Below is part of post from Achillies:

Continuing its steady ascendant trend, Dreamstime has registered a 90% traffic growth rate in the last 12 months according to third parties that provide web analytics. Similar results have been registered for all other parameters as well: number of registered users, buyers, submissions and images online (while the waiting time gets close to 0 now!)
While a strong positioning has already been secured within the market, our aim is to continue growth at the same if not even higher rates.

We've just released a price update, 9 months after our previous adjustments (credits 2008). This is not an update of the pricing in credits, but of the credit value itself. The credit amount required for image download will not change. Subscription plans will also stay the same.

Full details can't be provided here, due to the dynamics of the purchase tool, but most of you will already see updated royalties for the latest downloads. A few examples are in the above graphics. As you can see, for the lower volumes, a non exclusive photographer will receive $0.84 instead of $0.50 per credit. A 5 credits image will bring him $4.2 (up from $2.5) while the exclusive will receive $5.01 (up from $3) .

Overall, adding discounts and additional credits, the price update should translate in over 30-40% increase in sales and royalties. Coming right before the summer season, we expect this to bring better earnings for everyone and record months for most contributors.
Although this is a significant increase, we still continue to provide the best prices for buyers!

The actual thread is here:
http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_17369

Agencies has nothing to offer besides price cuts. Until something "new" is invented it will be race to the bottom. Can somebody convince me that $1 per image is expensive for somebody???

So far DT is the site that has the highest RPD for me and also the one that has always treated contributors the best, IMHO.    Since Achilles is still at the helm I am optimistic that will continue. 

I'd agree. I've always liked DT, their staff and the way they treat contributors.

However on reflection I am slightly disappointed that they haven't been able to gain or even sustain their market share against the less 'fair' (to us) competition. My guess is that they may have been over-generous to us in the past leaving not enough left over for marketing, etc and that's why they have slipped or at least not gained.

I've always felt that DT have been slightly behind the curve of what's important although with the very best of intentions. For example I think they maintained the original 50c/$1 price structure for far too long when it clearly wasn't bringing in customers wholesale from the much more expensive IS. It didn't work and it probably cost them and us.

Maybe the market is maturing and it is inevitable that one agency paying 50% commission will not be able to compete against all the others who are paying less than 40%.

The trouble is we independent contributors more or less support all the important agencies equally so there's little or no differential in the product they have to sell. If one agency has substantially less to spend on marketing then they're unlikely to be able to keep up with the others.

This was omitted from the above post.  Note the line I've bolded:

A last note: our search engine keeps updating and its relevancy now emphasizes the quality of the content more than ever before. We try to keep the right balance between new images and new contributors vs. popular images and older contributors. Recent changes try to favor less the new images (we found out they were too overexposed) and provide buyers with more diversity, without ignoring relevancy. Some of our contributors have seen their revenue double in the last months, while others were affected. Rest assured that we keep an eye on all factors, but also do note that competition that is becoming more aggressive. Do your best to provide the best stock you can and do your best to keep improving!

I just realized that I normally get >$2.00 for an x-large image, but from a "subscription sale" i'm gettin gsomething like 0.37!

what?

If they don't opt me out of subscription, I'm leaving.  For 0.37, subscription should get X-Small only or I should get 5* that amount for X-Large.   There just isn't enough volume there to justify it.

My uploads to SS are intentionally down at "minimum acceptable size".  You want larger, you pay for larger.

My uploads to SS are intentionally down at "minimum acceptable size".  You want larger, you pay for larger.

Nobody prevents you from uploading minimal size to DT too.

Let me see if I understood: the cost of credits will increase.

NO.
"This is not an update of the pricing in credits, but of the credit value itself. The credit amount required for image download will not change. Subscription plans will also stay the same.� - Achilles Page 1

Our commission will be lower (the ghost from FT strikes DT?)

YES
�we plan to adjust the royalty percentages in the upcoming months. We will first evaluate the results of the current price update. We hope contributors' revenue will not be affected and that the RPD remains at significant values� - Achilles page 1
"The extra budget will go into marketing and sales. It will allow us to attract new customers (most of them will be new to stock as some of you assumed above)". - Achilles page 3
* extra budget = contributors money