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Agency Based Discussion => Adobe Stock => Topic started by: Freezingpictures on December 17, 2009, 09:35

Title: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Freezingpictures on December 17, 2009, 09:35
http://www.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Nonexclusivity (http://www.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Nonexclusivity)
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Perry on December 17, 2009, 09:46
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

(Sorry, I just had to...)

"Fotolia continues to pay artists one of the highest royalty rates in the industry", yeah, right.

I hope they will sell a lot of my XL and XXL files...
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on December 17, 2009, 09:47
Looks like they're trying to reduce what they pay out to non-performing contributors.  Below Sapphire drops up to 5 %, Above Sapphire rises 2-3%.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Perry on December 17, 2009, 09:51
Looks like they're trying to reduce what they pay out to non-performing contributors.  Below Sapphire drops up to 5 %, Above Sapphire rises 2-3%.

Yes, but you need 100,000 downloads to be sapphire, that is A LOT.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Freezingpictures on December 17, 2009, 09:54
Over 100000 dls how many are there 5? Everyone else is a non-performing contributor  ???
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Danicek on December 17, 2009, 09:56
Looks like they're trying to reduce what they pay out to non-performing contributors.  Below Sapphire drops up to 5 %, Above Sapphire rises 2-3%.

Yes, but you need 100,000 downloads to be sapphire, that is A LOT.

Their diamond is 1,000,000 downloads (and note that subscription sale means 0.25 (i.e you need 4,000,000 sales to get there)).
Even the real top tier would need years to get there.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: leaf on December 17, 2009, 09:57
Hmm..  :(

Interesting, i didn't notice that at first sjlocke.

That mean Andres stays at the level he is, Yuri gets a 1% raise, Emeralds get a 1% cut, Gold get a 2% cut.

How much less /more income is this?

White 5% down = 16% pay cut
Bronze 4% down = 12.5% pay cut
Silver 3% down = 8.8% pay cut
Gold 2% down = 5.6% pay cut
Emerald 1% down = 2.6% pay cut
Sapphire = stays the same
Rubs = 2.3% raise
Diamond = 4.5% raise

ouch.  This - in addition to their numerous pay cuts last year has really increase their share of the sale.

Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Danicek on December 17, 2009, 10:00
Another thing that makes iStock exclusivity look better.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Perry on December 17, 2009, 10:01
I think Fotolia will be a new iStockphoto soon (royalty-wise, equals 20% royalty rate.).

Maybe they will launch some big advertising campains to bring in more sales. That's what I'm hoping.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: helix7 on December 17, 2009, 10:24
Another thing that makes iStock exclusivity look better.

istock launches a plan that greatly increases the benefits of exclusivity, and this is what Fotolia comes up with? Are they trying to push people away?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: teekaygee on December 17, 2009, 10:25
Well this certainly helps me to finalize my decision whether to drop them... I've been debating it for a long time. Then sales finally started to pick up and I thought I'd hold out a bit longer... so much for that; I don't need need to contribute to agencies that treat people this way...
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Jo Ann Snover on December 17, 2009, 10:29
I guess this makes it a trend - cut royalty percentages and  (a) keep those at the very top happy with a raise or status quo, plus (b) increase prices to try and disguise the long term loss of lower share for everyone else.

Hard not to view this as something that IS's recent announcement gave FT (and others) cover to do.

It's interesting that Emeralds aren't viewed as important enough to placate - I'd have thought they'd have to include them in the group to "protect" from the cuts.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: cthoman on December 17, 2009, 10:32
This actually doesn't look too bad. Yes, it is a backhanded raise like the last one, but it still looks like a raise. I'll get paid more on everything but XS and Vectors. It stinks about the vectors. I'm not sure why Fotolia keeps dumping on vector artists. Also, the max vector costs less than the XL. How does that make sense?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: vonkara on December 17, 2009, 10:42
Wow I'm so happy to had left this failboat, before I leave because I got owned by this announcement. Now I won...

It seem like you will do nothing at Fotolia if you are new. I joined FT in 2007 and does good for 6 month. Then for watever reason plus subscriptions, I started to hear crickets. Getting like 36 cents by credit purchase and such... just lololol
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: sharpshot on December 17, 2009, 10:50
I would of been gold by now, if they hadn't changed the levels.  Now I am even worse off than I was before. 

Their partial exclusivity might be interesting though and that would allow me to get out of subscriptions.  Look at this table.

http://www.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Partial (http://www.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Partial)
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: PowerDroid on December 17, 2009, 10:52
The commission rate cut really stinks, but isn't it possible that it will be balanced out by the increased price the customer is paying?  And if we take Fotolia at its word that it will continue to aggressively market itself to buyers, it's possible that sales will increase.  It's not outside the realm of possibility we'll see increased downloads X increased prices X a reduced rate = a net gain for contributors.  I know I'll get flamed by all the FT haters here, but I want to give them the benefit of the doubt as they've been a solid performer for me for my 13 months in microstock.  I won't be leaving FT anytime soon.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: borg on December 17, 2009, 11:00
Not their fault, but its our ...
We will appeal on the forums but we shall never withdraw Portfolios...

