MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Dreamstime.com => Topic started by: jm on October 24, 2012, 08:52
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http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_32755 (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_32755)
Contributors in thread say "Great News". I have to read it once again and carefully but I doubt I would call it great news.
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I always have to go over these a couple of times, but is this what they changed?
1. 6 months instead of 2 years.
2. Level 0 are now 25% instead of 20%.
3. Some sort of 24 hour introductory pricing for new buyers.
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"It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”
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At least they changed the level 0 royalties to 25%. That's good news. Not sure about the pricing though.
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I think their pricing is a tough sell - especially as you still have to buy credit bundles to get the "as low as" prices - when you compare them to BigStock (where you can pay cash) or even iStock (where if the site is up you can pay cash). I'm not sure that this change will really help as the buyer will still find a lot of images they'd like that aren't level 0 and thus are more expensive.
From a contributor point of view, even at 25%, the level 0 sale of an XS could bring me as little as 19 cents (according to DT's posted lowest price; they may offer bigger discounts) - I make more than that at PhotoDune (33 cents) or even with a subscription sale at CanStock. About all you can say is that it's better than the 9 cent royalties at iStock.
For the maximum size on a level 0 I could get as low as $1.34 (again, compare that to $2.67 at PhotoDune, often cited as a low royalty site). All in all it doesn't seem like good news for contributors.
But the biggest issue I see with DT is the lurching quality of sales - some days all subs, some days lots of credit sales - and overall low volume for a top tier site. If they'd fix that, I'd probably overlook the level 0 and 1 pricing (even at level 1, a maximum size sale nets me as little as $1.92, still very low for a 21MP image)
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...I am no friend of DT but at least they try to be transparent. Won`t change much at all I guess and finally DT makes such a little piece of my monthly cake that actually I do not care that much.
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at least they try to be transparent.
There's no doubt about that ;D
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I no longer even try to understand micro pricing schemes. Hopefully the buyers are all actuaries, lawyers or mathematicians who will enjoy this complexity, and not just find it another reason not to use stock images :-(
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It seems like an OK change, but I think their pricing is so complicated to a buyer that I doubt it will make a huge difference. Too many changes, too often in the last year to really draw any conclusions on the impact this will have.
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I was a regular buyer at DT and left mostly because:
a) The similarity rejection issue on the contrib side and more importantly
b) the huge difference in prices between Subs and on demand. While on a bigger Project I purchased a Sub and all was fine. But many times I just needed 1 or 2 images and was not willing to pay like 20 credits each (like 40$ in total ???? ). Just too much of a difference...one reason which drove me to open a DP account.
c) Giving up on 50% royalty ;-)
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Basically they dropped prices pretty much across the board and increased royalties on files that hadn't sold in over 2 years from 20% to 25% - not necessarily good for the contributor, but at least they didn't drop royalty percentages as they have in most of their previous changes.
If I were a buyer I think I would be pretty annoyed by all the different prices there - but I suppose it at least is based on sales instead of some arbitrary selection or contributor status.
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I would rather have seen prices rise, but I appreciate that at least the royalty % was raised. Glass is half full.
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deleted - should have read closer...
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This price cut is HUGE!
But as far as I understand it that price cut is only valid for the first 24 hours of activity for a new buyer.
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It looks like the upper level medium prices are cut in half - up to 8 credits less. That is a pretty big drop. Maybe in the flip side of the "raise prices and cut commissions" we have seen so much of they should have jacked up commissions.
Here is another troubling thing upon closer reading...
"Also, we will gradually release a promo, aimed only for new buyers initially"
That "initially" scares me - perhaps this is another step towards the end of the levels system at DT (the first being all subs sales at the same price).
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So late this afternoon I had 5 extra small images from a series sell at 21 cents royalty each. As far as I can tell that's a new low for DT ( I could find one or two sales for 23 cents or 25 cents earlier, but I didn't look through everything). Percentage increase (to 25%) notwithstanding, the new pricing set a new low for me :(
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So late this afternoon I had 5 extra small images from a series sell at 21 cents royalty each. As far as I can tell that's a new low for DT ( I could find one or two sales for 23 cents or 25 cents earlier, but I didn't look through everything). Percentage increase (to 25%) notwithstanding, the new pricing set a new low for me :(
Last week I had a $0.17 XS sale under the 20% royalty rate for a level 0, so 21c is actually an improvement, as far as Level 0 sales go...
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I'll take your word for it that 21 cents is an improvement :) Doesn't much feel like it!
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Around 17 cents per credit is about as low as I've seen at DT.
Pretty much anything under .25 per credit I find pretty annoying.