MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: thesentinel on April 03, 2008, 15:42
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http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67639&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67639&page=1)
That'll create some interesting reactions.
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See this thread:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67639
Any thoughts?
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There goes the neighborhood!
One thing that I like is that they are offering an opt-out either for all images or individual images.
Another is that larger image sizes will cost more credits. So all sizes are not the same subscription price.
We'll have to wait and see what royalties will be.
But just to make it clear - I really hate subscriptions. They only benefit the agencies and the buyers.
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Somewhat different model than the other sub sites.
The subs are for credits per day and not images per day.
I think this just might work to everyones advantage.
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will see, not sure how I feel about it until I read the whole details.
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I think this is a direct hit towards SS's market.
"Packages will start for as little as $96/month. " They seem to adding some super flexible packages. I'm sure it will be good for the buyers.. Not sure about our comission though...
Let's see who will make contributors happy ? SS's raise annouced in May , or IS's new subscription plan announced also in May ? Who ever offers less might face a big headache on their forums . :-\..
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Subscription will be credit based, so subscribers will still pay more for larger files!!
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Hmm ??? :'( Mixed emotions-sadness-fear-hapiness and many more that I don't know the english word
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This was inevitable, but it's sad to see.
Only two out of the three parties involved in stock will benefit through this, and guess what, it won't be us the contributors because if it was they wouldn't be doing it.
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oh no,subs! I guess we will have to wait and see how it works.
being optimistic for one second: they seem to have come up with a different concept then the usual subs we are used to.like opting out individual images and size based pricing. I do hope they will come up with a model that is better for contributers and it will influence others .
having said that I too am very concerned about this like many of you.I hope they won't end up as usual subs site while trying to compete with them.
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Somewhat different model than the other sub sites.
The subs are for credits per day and not images per day.
I think this just might work to everyones advantage.
Well I can't see the difference...
What they didn't say yet is if there will be a different price (or credit) for different size. Hope so!
And for the first time, some of the comments on their forum are not all Yay and Yahoo! :D
I guess we have to wait but I cannot say I'm very happy with this idea.
Claude
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If buyers get a number of credits per day, then sizes will still count as credits. For what I can understand, the difference from a regular credit plan is that you have a per day limit, so to make it fair for the buyer he pays much less $/credit, isn't it that only?
Being able to opt-out on a per imagebasis is a HUGE step for me. And having the buyer pay more (or use more credits) for a larger image is something I can appreaciate too.
Now, what will be prices and our shares? I see some exclusives complaing that the current % on a very small $/credit will be very unattractive for them. I wonder if exclusives will get a fixed minimum and the rest of mortals will have to accept 20% of some cents?
Regards,
Adelaide
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I see we have two threads on the same subject:
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,4154.msg40750/topicseen.html#new
And for the first time, some of the comments on their forum are not all Yay and Yahoo! :D
But the first one was. :)
Regards,
Adelaide
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Subscription will be credit based, so subscribers will still pay more for larger files!!
I'm not so sure about that, what I understand (but I hope I'm wrong) is that the amount we will receive depends on how many photos the buyer will download on a given day...
(I don't get it! ??? ??? ??? )
Claude
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Now, what will be prices and our shares? I see some exclusives complaing that the current % on a very small $/credit will be very unattractive for them. I wonder if exclusives will get a fixed minimum and the rest of mortals will have to accept 20% of some cents?
There should be a fixed mimimum for everyone, and it should be at least as much as the industry standard, whatever that turns out to be. Fine if it is higher for exclusives.
If istock ends up cannibalizing SS sales and paying less per download then don't they stand to lose a lot of big players?
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Will this lead to SS offering single photo sales?
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I'm not so sure about that, what I understand (but I hope I'm wrong) is that the amount we will receive depends on how many photos the buyer will download on a given day...
There was one post (I'm not sure if accurate) that states that. If a buyer has, let's say, $4 a day in credits, and he buys only one image at XS that day, the lucky photographer would get 20% (or whatever is his share) of these $4.
If this is true, I'm not sure there will be a minimum (or a reasonable minimum) for the photographer. You know, "you can get 80c on a good day and this will pay for the 10c of a bad day".