It is normal that the employer is always looking for lower profit margins for its employees...

We need union...  :P :P :P  ;D ;D ;D

P.S.

But bigger prices have to be a good  thing...
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: mwp1969 on December 17, 2009, 11:01
I will post the email I received from Fotolia:

Dear Fotolia Contributor,

2009 has been an amazing year for all of us - through aggressive marketing and promotion efforts, we were able to more than double photographer payouts! We're planning on repeating that trend in 2010 - and effective January 1, 2010, we're implementing some changes to help us towards that goal.

File Prices:

While XS downloads will remain at 1 credit, other downloads will increase between 1 and 2 credits per file. In addition, we'll be simplifying the file structure and combining the XXL and XXXL categories. For more information on file pricing, click here.


Commission Structure:

To accomplish our marketing and promotional goals, we've adjusted our artist commission structures. While some levels have increased and others have decreased in terms of percentages, a majority of contributing artists will continue to see increases in the total dollar amounts earned as we are raising prices. In comparison, Fotolia continues to pay artists one of the highest royalty rates in the industry, and we've been cited by many top photographers as one of the fastest growing and most important stock photography sites on the internet! For more information, click here.


Marketing and Promotions:

Fotolia has been aggressively marketing and promoting your images, vectors and videos, both online at various designer sites, and offline in the world's most influential design magazines and tradeshows. Typically, we offer customers a combination of free credits and discount on credits. Rest assured that these discounted and free credits earn you the exact same royalty as regularly priced credits - Fotolia bears the entire cost of the promotion. In 2010, we expect to be even more aggressive in our marketing activities for the entire community's benefit.

Also on their side bar graphics in the email:

"Performance since 2008
+48% New Buyers
+53% Credit Purchases
+54% Contributor Earnings
+57% Contributor Payouts
+203% API Calls
+15 Trade Shows"

END QUOTE



-Mark
http://markwpayne.wordpress.com (http://markwpayne.wordpress.com)
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: AridOcean on December 17, 2009, 11:02
For me things will probably be better, since I sell many larger sizes, and the maximum prices for these have all been increased substantially.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: sharpshot on December 17, 2009, 11:02
My earnings did go up a bit the last time they did this but I still get annoyed when my slice of the money is reduced and theirs is increased.  With FT, DT and istock all trying to grab more money, I am going to spend more time looking at other ways to sell my images.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: vonkara on December 17, 2009, 11:03
 And if we take Fotolia at its word that it will continue to aggressively market itself to buyers, it's possible that sales will increase.  
They only cut the share to photographers to me. Most buyers don't care about prices it's enough cheap compared to the macro times. They want to find the images quickly and have the best collection to choose in...
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: j2k on December 17, 2009, 11:04
It seems that I actually will be making more money if the download distribution doesn't change in the new year. I don't like the percentage cuts thou, it only benefits fotolia in the long run.

What about subscription pricing. Didn't see anything mentioned - no change?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: KB on December 17, 2009, 11:09
I'm well over the silver line, yet still about a month away from silver due to the 1 out of 4 sub sales rule.

So as a Bronze contributor, here is what the changes bring:

XS: -13% $0.32 --> $0.28
S: +31% $0.64 --> $0.84
M: -12.5% $1.60 --> $1.40
L: +2% $1.92 --> $1.96
XL: 0% $2.24 --> $2.24

Most of my sales are subs and XS, so I expect this will be a bit of a commission cut for me until I cross the silver line.

As someone else said, this definitely adds to the "exclusive IS" column for me.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: AridOcean on December 17, 2009, 11:25
XS: -13% $0.32 --> $0.28
S: +31% $0.64 --> $0.84
M: -12.5% $1.60 --> $1.40
L: +2% $1.92 --> $1.96
XL: 0% $2.24 --> $2.24

Are you sure your calculations are correct? E.g. for M and bronze level I find a CURRENT commision of 1.28 credits, and this will rise to 1.40.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: KB on December 17, 2009, 11:30
XS: -13% $0.32 --> $0.28
S: +31% $0.64 --> $0.84
M: -12.5% $1.60 --> $1.40
L: +2% $1.92 --> $1.96
XL: 0% $2.24 --> $2.24

Are you sure your calculations are correct? E.g. for M and bronze level I find a CURRENT commision of 1.28 credits, and this will rise to 1.40.
No, no guarantees! I make mistakes all the time.  ;D

The new numbers I trust, as I just calculated them. The "current" numbers were in my notes, and maybe I missed an earlier price cut? At some earlier point we used to get $1.60 for M. If we now get $1.28 I missed a big cut (which I wouldn't be surprised at at all).

