MicrostockGroup

nope  not yet  and I am not sure if I will opt out soon but I will give it a go for a while.

I know I am terrible  at maths(I mean it) but one question come to my mind how on earth they make money with such subscirpiton system (my question applies for SS too)
buyers need to pay roughly  USD 200 for one month subscription allowing them to download max of 25 files every day which means 750 image a month. in this case buyers will be paying 26 cent per file(250/750=0,26 cent) and the site pays 0,30 dollars to the contributer.as much as my maths knowledge allows me they are @ minus 4 cents. I know there has got to be a simple answer for that so I'd appreciate if someone can enlighten me:)

thank you for the reply. that means their profits rely on  unused limits in other words the least files downloaded the more  earnings for the site  in contrast the more images downloaded the more  money  contributers make. it has got to be working some how so they keep doing it.

Cheers

How can you see if one image is available or not for suscription sales ?
I've opt out but I cannot see the difference. There is still subscription information under my photos.

On a certain site that also introduced subsciptions this year :

October 2006 average income per picture : 1.02 $
October 2007 average income per picture : 0.66 $

I'm still confused as how this subscription plan benefits the photographers.

Patrick.

ps : forgot to add that october 2006 i had 155 downloads, october 2007 186, but earnings from this year october are still roughly about 30 $ less then income from october 2006.... hoera subscriptions (sarcastic)

why all the fear about subscriptions.  it is pretty well agreed that shutterstock gives the best return on our photos (if you haven't checked out the polls now might be a good time) ... so why when other sites decide to start offering subscriptions there is such strong negativity.

No, they don't give the best return on our photos, they give the best sales volume. If SS didn't exist, even as little as 50% of their sales, spread over "traditional" microstock agencies, would probably generate more income for all of us.

Like most others, I have a portfolio at SS. "If you can't fight them, join them". But if subscriptions sales are going to be spread among all agencies, sales at SS will probably go down long term. Another result will be that there will be only one place to go for those who want to keep prices higher on a unique portfolio: IS

I'm already considering pulling my best photos from subscription agencies (except Snapvillage, where I can opt out for individual images). My best selling photo has so far generated $0.36 per sale at SS and $0.62 per sale at IS. It has generated 39% more money at IS than at SS, but with far less copies downloaded.

Obviously, I would like to have the income from both places. But if the image wasn't available at SS, a typical volume buyer, providing he was looking for that particular kind of image, would buy it from IS if he really needed it, and even if he had to pay a higher price.

This is all theory of course, but when I look at how I buy photos myself, it makes sense. I mostly shop around, not to find the lowest price, but to find the best image. If I charge a customer $500 for a design job, it doesn't really matter if I pay $0.25 or $10 for the image. What matters is that I have a satisfied customer, who actually pays me to find the best photo available for his use.

If I was a volume buyer, I would download as many photos as possible using a subscription, still charging my customer the same, but still, I would probably have to buy some photos for higher prices at places like IS.

What StockXpert,  and through them, the photographers, is now doing, is to ask more customers to become subscribers, and to pay lower prices. Not good for us, and long term, I don't think for StockXpert either.

Have you heard about the guy who, on a cold winter day, peed in his pants to stay warm?

With all of the goofy stuff and changes going on elsewhere this is looking more attractive. But what are chances of IS adding subscriptions at some point? They have the volume.

They are doing very well without it, and because of their large portion of exclusive photographers, they have a unique selling point. I would be surprised if they did it.

I've seen at least a couple of people here mention that they only upload 2MP images to SS. But you can opt out at StockXpert. Wonder how much this will affect sales of those who do opt out?

I have vectors at DT. They sell for $4.00 as regular sales and $0.25 as subs. That's 16 times as much for the regular sale, or a discount of 93.75% for the subscription sale   

They have, and the more similar the other agencies become, the more important the exclusives will be for IS.

One thing I've learned from running my own business for many years is: I can't make all customers happy all the time. Sometimes, it's better to let a customer go, or even send him to a competitor who has a higher competence within a certain area. If I'm best in what I do, he'll come back when my services  are needed.

Nothing is gained, if keeping all those customers means reducing the profit to a point where there's hardly anything left.

It's easy to do as a batch job in Photoshop. "Fit image" in the File/Automate menu.