Regards,
Adelaide
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madelaide:
That scenario is really wishful thinking. There is no way that IS would give the contributors that much of a cut. For example, what if a buyer doesn't buy anything on a day (for example a holiday or a weekend day or a sick day)?
The whole idea behind a subscription is two-fold:
1. for the agency - it is to keep profits from unused downloads
2. for the buyer - it is to be able to get images for extremely cheap
That leaves the contributor out of the equation.
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This is from the thread on iStock and from an admin (underlined by me):
«You will not be able to opt out certain sizes, but unlike other sites, we are giving out credits per day, NOT images per day, so if they buy larger images they use more credits (i.e. different sized images are not the same price under our plan).
It's the only way we could let them buy any type of files. It's totally unique in the industry. We'll be the only place one subscription will buy you video, vectors or photos.
We are not ready to discuss royalties & pricing quite yet, but I think you're going to be happy; you're not going to want to opt out. Seriously. »
So let's wait and see...
Claude
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Funny to read IS forums with most of the people going "Thank you IS!" while nobody knows what subs will bring. Another funny thing is when they say that IS is gonna destroy all other sites with this tactic. Then what? If they are the only ones left, they can set the price to 0.05$ if they want.
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I think this is a major bummer. It is nice that the larger images - and I assume vectors - will require more credits than smaller ones. However I am all but certain that iStock will end up pocketing the unused subscription credits. That's how all the plans work and one of the reasons the sites can make money.
The opt out is good - it's per image, not just blanket. So, for example, if I wanted to opt out my best sellers and vectors I could.
I just can't fathom why they want to go this route and how they think they can expand the volume - more customers or more volume from the existing customers - to make this something other than a discount.
IMO, the other mixed model sites have not been a success. Subscriptions have not reached SS levels at any of the mixed model sites. DT has the small incentive in that the image level can go up as a result of the low price (21-30 cent) subscription sales.
I also wonder what effect this will have on the SS commission increase? Does this mean SS has less reason to give us more as the other sites are all piling on the discounted sales? I certainly hope not.
Yuck, yuck, yuck...
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Funny to read IS forums with most of the people going "Thank you IS!" while nobody knows what subs will bring.
It is hardly "most".
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I'm definitely against subscription, could be good for istock, could be good for buyers but cant be good for contributors.
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oh no,subs! I guess we will have to wait and see how it works.
being optimistic for one second: they seem to have come up with a different concept then the usual subs we are used to.like opting out individual images and size based pricing. I do hope they will come up with a model that is better for contributers and it will influence others .
having said that I too am very concerned about this like many of you.I hope they won't end up as usual subs site while trying to compete with them.
It's almost like they are using a lot of our collective suggestions on that long long thread about evil subs. Not that I'm saying "oh yay." I can't imagine getting less than 19 cents for a download, but knowing Istock, I bet we are under 10 cents in the very near future.
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I think photographers at IS are about to get screwed, and I said so in the thread. I went exclusive at IS because I thought it was the better model for photographers. If they actually go through with this I'll probably drop exclusivity because it won't be worth crap.
It all started when they went to the net sales/commission model. That allowed them to experiment with screwing photographers more and more while still keeping up sales and therefore widening margins. This is just another step in the process.
Not to mention this new change drastically lowers the value of being exclusive! I'm pissed, and I don't even consider microstock a real source of income (though did include on my 1040). I can't imagine what exclusives that depend on iStock income must be feeling.
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Hmm ??? :'( Mixed emotions-sadness-fear-hapiness and many more that I don't know the english word
"Mixed emotions, buddy. Like Larry Wildman going off a cliff in my new Maserati."
The Wall Street quote is appropriate. This is a Gordon Gecko type of move and photographers are the ones going over the cliff. Thanks to net sale commissions it is assured that photographers will be making less from the customers that take this option, and iStock will be making more. If I wanted this I wouldn't have gone exclusive.
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Too bad it isn't an April Fool's joke, yingyang0 - you could sue!
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Not sure how I feel about this. Disappointed. Curious. Hesitant.
From an industry perspective, this is a huge move. I don't care for the subscription model but... just about everyone brags SS is their top earner and how much they love it.