Does anyone have the current numbers for bronzes? Sorry for the mis-information.  >:(
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: AridOcean on December 17, 2009, 11:33
Does anyone have the current numbers for bronzes? Sorry for the mis-information.  >:(


The old tables are here:
http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors (http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors)

and the new tables are here:
http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Nonexclusivity (http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Nonexclusivity)
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: KB on December 17, 2009, 11:40
Does anyone have the current numbers for bronzes? Sorry for the mis-information.  >:(


The old tables are here:
[url]http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors[/url] ([url]http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors[/url])

and the new tables are here:
[url]http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Nonexclusivity[/url] ([url]http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Nonexclusivity[/url])

Thanks! Couldn't find 'em.  ;D

Ok, here are the correct numbers (umm, I hope!). Much better than I'd thought (though the fact remains that our % cut goes down):

XS: -13% $0.32 --> $0.28
S: +31% $0.64 --> $0.84
M: +9% $1.28 --> $1.40
L: +23% $1.60 --> $1.96
XL: +17% $1.92 --> $2.24
XXL: +25% $2.24 --> $2.80
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: dgilder on December 17, 2009, 11:43
This would matter to me if I ever sold anything on Fotolia other than xs and sub.  I will probably be removing my port now, I was borderline before, and I am not impressed.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: KB on December 17, 2009, 11:48
This would matter to me if I ever sold anything on Fotolia other than xs and sub.  I will probably be removing my port now, I was borderline before, and I am not impressed.
I have to agree with that assessment. I do get an occasional M or larger sale, but they are only a bit more frequent than SS PPD sales. (That may be a slight exaggeration -- but only slight.)  ;D

If they had raised the sub sales commission, that would have a been a big positive. Too bad, they blew their chance.

Here are the changes for Silver. Levels above and below, please calculate and post them yourself.

XS: -9% $0.34 --> $0.31
S: +37% $0.68 --> $0.93
M: +14% $1.36 --> $1.55
L: +28% $1.70 --> $2.17
XL: +22% $2.04 --> $2.48
XXL: +30% $2.38 --> $3.10
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: elvinstar on December 17, 2009, 12:00
Does anyone know when this becomes policy?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: leaf on December 17, 2009, 12:05
Does anyone know when this becomes policy?

Jan 1, 2010
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: elvinstar on December 17, 2009, 12:08
Thanks
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: kingjon on December 17, 2009, 12:45
it's not all doom and gloom. I just did some number crunching (realizing its a small sample) - I would have made 15% more money so far in December had the new price structure been in effect, assuming the number of sales don't go down with the increased prices. I'm silver at FT.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: elvinstar on December 17, 2009, 12:52
^^ That's about what I came up with, as well.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Danicek on December 17, 2009, 12:52
They did not mention subscriptions, did they? I would say this again means that while credits go up, subscription stays the same making it more appealing.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: KB on December 17, 2009, 13:24
They did not mention subscriptions, did they? I would say this again means that while credits go up, subscription stays the same making it more appealing.
Yep, that's exactly right, just like DT. (It is mentioned somewhere specifically that footage & subscription prices remain unchanged.)

It seems like DT & FT both want to go the same model as SS. Mainly a sub site with a few pay-per-download sales thrown in now and again. Even IS is getting into the act, except they are doing it via other sites (photos.com, and whatever the new getty sub site will be called).
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: fotografer on December 17, 2009, 13:28
Just had a look at my last 100 sales 27% were subs, 32% were small or xs. Leaving the other 41% that would qualify for a rise in price.  I think that it will be more than enough to offset the loss that I would get as an emerald contributor so I see it as a positive thing.
ETA
Just noticed that small size are going up in price as well so will actually get a rise on 51% of my sales.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: lisafx on December 17, 2009, 13:41
I am not at all happy about this.  For the second year in a row Fotolia has cut our commissions.  That makes it a TREND with them, not an isolated incident.

Although I still get a fair number of L - XXL sales there,  buyers now have the option to buy the sub package that includes XL images.   I don't see this doing anything but pushing more buyers into subscriptions.  

If cutting commissions is Fotolia's idea of trying to keep contributor's happy I think it falls misearably short.  

And as for who gets the commission raise, that is what, 3 people?  I have been emerald for a couple of years now and I still only have 30k sales at Fotolia.  

This is the most serious push toward Istock exclusivity yet.  
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: MatHayward on December 17, 2009, 13:48
Lisa,

Since the last change have you made more or less money?  My monthly income has gone up considerably since the last change and I expect it to do so again based on the math I have done on the new price structure.  The added bonus for me personally is that I feel more confident in raising my prices to the maximum.  I have been hesitant to do so in the past as the difference from the standard was too high and seemed a strong disincentive to buy from me. 

As for subscriptions,  I think subscription buyers are subscription buyers regardless of regular sale prices.  Those buying individual photo's would not be compelled to pay a much larger monthly fee for the subscription unless they had the need for it already in my opinion. 




I am not at all happy about this.  For the second year in a row Fotolia has cut our commissions.  That makes it a TREND with them, not an isolated incident.

Although I still get a fair number of L - XXL sales there,  buyers now have the option to buy the sub package that includes XL images.   I don't see this doing anything but pushing more buyers into subscriptions.  

