Author Topic: Cheap Subscriptions __ How much damage are they doing to our industry? (Read 13992 times)

gostwyck · « **on:** January 29, 2010, 15:28 »

With Istock taking the lead in marching microstock prices upwards, at least for exclusive images, how much is our industry and our income being undermined by agencies that sell cheap subscriptions? Can it really be in our long term interest to support such agencies?

When Shutterstock opened it's doors to independent photographers, in Oct 2004, each sale generated 20c commission to the contributor __ the same as a Medium sale on Istock at the time.

Nowadays the maximum paid per subscription DL at SS is just 38c whilst a Medium sale at IS has increased to between $1.26-1.80. If you're a Diamond-level exclusive a Medium sale can pay as much as $6 __ that's the equivalent of more than 15 sales at SS.

Prices for subscription packages have not kept pace with PPD prices and the differential is becoming dangerously wide. With 100K new uploads being accepted at SS every week how much longer will significant image buyers bother with PPD agencies?

Should we campaign for a more realistic commission for all subscription downloads? I would suggest that a minimum commission of $1 per DL is necessary just to get close to where we were 5 years ago. It'll be up to the individual agencies to decide how they want to re-price subscription packages but we need to look after our own interests.

Any thoughts?

loop · « **Reply #1 on:** January 29, 2010, 15:43 »

I just calculated it, I would need about 260 suscription sales to match my last 20 exclusive sales (not counting Vetta, nor EL) at Istock.

I think SS should assume its leadership role at the suscription segment, as Istock does with PAYG, and raise prices and comissions without fear. In the mid long term, that's the only way for them to go on being leaders in that segment. In my opinion.

gostwyck · « **Reply #2 on:** January 29, 2010, 15:49 »

Quote from: loop on January 29, 2010, 15:43

I think SS should assume its leadership role at the suscription segment, as Istock does with PAYG, and raise prices and comissions without fear. In the mid long term, that's the only way for them to go on being leaders in that segment. In my opinion.

I'd agree. Unlike any other agency subscriptions are SS's primary business and with 10M images on-line, even if they had to double prices, it would still offer excellent value.

madelaide · « **Reply #3 on:** January 29, 2010, 15:56 »

gostwyck,

I have no data to back my opinion, but I think that subs prices have been frozen for more than two years, unlike credit prices. So, for intensive users, subs in fact got cheaper (considering inflation). For casual users, subs probably are not yet an interesting choice. But for someone who buys several images a month, the cost of these credits may well be equivalent (or almost) to a subs package, so I suppose many of these buyers may have migrated to subs for the flexibilty.

How much 20 L images cost in FT? US$140
How much 1 month regular subs cost in FT? US$200 (25 dld/d)

How much 20 XL images cost in FT? US$160
How much 1 month premium subs cost in FT? US$250 (25 dld/d)

How much 20 XL images cost in DT? US$157 (level 2)
How much 1 month subs cost in DT? US$129 (10 dld/d)

FD · « **Reply #4 on:** January 29, 2010, 16:17 »

Comparing SS to IS, I get quite some sales at 0.19$ at IS, and never a sale under 0.36$ at SS. I'm not concerned with what the buyer has to pay for the image, nor what an exclusive would get. All I care for is that 0.36$ is almost the double of 0.19$ and I'm not sure that "subscription" is that bad at all.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #5 on:** January 29, 2010, 16:37 »

I probably represent the lower level of submitters who make it hard for contributors to stick together. I'm new there and thrilled with my results at SS. That occasional $1.88 sale is a big thrill.

I know the newness will wear off soon but right now, my SS sales are blowing all my other agencies out of the water. This reminds me of my conversion from Republican to Democratic politics. As those big money days turned to crap so did my opinion of a Republican Administration.

I hated anything to do with Microstock until the old ways (film days) vanished. Now, I resist the Corporate Culture with a vengance but can't seem to separate personal gain from good for the group.

Does that make any sense?

ShadySue · « **Reply #6 on:** January 29, 2010, 16:40 »

Quote from: WarrenPrice on January 29, 2010, 16:37

I hated anything to do with Microstock until the old ways (film days) vanished. Now, I resist the Corporate Culture with a vengance but can't seem to separate personal gain from good for the group.

Does that make any sense?

