MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: sdeva on January 23, 2014, 06:04
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Just starting with Pond5 and finding life somewhat confusing at the moment ???
How (and HOW exactly) does one set the price of an image? The Upload section has a Price box with a default $ 1 already featuring in it. What exactly does that mean? What size is that for? How does it influence all other sizes/ licenses of the image?
Any help much appreciated ;D
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The $1 is just the automatic default. To set your price put in the price you want for the full size image (i.e. $10, $25, etc) in place of the $1, and they will automatically calculate the prices for smaller sizes for you from that price.
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Sounds easy enough now that you explain it :) Thanks very much.
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Seems a little dicey though. What is a good ballpark price for an image? Can this be changed at a later date?
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Best advice is to look on Pond5 and see what similar images ( subject, style, quality) sell for and base your price there. I would price close to competition, if you feel yours stands out I price it a tad higher, but I'd advise never to undersell the competition. If there isn't competition then I would set a price above average. On a side note, I wouldn't expect much from Pond5 with images as most folks seem to buy footage there
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Yep, its a bit complicated to come up with a fair price ;D
For one thing, other contributors are in a fairly wide range of pricing. On another point, I couldn't really find EL type licensing option which leads one to believe that a buyer has fairly liberal usage rights - thus price should be on higher side.
It also seems that Pond5 sells footage a lot more than images at the moment. Does a lower expectation of sales volume justify higher pricing? I tend to think so.
And the final push - it has to be said - microstock is eating itself down to the bone with such miserable rates at many (most) agencies that its nearly not worth the effort of shooting, processing, keywording and uploading images any more - not too much longer anyway if this trend continues ...
Here then is an opportunity to price to more decent levels, and to try get a fair return on the creativity and work involved in the production of microstock images. Kudos to Pond5 for that !! and I hope more agencies follow a reversal of the rate-dumping that's become pretty rampant at the moment. Instead of chasing rates DOWN there's a need for the agencies to start building rates back up based on their individual market strengths and content style/ quality, whatever! So that they can make money easier and, just as importantly, contributors can get a much more fairer return.
Plus.. the subscription model needs to die - unless it can be supported with huge (and I mean really HUGE) volume of sales. Or at least the contributors should have an opt out option on it.