If cutting commissions is Fotolia's idea of trying to keep contributor's happy I think it falls misearably short.  

And as for who gets the commission raise, that is what, 3 people?  I have been emerald for a couple of years now and I still only have 30k sales at Fotolia.  

This is the most serious push toward Istock exclusivity yet.  
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: lisafx on December 17, 2009, 14:10
Lisa,

Since the last change have you made more or less money?  My monthly income has gone up considerably since the last change and I expect it to do so again based on the math I have done on the new price structure.  The added bonus for me personally is that I feel more confident in raising my prices to the maximum.

I have made more money, Mat, but I have also added over 1,000 images to my portfolio in the last year since the changes.  I can't be sure how much the additional sales are due to portfolio growth and how much is due to Fotolia's growth.

Fotolia was my #3 site in November of 08 and they were still my #3 site in November 09.  However my royalties at Fotolia only grew 22% over the past year, while my overall royalties grew 30%.  

To sum up, my Fotolia royalties grew 8% less than my overall royalties in the last year since the commission cut.  That is not growth, that is contraction.  Now they propose to contract even more.  Not good at all.

ETA:  Just ran the same numbers from istock.  My royalties at istock grew 72% in that same year's time!!  Holy frickin' cow!!
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: FD on December 17, 2009, 14:11
Since the last change have you made more or less money?  My monthly income has gone up considerably since the last change

Not mine. I'm bronze since ages and my ELs should be priced 50 credits according to the (old) table, but my 3 most recent ELs were sold for 10, 10, 20 credits, giving me 3.2, 3.2, 6.4$, while SS gives me 28$ for an EL. Are you supposed to ask to get the proper levels applied?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: RT on December 17, 2009, 14:13
@Matt Hayward,

You can't delete my post here so I'll make my point again and as far as I'm concerned you can ban me from the Fotolia forum as it's pointless discussing anything there if you're going to delete anything that doesn't praise 'Fotolia', you might want to read the forum rules over there as well.

Try and understand the way business works, the dollar amount is not the issue here it's the percentage drop, the reason Fotolia have put up their prices is because the cost of running a business increases each year, well guess what the same applies to contributors who are in this as a business and whilst Fotolia have increased their nett profit percentage from a sale they have decreased ours, I appreciate it's hard to understand if you're doing this for a hobby but I'll try to explain with a simple example: when the cost of running a business raises by a $1 getting an 80c rise is not considered an increase.

And for those that missed my post before it was deleted on the Fotolia forum- all I pointed out was that at the time when the market leader and Fotolia's biggest competitor had made an announcement that was making a large number of contributors seriously think about going exclusive I was surprised to see Fotolia make this announcement.

Sorry my post didn't fit in with your 'yes man' policy over there.




Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: cidepix on December 17, 2009, 14:15
What a load of RUBBISH!

Can you tell me what's the catch for me as a vector artist? Prices stay the same + commission is decreased! Are you freaking kidding me? How is this supposed to be good for vector artists?

istockphoto is already the best performer for almost any vector artist, and they will more than double the commission if we choose exclusivity and fotolia comes up with this rubbish!

And how easy it has become to cut down commissions. Ok I did agree to their terms and conditions when they said they can change it whenever they want but there are limits. I never could have thought they meant "commissions can be lowered" when they said "changes".

Wow! They are pushing the limits with this one. My vectors will stay at the same price + my commission goes down! Can you help me calculate my profit here?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: sharpshot on December 17, 2009, 14:15
Since the last change have you made more or less money?  My monthly income has gone up considerably since the last change

Not mine. I'm bronze since ages and my ELs should be priced 50 credits according to the (old) table, but my 3 most recent ELs were sold for 10, 10, 20 credits, giving me 3.2, 3.2, 6.4$, while SS gives me 28$ for an EL. Are you supposed to ask to get the proper levels applied?
Yes, I emailed them and they changed mine.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: disorderly on December 17, 2009, 14:16
Good for you, Mat.  For me, not so much.  Yeah, my revenue from Fotolia has gone up this year over last.  But by a lower percentage than my total across all agencies, and easily explained by the growth in my portfolio over the same period.  I also have no ability to raise prices; I'm now years away from gold and unlikely to hit emerald in my lifetime.  That's no exaggeration, by the way; the way things are going, it'll be several decades before I get that many downloads, assuming of course they don't raise the bar once (or more than once) again in the interim.  Color me unimpressed, if not actively pissed off.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: anton9 on December 17, 2009, 14:17
"Fotolia continues to pay artists one of the highest royalty rates in the industry"

The word 'bollocks' comes to mind when hearing that quote

By cutting royalties really shows they are not looking after there members at all
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: FD on December 17, 2009, 14:18
Sorry my post didn't fit in with your 'yes man' policy over there.

Does FT really delete posts on their contributor forum? My, my.  ;D
That's the reason I never go there nor post there.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: vonkara on December 17, 2009, 14:21
@Matt Hayward,

You can't delete my post here so I'll make my point again and as far as I'm concerned you can ban me from the Fotolia forum as it's pointless discussing anything there if you're going to delete anything that doesn't praise 'Fotolia', you might want to read the forum rules over there as well.