Ah, the old Egoism vs Utilitarianism dilemma.

gostwyck · « **Reply #7 on:** January 29, 2010, 16:48 »

Quote from: FD-amateur on January 29, 2010, 16:17

Comparing SS to IS, I get quite some sales at 0.19$ at IS, and never a sale under 0.36$ at SS. I'm not concerned with what the buyer has to pay for the image, nor what an exclusive would get. All I care for is that 0.36$ is almost the double of 0.19$ and I'm not sure that "subscription" is that bad at all.

What do you mean "quite some sales at 0.19$"? They do exist but they are extremely rare and anyway are only for XS-sized images, not full-sized ones, so it is hardly a reasonable comparison. Obviously if you think your full-sized images are only worth 36c then I can understand why you are happy.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #8 on:** January 29, 2010, 17:19 »

I believe that cheap subscriptions are not good in the long term for contributors, SS's great track record notwithstanding. The two biggest problem areas IMO are vectors and very large images. I'm not the only one with a 5DII and the notion that at SS the 21MP full size image goes for the same price as a blog size seems crazy.

I always uploaded the same size to all sites, but increasingly I think it'd be worth thinking about giving SS a 6MP image and keeping the full size version for sites that pay for it.

Vectors are the same story - large complex vectors sell for a pretty hefty premium at IS but at the sub sites it's still the 30-38 cents regardless of complexity. I only uploaded JPEGs of those vectors to SS as I didn't mind that so much. While there is some great vector stuff at SS, the bulk of it is very low quality - quick and dirty - which probably works better given the low commissions.

I doubt you could get any consensus to downsize images among a large enough group of contributors to make it have any effect - I'm guessing that with 100K+ images per week coming in to SS they must have some content factories in a cheap labor market feeding them. It can't all be Yuri, productive as he is

FD · « **Reply #9 on:** January 29, 2010, 18:19 »

Quote from: gostwyck on January 29, 2010, 16:48

What do you mean "quite some sales at 0.19$"? They do exist but they are extremely rare and anyway are only for XS-sized images, not full-sized ones, so it is hardly a reasonable comparison. Obviously if you think your full-sized images are only worth 36c then I can understand why you are happy.

A grab in 4 recent sales at IS, 2 with only 1 download (the images are new).

Img - Saturday January 23, 2010, 09:52 PM XSmall Regular 0.19 (sub)
Img - Tuesday January 26, 2010, 11:52 AM XSmall Regular 0.29 (payg)
img - Sunday January 24, 2010, 08:10 PM XSmall Regular 0.30 (payg)
img - Sunday January 24, 2010, 06:08 PM XSmall Regular 0.26 (payg)

As to img, it was already downloaded several times on SS the past 2 weeks, and every time it made 0.36$, even if subscription only. None of the 3 non-sub (payg) sales above on IS were subscription. None even reached the minimum of 0.36$ at SS.

I just wanted to address your point that subscription per se is damaging our to our income. You objected that it is comparing apples to melons, since the sizes differ. But SS as the prime sub site played a clever game, only offering one size. The buyer is forced to buy a larger size. Most people (and me) just offer a reduced size there anyways.
To add another thing to think about: level 3 and up images on DT yield double the minimum (0.35$):
01/26/2010 chinese factory This is a level 4 image subscription $0.70 large (Editorial)
and level > 1 images make by definition most of the revenue.

As to the size issue, me feels that "size" is over-emphasized at IS. You don't buy pixels by the number like you would buy beans at the market. The main thing you buy is a concept, even at XS, so the size should actually play for only part of the price.

This is no critique towards iStock, but just a thought (as you asked) about subscription. Not all subscriptions are created equal. It will also depend on the type of contributor you are. DT will reward more based on an image per image base, FT and IS reward according to contributor's general sales. There is no simple answer to your question.

FD · « **Reply #10 on:** January 29, 2010, 18:25 »

Quote from: jsnover on January 29, 2010, 17:19

The two biggest problem areas IMO are vectors and very large images. I'm not the only one with a 5DII and the notion that at SS the 21MP full size image goes for the same price as a blog size seems crazy.