IS offering a subscription should attract a lot of new buyer attention but also canibalize existing single image buyers.
The admins keep saying "you like it". If this move improves earnings for contributors, this will validate IS as the industry leaders. If it tanks contributor earnings accross the board, this will be a huge shakeup.
While earning more per image is important and what so many people are fighting over, in the end we all just really want more earnings. We'll have to wait and see where this goes.
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Well, at least they are doing it the right way, by making it so higher resolution downloads get more commission. The question remains though, what will that commission be? Until that gets answered, criticizing or praising this move is premature.
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This sucks >:(
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Sad news. Not a good thing at all.
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We re getting completely screwed on this one. I-Stock is lowering our percentages. If the customer spends only 1 credit out of 500, istock gets ALL the surplace and it isnt shared out using the old percentage. This is their way of lowering our cut. Please comment in the forums at istock and be negative about it. Seriously, now is the time to state your mind and not do the usual "I-Stock rocks" thing. If they lower it here, theyll keep finding new ways to lower it. Go to their forums and be blunt. Cmon, stick together people.
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The only positive I can draw from this is that the IS model of charging more subscription credits for larger sizes could force SS's hand to do the same.
I'm not panicking yet. I want to see the plan.
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That front page funeral image should have been a tip off for the week to come.
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The only positive I can draw from this is that the IS model of charging more subscription credits for larger sizes could force SS's hand to do the same.
I'm not panicking yet. I want to see the plan.
I don't see how this would force SS's hand?
If anything, it could be the ace in the hole for SS: buyers can get any size for one price vs buying credits by sub on IS.
IS advantage is their exclusives. These are shots not found elsewhere. If IS alienates the exclusives with this deal, they could be in big trouble.
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One thing to consider is that IStock probably does not want to alienate their exclusive contributors. If contributors really do get the short end of the stick IStock may risk losing a substantial number of their exclusive contributors, and hence lose a major advantage they have over other sites. My prediction is the subscription packages will be slightly less than the equivalent bulk purchase but not by a whole lot, just enough to make it look superficially like a slightly better deal to accounting departments.
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If the people here care that their percentage is clearly being cut- go and post on the istock forums. Admins arent speaking now probably because theyre watching for our responses. If the only people speaking are saying "istock rocks" then we re screwed. Be tough and blunt. Please.
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Yuri has shown that the exclusive content might not be as important as iStock has believed in the past - he is easily the top seller contributor at the moment, and he is non-exclusive. He has shown that what is all important is the quality of the content, not whether it is exclusive. All kudos to iStock for being able to sell his stuff in such huge volumes, but it must be giving them big food for thought that they can do that and pay only 20% instead of 40%.
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The story about 'there are customers out there who will only buy subscriptions' is complete and utter twaddle - we have already seen the same story from Dreamstime and StockXpert, and in both cases that story was a smoke screen for 'we want to screw contributors and make more profit for ourselves'.
I doubt that this applies to iStock, but no doubt we will find out in due course.
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I have just tried to read the whole thread on iStock but got bogged down by the whole thing. Some of the wording of the iStock statement is just too confusing and until they release more details of how the whole thing is going to work I will reserve judgement.
However, nothing iStock has done in the last couple of years has benefitted me as a non-exclusive contributor. First we had the disambiguation fiasco, which cost me a lot of money and time and made no difference to my sales. The Best Match definitely seems to have changed in favour of exclusives and some of my best selling files have gone from dl/month of 120 to next to nothing.
The bottom line for me is sales and income. If this is going to increase my income then great if not, well, it won't come as much of a surprise really.
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Thanks to net sale commissions it is assured that photographers will be making less from the customers that take this option, and iStock will be making more.
yeah this is what I thought too.
On shutterstock (at least in the past) if a buyer used 100% of their subscription the photog.'s would end up getting over 100% of the subscription price. It worked out because buyers never used the whole subscription package (on average). Probably on average somewhere between 20-50% was used.
istock is now going to pay out cannister level % on the amount that is used. That means if you are 20% cannister you will earn MAX 20% of the subscription price, where on other sites we would be getting 100%. If the buyer only uses say 30% (or $32) of his subscription, then the photogs will earn $6.4 (6.5%), and istock will get a plump $89.6.