Sorry my post didn't fit in with your 'yes man' policy over there.
I already worked for a company working that way. They are closed now. Not getting true feedbacks from employees is the main reason. Everyone were quitting in less than 6 months. I know Wal-Mart act the same way as well. Nothing good to be compared to
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: FD on December 17, 2009, 14:22
Holy frickin' cow!!
Lisa, you could at least say it in Latin: Bovina Sancta! (but I don't know the Latin word for "frikin". Could that be "fotolia"?)  :P
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: cidepix on December 17, 2009, 14:36
I have seen Mat's calculations here and on fotolia forum!

Hilarious  ;D

Ok Mat,

Currently my percentage is %34

When I sell an $8 vector I get $2.72

With fotolia's genius new structure my percentage will be %31

I will be getting $2.48 when I sell an $8 vector which happens very often.

So this year I make $2.72, next year I will be making $2.48 per vector. How do you expect to compensate this huge loss? It is huge considering I sell a lot of vectors.


I guess my Maths skills are not as good as yours.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Pixart on December 17, 2009, 14:52
SQUEEZE MY NIPPLES!!!!!
(Have you heard about the old lady who goes into the bank....)

SQUEEZE MY NIPPLES!!!!

So, all day yesterday I couldn't get onto FT.  I even wrote up a post in the FT down thread that said something like They likely have the site down while they reduce our commissions... and I deleted it because I thought I was being a bit of a witch. 

SQUEEZE MY NIPPLES!!!  I LIKE TO HAVE MY NIPPLES SQUEEZED WHEN I GET F*CKD
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: MatHayward on December 17, 2009, 15:05
Cide,

The math I posted pertained to photography.  I should have specified that.  I'm very sorry for your confusion and thank you so much for your feedback.  As always you are like a ray of sunshine on an otherwise dreary day.  I'm really not the best source of information on vectors as I have never made one in my life.

RT:  This is by far a better forum to post a rant or to vent your frustration vs.  the FT forum.  Your post in the Fotolia Forum implied that people should consider going exclusive to I-stock.  It should be incredibly obvious why it was deleted.  Sorry for your frustration though.

As for the other stuff.  I guess the best thing to do would be to take your sales month to date or maybe pull them from last month and apply the new rates to those sales.  Find out what your net profit would be.  I'm guessing you would have made more money assuming you have more than a couple of sales per month. 

To be brutally honest, to white ranked photogs..if you are struggling to get your first 100 sales, you have bigger concerns than a commission % decrease.  We are literally talking about pennies or fractions of pennies with white ranked photographers.

As for grumbling about Fotolia getting a bigger piece of the pie.  It's to market the site more aggressively and I don't have a problem with it as long as I continue to make the same or more $.  I heard Leaf (at least I think it was Leaf) posted something a while back comparing the sites with the biggest market share and their commission %.  To sum up my personal opinion...it takes money to make money.  I believe FT is way behind the curve for marketing right now.  I see I-stock advertised everywhere and people in my personal life that use stock photo's have only heard of I-stock for micro.  If FT is going to continue to drive business it will need to spend a lot of money to do so.  If someone has a link to that article Lea wrote or knows what I'm talking about, please post a link here for me.

Thanks,

Mat

Mat
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: ThomasAmby on December 17, 2009, 15:05
I finally reached Silver after a year of hard work. I'm being rewarded with a 1% reduction from bronze.
And I'm a vector contributor, so most likely I won't benefit much from the increased prices of rasters.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: FD on December 17, 2009, 15:06
SQUEEZE MY NIPPLES!!!  I LIKE TO HAVE MY NIPPLES SQUEEZED WHEN I GET F*CKD
Be careful what you wish for, one day it might come true.  ;)
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: leaf on December 17, 2009, 15:20

As for grumbling about Fotolia getting a bigger piece of the pie.  It's to market the site more aggressively and I don't have a problem with it as long as I continue to make the same or more $.  I heard Leaf (at least I think it was Leaf) posted something a while back comparing the sites with the biggest market share and their commission %.  To sum up my personal opinion...it takes money to make money.  I believe FT is way behind the curve for marketing right now.  I see I-stock advertised everywhere and people in my personal life that use stock photo's have only heard of I-stock for micro.  If FT is going to continue to drive business it will need to spend a lot of money to do so.  If someone has a link to that article Lea wrote or knows what I'm talking about, please post a link here for me.

Thanks,

Mat



I am guessing you are referring to when I said this
Quote
I don’t want to be an advocate of low commissions but it is interesting to note that the two agencies giving the lowest commissions are generating the highest income for photographers.  Perhaps this lets them advertise more than their competitors who are giving a higher commission percentage to photographers.

taken from this blog post
http://blog.microstockgroup.com/2009/microstock-subscription-plan-review/ (http://blog.microstockgroup.com/2009/microstock-subscription-plan-review/)
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: elvinstar on December 17, 2009, 15:49
First, let me start by saying that I'm no happier than anyone else with a reduction in commissions!

