Quote from: sharpshot on June 21, 2013, 11:42

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 11:33

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

The buyer mentioned in the OP was complaining about images costing from $70 to $155.  Do you think that's far too low?  I think that's too high for microstock.

That's only for exclusive content, nonexclusive images cost similar amounts on Istock and Shutterstock.  Around $15 at Shutterstock for the largest size, Dreamstime is $8-21 and $17-30 at Istock.  I don't know how most nonexclusives feel now, should Istock lower the prices for their content?  Some people seem angry that they lost their more expensive P+ content and others say they are priced too high, either way it goes someone will say this is the reason Istock is failing.  They are priced too high and too low.  I'm glad the buyer sees some value in exclusive content and if the clients need those images what else can they do but pay, some people will opt to use less perfect images and some will pay.  It depends how badly they want/need the image, remember most people are licensing these images in order to make a profit from them.

As an indy I am not too concerned about the price IS sells my images for as long as they are within or above the range of other sites, what I am concerned with is the amount I get for a sale - the commission %, and IS pays the lowest of the low there. Now with dropping prices I can look forward to even lower $ and lower RC which will lead to even lower %.

I'd much rather sell an image for 5$ and get $2.50 than sell it for $10 and get $1.60 let alone sell it for $1 and get .16