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Yes, leaf, that is exactly how I see it working too.
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Nosaya -
I should clarify. IF the IS model is hugely successful for independent contributors due to different credit costs for larger images, it could tempt more independents to consider exclusivity. In which case, if SS wants to keep these contributors they may have to follow suit with either a substantial raise, or a higher credit cost for larger images, or both.
That is taking a very optimistic view on how this will go down for us. I have a hard time believing this will be any better for us than subscriptions have been at StockXpert and Dreamstime. I only know of one subscription model which brings in high earnings.
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The story about 'there are customers out there who will only buy subscriptions' is complete and utter twaddle - we have already seen the same story from Dreamstime and StockXpert, and in both cases that story was a smoke screen for 'we want to screw contributors and make more profit for ourselves'.
I doubt that this applies to iStock, but no doubt we will find out in due course.
Why in the world would you doubt that this applies to iStock? They already keep 80% of the profits. It's not like they are more supportive of independent contributors than Dreamstime and Stockxpert.
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.nevermind.
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I have posted a considered analysis on the iStock forum, which I'll reproduce here:
Okay, I've given some considerable thought to this subject and here is my analysis and prediction:
First, lets focus on two quotes from earlier, which are: "percentage of daily credits" and "trust me - you are not going to want to opt out". Also, I think Slobo might be the nearest.
Scenario: a buyer takes out a subscription with gives him/her the ability to download images up to 10 credits each day.
First day, the customer buys images worth 10 credits. No problem - the contributors get paid in the normal way (although the credits have been bought at a discount of course).
Second day, the customer downloads only 5 credits worth. On this day the contributors get paid AS IF 10 CREDITS HAVE BEEN SPENT, in other words they split between them the entire 10 credit daily value as a percentage, or in other words they get paid at double the rate
Third day, the customer only buys one XS image. That lucky photographer gets paid AS IF 10 CREDITS have been spent.
Under this scheme contributors always get paid based on the full subscription payment for every day that a customer actually makes a purchase. Very fair (except of coutse those credits have been bought at deep discount).
This scenario explains the 'trust me - you are not going to want to opt out" remark, and also explains the 'percentage'.
However, a percent of zero is always zero. So on any day where the customer fails to make a purchase, the entire subscription for that day is retained by iStock as profit. Istock can rightly claim that by doing so it has disadvantaged nobody because the customer didn't and wouldn't have bought anything.
So where is the advantage to iStock? Of course it lies in the number of days that a subscriber doesn't make a purchase. And there are a lot of them: public holidays, personal holidays, days sick, corporate entertainment days, days spent at a conference or in a strategy meeting or a Board meeting, extended 'holiday' either side of Christmas and Thanksgiving etc etc. There are probably somewhere between 30 and 50 days which will be pure 'profit' to iStock. But once again no contributor is being disadvantaged because the customer wouldn't ordinarily have bought anything on those days.
These 'spare' days represent 10% to 15% of a subscription year, hence that percentage retained by iStock, and why iStock can be fair to contributors in distributing 100% of the subscription payment for each 'purchase' day.
Is this good or bad for contributors (if I am correct)? The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but my initial conclusion is that contributors need to hope and pray that there are many, many days when our theoretical 10 credit subscriber only spends 5 credits.
This is all IMO of course.
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Will this lead to SS offering single photo sales?
I bloody well hope so!
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My earnings are now hitting new highs with StockXpert despite the subscription sales. If istock can do that, I will stick with them but if I am going to get 20% of a few cents, I will dump them.
It would be nice to spend the time I spend on their tedious upload procedure on something else and I am sure over time I will replace their earnings with the other sites.
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well if that is right hatman12, it paints quite a bit better picture than I had posted earlier.. and may be a welcomed change creating more earning potential.
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I'm cautiously optimistic about this, thinking about buyer behaviour on other sub sites.
One thought though:- If IS are trying to attract SS customers, will they abandon the over filtered rejection? ;D
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I am not an iStock Fanboy but statements like the following annoy me
"Istock keep 80% of the profit"
When a sale is made its revenue not profit.
They pay out 20% to non exclusives and up to 40% for non exclusives.