That being said, I'm not sure that there is any correlation between credit price increases and more subscriptions. Before you get out the torches and pitchforks, please let me elaborate...

The buyers that benefit from buying subs use a LOT of images or believe that they will. That's why a subscription makes sense for them. Smaller (less active, less productive or whatever you want to call it) businesses and individuals will still need imagery and will continue to purchase credit packages because a subscription would end up costing them much more per image that they actually need.

At any rate, I wish that the only changes to commissions would be increases!
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: RT on December 17, 2009, 16:13
RT:  This is by far a better forum to post a rant or to vent your frustration vs.  the FT forum.  Your post in the Fotolia Forum implied that people should consider going exclusive to I-stock.  It should be incredibly obvious why it was deleted.  Sorry for your frustration though.

As for the other stuff.  I guess the best thing to do would be to take your sales month to date or maybe pull them from last month and apply the new rates to those sales.  Find out what your net profit would be.  I'm guessing you would have made more money assuming you have more than a couple of sales per month.  

As I said you're allowing your personal opinion to judge your moderation, I did not imply that people should consider going exclusive to iStock, I said that Fotolia's latest announcement might be the incentive that those who were considering going to iStock as an exclusive needed. As a moderator you should be very careful making assumptions and twisting peoples words because it may get you in trouble. (And note I used the term competitor, at no time did I mention iStock because that's against forum rules)

As for the other stuff, again you don't seem to grasp the finances of running a businesss, when the costs of running a business go up you need the businesses income to go up in line, it's irrelevant whether the same figures now applied to sales figures last year are more because last year your overheads were different, run a business based on your equations and you'll go bust. As for having more than a couple of sales per month, judging on our two portfolios and downlaod figures I'd estimate that I sell a fair bit more than you so yes I sell more than a couple a month, unfortunately I haven't been given back door bump up the rankings and like many others got screwed over last year in Fotolia's ranking re-structure.

I'm not sure you are the best person to try and convince people that Fotolia's latest offering is a blessing from above, you've kind of made a name for yourself, but it would be nice if you could ask a member of Fotolia's mangement to come here so we could have an open and uncensored discussion, whenever I've dealt with the Fotolia mangement team I've always found them to be easy to communicate with which was what I was hoping to do on the forum over there, obviously if you keep censoring threads to your own liking they may never get to see what the contributors really think.

Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: cthoman on December 17, 2009, 16:25
Vector artist here. I recalculated my November numbers using the new prices. It was a 4% increase with the new prices, but I can understand people's anger towards this. The emotional side of me wants to get the torches and pitchforks out of the closet, but the rational side says it's a raise. I definitely don't think this move will sway anyone eyeing iStock exclusivity to stay at Fotolia.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: MatHayward on December 17, 2009, 16:42
Fair enough RT.  Thanks for your input.  Not sure what comparing portfolio's will accomplish.  It wasn't my intent to imply you have only a couple sales a month, I was referring to many people in my one post.  Sorry for the confusion.  Your portfolio is very impressive and I'm sure you make plenty of money.

Good luck,

Mat
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: RT on December 17, 2009, 17:59
Mat,

Could you pass on the request for Fotolia management to come here to discuss their latest price change, I'm sure I'm not the only one with some important questions.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: madelaide on December 17, 2009, 18:58
It's very sad that FT is cutting our share again.  So prices raise, and FT gets most of it. Take the "M" example in Mat's example in FT forum:  FT gets 2.72 now, will get 3.60 in 2010, or 32% more, while we get only 9% more (1.28 to 1.60).

Now, if only we could understand the reason behind it.  "More budget for advertisement", I guess will be the explanation.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: sharpshot on December 17, 2009, 19:06
...As for the other stuff.  I guess the best thing to do would be to take your sales month to date or maybe pull them from last month and apply the new rates to those sales.  Find out what your net profit would be.  I'm guessing you would have made more money assuming you have more than a couple of sales per month....
That wont be accurate, as prices go up, the number of images sold decreases.  That means it takes longer to reach the next level, so we lose out again.  It also encourages people to switch to subscriptions and that doesn't seem to make us any more money.  The sites that are cutting our commissions say they will spend more on marketing but that only improves our earnings if they get new buyers.  Taking buyers from another site wont help.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: No Longer Cares on December 17, 2009, 22:37
Biting my tongue to keep from saying what I really think.  It would not be pretty.

It's just one more kick to the balls.  There will be many more no doubt.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: swhite on December 17, 2009, 22:42


...I'm not sure you are the best person to try and convince people that Fotolia's latest offering is a blessing from above, you've kind of made a name for yourself.


You've taken the words right out of my mouth. ;)


Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: MatHayward on December 17, 2009, 23:40


...I'm not sure you are the best person to try and convince people that Fotolia's latest offering is a blessing from above, you've kind of made a name for yourself.


You've taken the words right out of my mouth. ;)




SWhite...I don't even know who you are so I'm going to have to pretend to be upset about your opinion here.