You are totally right. A vector person is underpayed at SS (or subscription) since it takes much more time and skill to make a vector than a photo. There should be a different pricing scale for both. Of course, vectors get downloaded much more than photos, so that might ease the pain.
But you can do something against it. I have no clue about vectors, but why don't vector people just don't upload a small raster version to SS? As a photographer, I only upload my 5DII images on SS at 6MP. I started doing this when I had too many rejections for noise on lesser (10MP) cams, and I keep doing it now.

stockastic · « **Reply #11 on:** January 29, 2010, 19:46 »

Quote from: FD-amateur on January 29, 2010, 18:25

...it takes much more time and skill to make a vector than a photo.

As a blanket statement, that is certainly not true. Does it take more time and skill to make an apple, or an orange?

I could turn out dumb, simplistic vector images by the hundreds, every day. No one would want them.

FD · « **Reply #12 on:** January 29, 2010, 22:48 »

Quote from: stockastic on January 29, 2010, 19:46

I could turn out dumb, simplistic vector images by the hundreds, every day. No one would want them.

Correction: salable illustrations.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #13 on:** January 30, 2010, 00:07 »

Quote from: FD-amateur on January 29, 2010, 18:19

Quote from: gostwyck on January 29, 2010, 16:48
What do you mean "quite some sales at 0.19$"? They do exist but they are extremely rare and anyway are only for XS-sized images, not full-sized ones, so it is hardly a reasonable comparison. Obviously if you think your full-sized images are only worth 36c then I can understand why you are happy.

A grab in 4 recent sales at IS, 2 with only 1 download (the images are new).

...XSmall Regular 0.19 (sub) XSmall Regular 0.29 (payg) XSmall Regular 0.30 (payg) XSmall Regular 0.26 (payg)...

Just to give you some comparison data I grabbed one image (uploaded July 2009) that sold 7 times last week (1 large, the other 6 medium or smaller) for $23.41 royalty (at the 35% rate) - that would be $13.37 at the 20% rate vs. $2.52 for 7 SS sales at 36 cents.

That image has sold 158 times since July for a total of $421.34 which averages out to $2.66 per sale (at 35%) - $1.52 per sale at 20%. That's more than 4 times the SS commission even at the non-exclusive 20% royalty rate.

Obviously, I don't think I'm harmed by the IS prices

And in case you're thinking this is some special image, it's a photogenic piece of driftwood.

sharpshot · « **Reply #14 on:** January 30, 2010, 03:21 »

istock have increased PPD prices but I hope people haven't forgotten that they also reduced non-exclusive subs with photos.com to a measly $0.25. That could damage our earnings far more than SS. Why would the other sites pay us $1 for subs when istock are getting away with just 25% of that? I have stopped supplying subs sites that only offer $0.25. I would like to see other sites introduce different levels, like SS have, so we make more if we get more downloads.

I would like to see the sites raising subs commissions but I would also like to be paid a fixed percentage, like the PPD sites do. I still have no idea how much the subs sites are paying me.

I don't think we will have any negotiating power if people opt in to photos.com and any other Getty/istock site that pays just $0.25.

FD · « **Reply #15 on:** January 30, 2010, 03:30 »

Quote from: jsnover on January 30, 2010, 00:07

Obviously, I don't think I'm harmed by the IS prices

Could you, by any chance (I beg your majesty pardon), bear a splendid iCrown?

Not that I care that much, but I have to do my own accounting. My RPD at IS is simply lower than at SS, given the not too infrequent ELs that SS throws in my undeserving wallet. They happen to be 28$ for a squeezed down image. Oooo, how do I feel guilty it's only worth 6MP of pixels, while IS is offered 12MP generously, but fails to sell that quantity most miserably. Blessed be iStock, since iStock is a honorable site.

Probably it's because I shoot crap, no doubt. I'm just happy and humbled that SS takes my crap and sells it. If that's "subscription", hail subscription. And if I'm not mistaken, that was the question of the OP: does subscription kill us? If so, it's a sweet death in the arms (disambiguated: human body parts ~~instruments to afflicht harm~~) of SS.

My recent stuff doesn't sell at all at IS. Just my old subpar images do, and I don't grasp why (we amateur shrimps have tiny brains). Probably they escaped the well-tuned best match that giveth and taketh. Should I join rating clubs or throw some clever hail IS posts on the forum? Should I reciprocate ratings? Should I send one of their short-sighted reviewers (that can't read the fonts well on their own f*ng MRFs) some reading glasses? No clue. No time to wonder too. The minimum at the damned crap-swallowing subscription site is 0.36$ (or 0.35$ on DT) and on IS it's a whopping 0.19$. And that makes me wonder, as a simple promiscuous slave that fails to see the benefits of IS's marvelous chastity, why PayAsYouGo Xs on God's gift to Stock should ruin the business less than subscriptions on the swallow-all site.