They then subtract all of their SG&A costs and what is left is profit.
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I have posted a considered analysis on the iStock forum, which I'll reproduce here:
I posted that whole theory back on page 3 of the thread, but I deleted it, because after a few minutes, I realized it made no sense at all. The main thing that bothers me right now is that it wildly fluctuates the value of the imagery. How can an XS image be worth $20 in royalties one day, and $.20 the next, just because the buyer didn't spend the rest of the subscription credits on the first day?
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I am not an iStock Fanboy but statements like the following annoy me
"Istock keep 80% of the profit"
When a sale is made its revenue not profit.
They pay out 20% to non exclusives and up to 40% for non exclusives.
They then subtract all of their SG&A costs and what is left is profit.
Yes, but then wouldn't the same be true for the contributor?
Contributors also have costs (cameras, lighting, computer equipment, internet services, models, travel, etc.). On top of that, the 20-40% we receive is after discounts have been applied to the buyer. So the net result is much lower.
What basically everyone is saying is that IS gets 80% of the cut (for non-exclusives) and contributors get 20% of the cut.
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Hate to say it, but I agree with Sean on this one. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong though.
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Geopappas
Once again wrong logic, if you are non exclusive then you are selling the images somewhere else, but you have to pay for the shooting costs only once
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Geopappas
Once again wrong logic, if you are non exclusive then you are selling the images somewhere else, but you have to pay for the shooting costs only once
Huh!!!
What does this have to do with your original statement???
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Well you contribute to 9 sites (judging by your links)
so you costs are are spread over these 9 sites and are tax deductible
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Well you contribute to 9 sites (judging by your links)
so you costs are are spread over these 9 sites and are tax deductible
First, your original statement was that IS doesn't make 80% profit (from non-exclusives). I was just replying to the statement and trying to show that contributors don't make 20% profit either (since we have costs as well). What people are trying to show is that IS is already making a lion's share of the profit. Now with subscriptions, IS will make an even higher profit %, while the contributors profit % will go down.
Second, yes, I am not exclusive (never said I was). I don't believe in putting my eggs in one basket (as the saying goes).
Third, as always, you can't just say that costs are lower because a person is non-exclusive. There are costs associated with uploading images (especially the time involved). If you look at some of the top contributors, they hire staff to upload, keyword, etc. So uploading to multiple sites costs money. In addition, each site also has its own quirks. IS has its funky tagging/DA system, Fotolia wants keywords in order, most sites have their own proprietary categorization system. Many people downsize for subscription sites (which takes extra time). IS wants mostly non-edited/out-of-the-camera images. DT wants edited/saturated images. So you can't make the generalization that costs are spread out evenly among sites. Costs actually go up when submitting to multiple sites. The object is to actually make more from each site than you spend. That is why I don't submit to the dozens (if not hundreds) of small sites. The cost for submitting to those sites isn't outweighed by the profits made.
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Under this scheme contributors always get paid based on the full subscription payment for every day that a customer actually makes a purchase. Very fair (except of coutse those credits have been bought at deep discount).
Sorry hatman but that's not how it will or even could work. Your theory means that all commissions would be calculated at the end of the day. That kind of load would crash their servers every single day. Not to mention that it would defeat the purpose of having different size downloads because you could potentially earn more from a XS download than from a XXL.
The real system will undoubtedly screw all contributors and buyers, with iStock pocketing the difference. Here is a more likely outcome:
Day one: Buyer has 10 credit per day subscription and uses all 10 credits = same as before (only less because the subscription offers the credits at a deep discount)
Day two: Buyer uses 5 of his 10 credits = same as before (only less because the subscription offers the credits at a deep discount). iStock will pocket the value of the 5 credits that were not used.
Day three: Buyer uses only 1 of his 10 credits = same as before (only less because the subscription offers the credits at a deep discount). iStock will pocket the value of the 9 credits that were not used and MAKE A HUGE PROFIT!
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Why don't we just wait and see what the details are? I don't see much point in guessing.
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guessing can be amusing. Here is my opinion. They will try to lessen the damage to the exclusives, hence the damage to the rest of us will not be great. Thus the enjoyment of photography and our microstock mania will continue.
