COGS: How I Bankrupted MoviePass

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Author’s note: This is an updated and expanded analysis per my “Ima fix wolves” policy of rewriting and improving previously published essays. It came to mind because I keep seeing startups make mistakes on how to think about the costs of AI products. Please enjoy this explainer on a much-misunderstood topic.

MoviePass is my favorite business of all time. For a brief, glorious period between 2017 and 2018, the company sold an unlimited movie-watching membership for under $10 a month. All you had to do was pay the fee and then see all the flicks your heart desired. At the time, my favorite theater in Mountain View, California, decked out with reclining leather seats, sold tickets for $15 a pop. Essentially, MoviePass was selling dollars for cents.

Unsurprisingly, people enjoy free things! Their subscriber count jumped from 20,000 to 3 million in a year. All of my friends had it. We would go to the movies at least once a week. We even went if we knew the movie was bad. MoviePass couldn’t be forever, so we felt it was necessary to cash in while we still could. After all, each of us easily cost MoviePass north of $60 a month.

As it turns out, we were right. Giving away money for free is pretty dumb. The company burned through tens of millions of dollars and collapsed by 2019.

MoviePass is my favorite business because I, the consumer, happily took this clueless company’s money and had a blast. It was awesome for me, but it sucked for them.

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Thanks to our Sponsor: Thesis

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