NAVER Premium Content: Monetization & Subscription UX for Content Creators
A subscription-based content platform that empowers creators to monetize their work while providing users with seamless access to premium content.
Project Overview
As Lead Product Designer, I designed subscription UX, creator analytics dashboards, and a video-publishing flow—expanding a text-first service into a trusted multi-format ecosystem.
The Product
Premium Contents
My Role
Product designer
Responsibilities
Lead UX/UI Design
Project Duration
Nov. 2022 - Feb. 2023
The Problem
Independent content creators need a sustainable way to monetize their written content as user demand shifts toward video-based media, making it harder to generate revenue solely from text.
The Goal
Enable content creators to seamlessly integrate video into their monetization strategies, allowing them to reach a wider audience and increase engagement. NAVER Premium Content will support this by providing a scalable subscription model and analytics tools to help creators optimize their revenue.
Top 6 Key Metrics
Achievements
During my time as the product designer, NAVER PREMIUM CONTENT scaled to 6M+ MAUs with 100% YoY growth, while driving a 883% surge in transaction volume. Improved monetization models led to a 3X increase in content sales and tripled the number of ₩1M+ monthly earners. The creator ecosystem also expanded from 15 to over 950 active contributors.
Prototype: Designing a Trusted Multi-Format Experience
Creators: Added video-first workflow to dashboard
For Subscribers: Richer video-first experience
with hybrid context
When publishing video content, the platform provides an optimized viewing experience. Videos can be mapped to playlists, and once at least one video is added, a dedicated playlist tab is created for easy access.
A payment prompt appears based on the user’s subscription status, and creators can set preview points when uploading their videos.
Iterations
Added traffic-source analytics to the creator dashboard to leverage NAVER’s broader ecosystem for growth.
I believe my subscribers discover my content across different platforms, and I want to leverage these diverse traffic sources more actively...
– Science creator, 340K subs, Award winner
Context & Motivation
Hybrid Demand in a Video-First World
NAVER Premium Content launched as a text-first platform and proved its value in beta, quickly attracting a loyal base of paid subscribers.
But as 65 % of global internet traffic shifted to video, we saw that 39 % of our high-value Economy & Business creators still preferred text for rapid market analysis.
Context & Motivation
NAVER’s Edge: Curated + Hybrid
This contrast made it clear that, while our text model worked, we needed to evolve—adopting a hybrid approach that embraced video while preserving text’s unique strengths.
User Insights
Trust, Format, and Monetization are Core Pain Points
Subscribers struggled to discover trustworthy content; creators faced heavy video-production burdens and unstable revenue. Interviews confirmed that hybrid formats increase engagement and confidence.
Design Approach
Built a three-step video-publishing and preview flow for creators.
Impact & Takeaways
We followed the video-first trend —
but differentiated with a trusted hybrid model.
As the Product Designer for NAVER Premium Content, I am proud to see our platform’s significant growth, with a 883% increase in transaction volume over the past year. These achievements underscore the effectiveness of our user-centric design approach, which focuses on empowering creators with intuitive tools and fostering a supportive ecosystem. By continually refining the user experience and addressing the evolving needs of our creators, we have enabled them to thrive, thereby driving the platform’s overall success.