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I think Hatman hit the model on the head. Istock especially wants 3 things IMO, screwing contributers on individual sales is not one of them (it is bad business logic).
1) Retain exclusives, it is one of the primary things that sets them apart from other sites and solidifies their overall collection as the best.
2) Gain new exclusives by pilfering from other sites, SS especially.
3) Make themselves more attractive to buyers. Same as disambiguation, this attracts buyers.
Consider why the sub model is touted to have a different customer base, though only partially true, there is truth to it. For example, designer A is a freelance designer and buyer. The sub model doesn't help him too much. Designer B is part of a 5 man team at a small company. The sub model helps him quite a bit.
Forecasting, and efficient use of time are very important to businesses as well as accounting means for determining price structure. As is right now when per photo purchases are made by the design firm, it has to accounted to an individual project as part of the project price. Initial cost estimating for the project is more difficult somewhat as well as the project cost tracking. Anything that takes more time raises the cost of the image to the firm more than simply the purchase price. Accounting and estimating time is not cheap. Then also consider the photo acquisition process. Per photo sales transactions take longer to complete for the buyer than simply downloading on a subscription plan. Again, time is money, and the downloader's time is worth more than the person that could be doing the paying.
Consider what happens in a with a subscription model. The lowest paid person in the building, the administrative assistant, take the time each month to renew the subscription. Single point source on the outgoing money flow. For accounting purposes the subscription (and thus all images used) are considered business overhead. No photo has to be accountable to an individual project, and # of photos needed need not be estimated for project pricing. Each project is charged the standard company overhead, which the subscription is part of. Any member of the design team can log into the company's account and download any image they want, no time has to be spent concluding a money transaction, and the designer no longer is spending any money which has to be accounted for. This is a big time savings internally for a company which streamlines operations for them, business management 101.
Istock has no need to screw contributers to gouge more money from them, it does not make business sense, as the contributers are customers as well and vital to the operation of their business. Istock can win on two fronts, days when the sub isn't used, and attracting more customers that otherwise wouldn't use them because the individual sales model is not an efficient use of their company's resources.
If they price the sub model correctly, a token amount less than the per photo prices to attract buyers (remember the main benefits are not the cheaper per photo prices to the customer, the reduction in acquisition and accounting manpower required is, the unused credits are insignificant compared to time savings across the board), yet enough that Istock still makes a daily profit if all credits are used every day, it is a step in the right direction for them.
Unlike SS, pricing it so there is a fixed daily revenue (for them) benefits them quite a bit. They can forecast (which SS cannot do with any real accuracy), not necessarily forecast profit, but they could forecast overhead revenue. One easy way to price it would be to have the company overhead percentage as Istocks daily take. They make no profit if every customer uses their subscription every day. This would mean that unused days are Istock's profit intake, and the photographers are given the amount over the overhead on days the account is used. Istock makes money in the end, and it helps the contributers as well and IMO is very attractive.
Consider a day that a company with the largest available subscription downloads an XS from you as their only download of the day. IS gets their cut so they are happy, the photographer sees a few bucks as payment for an XS. Immediately their mind would be changed about IS's model and many more people would consider switching to exclusive as pricing is now fair, the photographers get their fair cut of the subscription, not a small amount as price fixed by an underpriced subscription model (hopefully IS realizes that the time savings to the customer and not the per photo $$ savings is the attraction of the subscription model, so sees no need to underprice it, that the $$ is not the primary attraction of the model).
The end of the day calculations would not crash their servers, in fact quite the opposite, it is more efficient. Real time polling and updating databases take a lot of processing effort, the calculations contained within the constant real time update are insignificant compared to the resources expended on polling and the actual updating. An end of the night calc at off peak times only has one large data poll across the database and one large update, the calculations would not overly tax the resources (actually it could be piped to another processor separate for the primary server processors to calculate, then the calculated data resent back to the primary servers). In fact there actually is very little updating of anything in real time on any site, the active polling required to maintain real time updating is an incredible server strain, everything is just updated frequently enough that it gives the impression of real time updating.