I have no desire to get into a pissing contest with anyone over whether or not making more money is good or bad.  It seems like a fairly silly argument to me.  I like to make as much money as possible.  I honestly believe if Fotolia were to announce they were sending everyone in this forum a $20 bill the same grumblers that gripe about every change would chime in...."What a bunch of a-holes!  Should've been a $50!"

That being said, I will humbly bow out of this conversation and allow you all to vent to yourselves.

Have fun,

Mat
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: leaf on December 18, 2009, 01:59
...As for the other stuff.  I guess the best thing to do would be to take your sales month to date or maybe pull them from last month and apply the new rates to those sales.  Find out what your net profit would be.  I'm guessing you would have made more money assuming you have more than a couple of sales per month....
That wont be accurate, as prices go up, the number of images sold decreases.  That means it takes longer to reach the next level, so we lose out again.  It also encourages people to switch to subscriptions and that doesn't seem to make us any more money.  The sites that are cutting our commissions say they will spend more on marketing but that only improves our earnings if they get new buyers.  Taking buyers from another site wont help.

good point
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: leaf on December 18, 2009, 02:01
Vector artist here. I recalculated my November numbers using the new prices. It was a 4% increase with the new prices, but I can understand people's anger towards this. The emotional side of me wants to get the torches and pitchforks out of the closet, but the rational side says it's a raise. I definitely don't think this move will sway anyone eyeing iStock exclusivity to stay at Fotolia.

How do you get an increase in income when prices aren't going up for vectors?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: ThomasAmby on December 18, 2009, 03:26
Vector artist here. I recalculated my November numbers using the new prices. It was a 4% increase with the new prices, but I can understand people's anger towards this. The emotional side of me wants to get the torches and pitchforks out of the closet, but the rational side says it's a raise. I definitely don't think this move will sway anyone eyeing iStock exclusivity to stay at Fotolia.

How do you get an increase in income when prices aren't going up for vectors?

Vector artists also sell rasters.

I did the same calculation as cthoman and lost 1 cent. Not taken into consideration that PPD sales will probably decrease or Fotolia will take away my share from other sites through marketing
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: leaf on December 18, 2009, 04:38
Vector artist here. I recalculated my November numbers using the new prices. It was a 4% increase with the new prices, but I can understand people's anger towards this. The emotional side of me wants to get the torches and pitchforks out of the closet, but the rational side says it's a raise. I definitely don't think this move will sway anyone eyeing iStock exclusivity to stay at Fotolia.

How do you get an increase in income when prices aren't going up for vectors?

Vector artists also sell rasters.

I did the same calculation as cthoman and lost 1 cent. Not taken into consideration that PPD sales will probably decrease or Fotolia will take away my share from other sites through marketing
thanks
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Kngkyle on December 18, 2009, 04:59
So far for December I would have made 22.5% more on my non-sub sales under this new pricing and commission structure. I do have an awkwardly high number of M, L, and XL sales this month though. Plus I have a relatively small portfolio. I am a silver rank though.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: janaka on December 18, 2009, 05:47
yes
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: GeoPappas on December 18, 2009, 07:10
I just calculated how much I would have made this year (2009) if I replaced the current royalty rates with the new royalty rates and found that I would have received a 14% pay increase.  But this assumes that sales patterns would have remained the same, which is a BIG assumption.  For example, subscriptions are currently 65% of all sales for me.  When prices go up, then subscription sales will probably rise as well (especially since subscription prices won't be going up), which will decrease earnings substantially.  So while there is a possibility of receiving a pay increase next year, the probability of that happening is low.

Also, while I would have received a possible 14% pay increase, FT would have received a 38% pay increase (without taking into account an increase in subscriptions).

As many have stated previously, FT is stating that they need more money to run their business, but the same is true on the contributors side.  Many of us would like to purchase some new equipment to increase sales and that will be much harder to do with a smaller cut from sales.  I find it very ironic that ALL of the micro sites want better quality (which means better equipment), but they don't want to provide the means for obtaining that better quality.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: rmarinello on December 18, 2009, 07:13
Hi all,
just published an overall comparison table 2010 -> 2009 at:

http://www.mystockphoto.org/fotolia-2010-pricing/ (http://www.mystockphoto.org/fotolia-2010-pricing/)

If buyers will continue with Fotolia  ???... the average royalties will be better.

Cheers,
     roberto

Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: dbvirago on December 18, 2009, 08:19
As I've said in many other threads, for me, it's not about percentages or per image amounts, but net revenue. No matter how much or what percentage other sites pay, I make more at SS because they simply sell more. A small percentage of a lot is more than a large percentage of a little.

Looking at the change at FT for 2010 and doing an apples to apples comparison with sales I have made this year (leaving subs out of the equation), the new structure will net me an 11% increase.

In this economy, an 11% raise is a good thing.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: disorderly on December 18, 2009, 08:27
In this economy, an 11% raise is a good thing.

