, I agree with you that if the only features you want are offline listening, high quality music etc… There are plenty of ways to attain this - especially on android. Not too sure on apple devices though. I feel this question goes a bit beyond my scope, since it’s really asking why people use Spotify in the first place.

    But if I did tell you what I think, ultimately, we are all paying for convenience.

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  saxasianguy on 27/07/2026 - 06:48

  Similar to Gamsgo then? I've just signed up to 1 year of Youtube Premium for I think $100 something NZD. I'm on one of their 'family plans' so there's 4/5 random people on one plan and they are most likely paying their subscription through India/Turkey where they have someone with an Indian bank acc/ Turkish number

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    jackvdbuk on 27/07/2026 - 10:04

    Just a heads up - that loop hole is firmly closed and theyll remove access eventually

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      saxasianguy on 01/08/2026 - 16:57

      How would the loophole be closed if their employees are from turkey/india using their legitimate payment method? Also I did buy their insurance so they would refund me in case YT revokes access

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    Associatedgunnbot123 @ kiwisubs.nz on 27/07/2026 - 09:58

    Yes exactly! I think GamsGo also manages the accounts themselves rather than sourcing them from an individual iirc. I think the striking difference with something like Kiwisubs is that it’s entirely local, which can give peace of mind.

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  Ngakau on 27/07/2026 - 10:46

  I've joined up, but my current subscription runs out August 7, so it wouldn't let me, after taking my payment details. I'll do it again after then, hoping they don't start my two months from today :)

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    Associatedgunnbot123 @ kiwisubs.nz on 27/07/2026 - 12:50

    That’s all good. I’ll just set your two months to start from August 7th instead of today. You’re all sorted :)

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  KiwiUK on 31/07/2026 - 10:10

  I have 2 slots but I feel $8.99 is asking too much, can I host it on your system for less? I like your idea

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    Associatedgunnbot123 @ kiwisubs.nz on 31/07/2026 - 16:07

    Hi, appreciate your interest! Just to clarify, it's free to list as a host, no cost to you at all. Of the $8.99 a joiner pays, $5.67 goes to the host as reimbursement for that seat's share of the Spotify bill, and the remaining is the platform fee for handling everything else.

    Pricing is flat across the platform right now, so I can't do a custom rate for your listing. However, pricing is one of the things I'm still testing rather than locking it in. What do you think would be a fair price for joiners to pay, if you were setting it as a host? I'm hosting a plan myself and three people have joined so far.

    Happy to walk you through setting up a listing if you want to give it a go!

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  KiwiUK on 01/08/2026 - 14:12

  Hi, my thoughts were basically $32 for Spotify div by 6 would be $5.34 rounded to $6.50 but I forgot there should be a fee for the work you put in to your website and making it easy to offer.

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    Associatedgunnbot123 @ kiwisubs.nz on 01/08/2026 - 19:22

    Yep, that's pretty much it. Thanks for your thoughts.

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