My recommendation: make it as stupidly easily possible to buy a single map whenever you want, with the option for no account at all (and make it clear you can do that through your website).
I could conceivably see myself using this, the output looks really nice. But as soon as I need to sign up for an account, even if it's free..... ugh :-/
Make it easy for people like me who might be on the fence to give you my money :)
This is common with e-commerce sites. Many don't require you to make an account to add items to your shopping cart or even to check out. But if you want to make an account, they make it super easy prefilling info they already have, and they certainly won't make you lose what's in your cart.
Thank you again.
I think you'll be able to improve your conversion if all your sample images included text describing what the star map is commemorating. Ideally there should be at least one such image on the homepage.
I know this may sound dumb, but before I saw the video, I hadn't considered why I'd want to generate my own star map over just using an existing one someone else had already generated.
Once I saw https://i.imgur.com/IAQUyuN_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&fidelity=medi..., it clicked. Your website has a lot of prose telling me I can pick a star map for a specific place and time, but I skimmed right over that.
Most of your customers are probably going to put commemorative text on the poster/shirt/mug anyway, because star maps don't really stand well on their own IMHO. I doubt many people other than astronomers and star geeks would be able to remember the difference between two night skies commemorating different events particularly if there in the same hemisphere and season.
You might think your customers won't be as thick headed as me, but now that I understand it, I'm seriously considering becoming a customer someday.
I have two suggestions:
1. Show a bunch of prominent examples of star maps on giftable items like mugs and shirts memorializing various events like a birth or a wedding. The more explicit you are about the stars matching the night sky on the day and place of the event, the better. I could see these making for cool party favors, but I think the concept will go over a lot of people's heads (pun intended) unless it's spelled out for them.
2. Offer a la carte pricing. The couple planning their wedding on a shoestring budget might buy a star map for $40, but starting and cancelling a $40 subscription could be too much of a hassle.
Longer term, I might look into partnering with a company like zazzle.com and integrating into their create-your-own-shirt-or-mug-or-whatever pipeline for a royalty.