It would be, if that's what we get.  But in this economy, a price increase is likely to reduce sales.  How much is anybody's guess, but I expect it'll be nonzero.  A small decrease in sales will mean an increase in revenue for Fotolia and maybe one for us as well.  A larger decrease will help them and hurt us, while a still larger one hurts vendor and suppliers alike.  The big question is which of those scenarios will play out over the next year.

Fotolia has dropped from 13.1% of my total in 2008 to 12.3% in 2009.  Will this change reverse or extend that slide?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: dbvirago on December 18, 2009, 09:36
Agreed, but for me, they have held a steady 9% for over three years. It would be useful to know how the total global microstock spend has changed.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: cthoman on December 18, 2009, 10:20
Vector artists also sell rasters.

I did the same calculation as cthoman and lost 1 cent. Not taken into consideration that PPD sales will probably decrease or Fotolia will take away my share from other sites through marketing
If I picked another month, I might have lost money as well. It's hard to tell without going through month by month, but I wasn't really interested in breaking out my abacus to do that.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: PeterChigmaroff on December 18, 2009, 11:36
I quit after the last set of "royalty adjustments". The ONLY reason things are jigged like this is to give an overall advantage to the agency.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Mellimage on December 19, 2009, 05:20
Lisa,

Since the last change have you made more or less money?  My monthly income has gone up considerably since the last change and I expect it to do so again based on the math I have done on the new price structure.  The added bonus for me personally is that I feel more confident in raising my prices to the maximum.

I have made more money, Mat, but I have also added over 1,000 images to my portfolio in the last year since the changes.  I can't be sure how much the additional sales are due to portfolio growth and how much is due to Fotolia's growth.

Fotolia was my #3 site in November of 08 and they were still my #3 site in November 09.  However my royalties at Fotolia only grew 22% over the past year, while my overall royalties grew 30%.  

To sum up, my Fotolia royalties grew 8% less than my overall royalties in the last year since the commission cut.  That is not growth, that is contraction.  Now they propose to contract even more.  Not good at all.

ETA:  Just ran the same numbers from istock.  My royalties at istock grew 72% in that same year's time!!  Holy frickin' cow!!

This is so interesting - my  experience is quite different to yours Lisa. Of course, my first disclaimer is: I am compared to you a very small contributor. And disclaimer 2: I barely uploaded any images this year.
But I found that with FT my income rose by 67% (I mentioned it elsewhere, FT is my best earner), my downloads went up by 51% and RPD is even with the changed price structure up by 10%.
On IS my downloads decreased by 5%, my revenue increased by 3% and my RPD increased by 8%.
So to me, FT is growing quite well and I am less concerned about the price structure change (which does not mean I am happy about it). I am more concerned how changes at IS will affect me.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: BImages on December 19, 2009, 08:31
Istock give contributors more control over each file pricing. Good files can be kept on Istock or put on Vetta, and crap can be sent to subscriptions. I think it's one of the best way to do things, and companies that understand this will always have an edge over the others (more happy contributors).

So we just need more control... some kind of price slider that we could adjust for each file...!!!

Hey maybe I should start a new site, that would be a great concept... ;o)
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: sharpshot on December 19, 2009, 11:19
Istock give contributors more control over each file pricing. Good files can be kept on Istock or put on Vetta, and crap can be sent to subscriptions. I think it's one of the best way to do things, and companies that understand this will always have an edge over the others (more happy contributors).

So we just need more control... some kind of price slider that we could adjust for each file...!!!

Hey maybe I should start a new site, that would be a great concept... ;o)
There are sites that allow us to set the price already.  I like Zymmetrical, they also pay me 70% commission and payout without me requesting payment.  They come here and answer questions in the forum, overall a much nicer company to do business with than some of the bigger sites.  In an ideal world, we would all use sites like that and the buyers would go there.  It is a shame it doesn't happen.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: sharpshot on December 19, 2009, 11:30
...ETA:  Just ran the same numbers from istock.  My royalties at istock grew 72% in that same year's time!!  Holy frickin' cow!! ...
Mine are up a lot too but I put most of that down to the change in best match.  My sales slumped towards the end of 2008 and rebounded when they introduced BM2.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: lisafx on December 19, 2009, 15:00

Mine are up a lot too but I put most of that down to the change in best match.  My sales slumped towards the end of 2008 and rebounded when they introduced BM2.

Good point Sharpshot.  Mine did the same.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Karimala on January 04, 2010, 14:38
What the *bleep*  ???  My silver level, partial-exclusive commission has dropped from 34% to 22%.  Isn't it supposed to drop to 31%?  22% is LESS than what newbie white level contributors earn!

Thought I'd ask if anyone else is having this problem before I contact support, just in case I'm missing something.
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: gostwyck on January 04, 2010, 14:42
^^^ Tax withholding?
Title: Re: Fotolia is cutting royalties for 2010 and will increase prices
Post by: Karimala on January 04, 2010, 15:41
Ah ha...found the email about tax withholding buried in my spam folder.  Off to the tax withholding thread to find out why they are withholding taxes, even though I'm in the US and filed a W9 with them years ago.