Accept, oh crowned head, my humble answer to the OP's musings.

As to cheap subscriptions, why did Getty (but Getty is a honorable company) took away the 0.30$ photos.com JIU subs at StockXpert and offers them, most generously, for just 0.25$ at one of their new serf-sites? Ain't that cheap?

crazychristina · « **Reply #16 on:** January 30, 2010, 04:06 »

Being istock exclusive is not always a bed of roses. I had a total of 7 sales last week. I've only had one sale from my last 100 accepted uploads. Perhaps a bunch of subs on SS would be better for me.

RT · « **Reply #17 on:** January 30, 2010, 05:44 »

As much as I agree with the sentiments in the OP's question I'm not sure that SS or anyone else could support a $1 commission to contributors for subscription downloads because they'd have to raise the package prices too much to be economically attractive to the bulk number of buyers, which in turn would see the buyers going to other sites for PPD - now that would be great for most of us but the vast number of people that submit to SS rely on that 'stock pile' buying approach otherwise they'd never sell anything.

I'd love to see the figures for how many image on SS actually sell beyond the first week or indeed how many of the 10m have actually sold.

Personally I'd like to see any subscription package on any site magically disappear overnight.

Reef · « **Reply #18 on:** January 30, 2010, 07:51 »

Quote from: averil on January 30, 2010, 04:06

Being istock exclusive is not always a bed of roses. I had a total of 7 sales last week. I've only had one sale from my last 100 accepted uploads. Perhaps a bunch of subs on SS would be better for me.

That's not good hey. Have you tried changing tactics? Sometimes, in fact often, images do take a while to kick off - when you get one that starts to fly you wont regret being with IS

OM · « **Reply #19 on:** January 30, 2010, 08:04 »

Must be the only industry where the wholesale price is so absurdly out of whack with the retail price.
Especially considering that the buyer can download those L files for the same price(effectively) as XS, M etc.
I'm most surprised that whoever started the subsclub, started with such an exceptionally good deal for the buyers and such a rotten one for the contributors (although contributor rewards have never figured much in the calculations of some sites). Offering an immediate discount of 90%+ for forward payment is not exactly common practice in industry generally.

As to whether contributors can do much about it, I don't know. Sometimes after getting a subs sale from a new image, I get some downloads of the same image for regular rates (XL) which dissuades me from removing my contributions to subs. Do subs act as badly paid advertising for an image? Don't know that either. I agree that the minimum reward for a subs sale should be more in the region of $1, rather than the 30 cents it is now. On the other hand, if the buyer were only able to download to "M" as a maximum size in subs, I think that this may encourage more PPD's for the larger sizes from the same subs buyers.

Ideally, subs would disappear overnight but lacking that option (which is unrealistic), I could live with a system in which subs were limited to M max and, that should the subscription customer require a larger file for download, they could do this at a not too substantial discount to the PPD rate.
But as I'm fairly new to all this WTHDIK.

Beach Bum · « **Reply #20 on:** January 30, 2010, 08:55 »

Quote from: OM on January 30, 2010, 08:04

Must be the only industry where the wholesale price is so absurdly out of whack with the retail price.
Especially considering that the buyer can download those L files for the same price(effectively) as XS, M etc.
I'm most surprised that whoever started the subsclub, started with such an exceptionally good deal for the buyers and such a rotten one for the contributors (although contributor rewards have never figured much in the calculations of some sites). Offering an immediate discount of 90%+ for forward payment is not exactly common practice in industry generally.

As to whether contributors can do much about it, I don't know. Sometimes after getting a subs sale from a new image, I get some downloads of the same image for regular rates (XL) which dissuades me from removing my contributions to subs. Do subs act as badly paid advertising for an image? Don't know that either. I agree that the minimum reward for a subs sale should be more in the region of $1, rather than the 30 cents it is now. On the other hand, if the buyer were only able to download to "M" as a maximum size in subs, I think that this may encourage more PPD's for the larger sizes from the same subs buyers.

Ideally, subs would disappear overnight but lacking that option (which is unrealistic), I could live with a system in which subs were limited to M max and, that should the subscription customer require a larger file for download, they could do this at a not too substantial discount to the PPD rate.
But as I'm fairly new to all this WTHDIK.

I agree that subs should be limited to M. I also believe that subs sales should pay a minimum of 50 cents. Are these 25 cent subs payouts bad for the industry? Absolutely!

Perry · « **Reply #21 on:** January 30, 2010, 09:29 »

I just can't understand why the subscription sites can't have different prices for different sizes?
Instead of "25 images a day" they could have "50 credits a day". 50 credits could for example mean 50 tiny web images or 5 XL images.
The current situation where a thumbnail costs the same as 20 megapixel image is just insane.

Eireann · « **Reply #22 on:** January 30, 2010, 10:11 »

@FD, Sharpshot,

Opted out at IS. Opted out at STX.
In my case it's not so much the 0.5 cent difference. It's the way they did it.
I thought it was cheap and it bothered me. It still does.
Just let me know if there's anything else I should do.
No Getty subscription site will ever succeed unless heavily backed up by independents.
At their current offering I hope that's not going to happen.

@Jsnover,
a few months ago I read one of your posts on IS forum.
I thought it was very interesting and thank you for sharing the info with us.
It took you, successful Gold Level Exclusive, 1 year and 4 months + hundreds of new, (I assume better, 5DII) photos added to your portfolio to reach the same amount of dollars per month you used to have as independent.
1 year and 4 months. Continuous uploading.
There must be something to IS Exclusivity that I can't yet figure out. And it seems it's not financial.
Nice to hear it's working out for you though,

madelaide · « **Reply #23 on:** January 30, 2010, 11:43 »

Quote from: FD-amateur on January 29, 2010, 16:17

I'm not concerned with what the buyer has to pay for the image, nor what an exclusive would get. All I care for is that 0.36$ is almost the double of 0.19$ and I'm not sure that "subscription" is that bad at all.

But this - how much we earn - is not the point in this thread (unless I understood the OP incorrectly). This is about how/if cheap prices from subs damage the microstock industry. The buyer also doesn't care how much we make, he wants to buy images as cheap as he can, and by offering cheap subscription packages while raising credit prices from time to time, the agencies probably make a certain group of buyers to prefer subs packages (see my maths in an earlier post).

PS: my RPD in IS is 91c this month. It's not a number I normally control, however.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #24 on:** January 30, 2010, 12:04 »

Quote from: Eireann on January 30, 2010, 10:11

@Jsnover,
a few months ago I read one of your posts on IS forum.
I thought it was very interesting and thank you for sharing the info with us.
It took you, successful Gold Level Exclusive, 1 year and 4 months + hundreds of new, (I assume better, 5DII) photos added to your portfolio to reach the same amount of dollars per month you used to have as independent.
1 year and 4 months. Continuous uploading.
There must be something to IS Exclusivity that I can't yet figure out. And it seems it's not financial.
Nice to hear it's working out for you though,

I don't know which post(s) you are referring to, but I did recently post that I had beaten my previous high water mark (by quite a lot) after a rather dire period in the fall of 2008 (right after I went exclusive) while they were fiddling around with changing the best match. My best month of the year has always been November with October and December close behind it. The turnaround happened in the late Spring 2009, not 1 year and 4 months later. I had beaten my numbers for the quieter months earlier, but this was only my second November as an IS exclusive.

I'm not out to proselytize about becoming exclusive or the benefits of same and I can't see how this is in any way related to the discussion about the impact of subscriptions on microstock contributors.

If your point was that I'm an exclusive, I assume everyone knows that by now.

How does my data about the sales of an image - where I quoted what it would have earned at an independent royalty rate to remove the extra earnings that came from being exclusive - at SS vs. IS connect to your comments about what a disaster exclusivity is?

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Author Topic: Cheap Subscriptions __ How much damage are they doing to our industry? (Read 13992 times)

gostwyck

loop

gostwyck

madelaide

FD

WarrenPrice

ShadySue

gostwyck

Jo Ann Snover

FD

FD

stockastic

FD

Jo Ann Snover

sharpshot

FD

crazychristina

RT

Reef

OM

Beach Bum

Perry

Eireann

madelaide

Jo Ann Snover

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