It is entirely possible that their model was well thought out (which things at IS appear to be) and takes all of photographers concerns into account, and in the end the way they design their model is revolutionary in this it is beneficial to the photographer, that their intentions are actually to help the photographer and not screw them, even if every single customer migrated to their sub model.
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well, based on the alexa rankings for istock traffic in the last 3 years (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/istockphoto.com?site0=istockphoto.com&y=p&z=3&h=300&w=610&u%5B%5D=istockphoto.com&x=2008-04-04T15%3A06%3A36.000Z&check=www.alexa.com&signature=TWicQqbSUDJqmr60WRiPhec4dkQ%3D&range=3y&size=Medium) we're all going down the dumper there... their traffic is going down the wrong direction.
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well, based on the alexa rankings for istock traffic in the last 3 years ([url]http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/istockphoto.com?site0=istockphoto.com&y=p&z=3&h=300&w=610&u%5B%5D=istockphoto.com&x=2008-04-04T15%3A06%3A36.000Z&check=www.alexa.com&signature=TWicQqbSUDJqmr60WRiPhec4dkQ%3D&range=3y&size=Medium[/url]) we're all going down the dumper there... their traffic is going down the wrong direction.
Yet it is still has about 3x as much traffic as any other microstock site.
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Forecasting, and efficient use of time are very important to businesses as well as accounting means for determining price structure. As is right now when per photo purchases are made by the design firm, it has to accounted to an individual project as part of the project price. Initial cost estimating for the project is more difficult somewhat as well as the project cost tracking. Anything that takes more time raises the cost of the image to the firm more than simply the purchase price. Accounting and estimating time is not cheap. Then also consider the photo acquisition process. Per photo sales transactions take longer to complete for the buyer than simply downloading on a subscription plan. Again, time is money, and the downloader's time is worth more than the person that could be doing the paying.
That's all just semantics. You could have an automatic plan that buys X credits a month (that don't expire for a year), and it's just as simple. Purchasing the photo, you're still going to do it per photo. I see no difference whether you purchase a standard amount of normal credits each month, or have a "subscription" plan where you purchase a standard amount of credits per day (essentially). Except that the company benefits when you let those daily ones expire.
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Alexa's traffic rating comes from people who have installed the Alexa toolbar, its not an accurate reflection of traffic to sites more the sites visited by people who use a particular piece of software
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Alexa's traffic rating comes from people who have installed the Alexa toolbar, its not an accurate reflection of traffic to sites more the sites visited by people who use a particular piece of software
yes, the data relies on the Alexa toolbar being installed, but it is considered a pretty good cross section of the web browsing population - many people in the industry use that information as there aren't many other tools that give that kind of data.
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Istock has no need to screw contributers to gouge more money from them, it does not make business sense, as the contributers are customers as well and vital to the operation of their business.
....istock makes money in the end, and it helps the contributers as well and IMO is very attractive.
....
The end of the day calculations would not crash their servers, in fact quite the opposite, it is more efficient.
....
What business are you in? Of course it makes business sense. This is a corporation, the bottom line and margins are all that matter. Especially when you're being taken over by a private fund. I'll eat my shoe if at the end of the day contributors aren't making less and buyer's aren't getting less for the dollar (with iStock pocketing the difference on both ends).
Also please explain how this wouldn't be in increase in load on the servers. You're going from a simple per transaction dual entry into the database to a complicated calculation based on how many downloads by that client had been carried out in the day. Think about it. There will be a lot more queries and inserts necessary per transaction than before. Think about all the table locking issues in this parallel system that doesn't have downtime to only do the calculations. I'd be shocked if iStock's system can handle this.
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Forecasting, and efficient use of time are very important to businesses as well as accounting means for determining price structure. As is right now when per photo purchases are made by the design firm, it has to accounted to an individual project as part of the project price. Initial cost estimating for the project is more difficult somewhat as well as the project cost tracking. Anything that takes more time raises the cost of the image to the firm more than simply the purchase price. Accounting and estimating time is not cheap. Then also consider the photo acquisition process. Per photo sales transactions take longer to complete for the buyer than simply downloading on a subscription plan. Again, time is money, and the downloader's time is worth more than the person that could be doing the paying.
That's all just semantics. You could have an automatic plan that buys X credits a month (that don't expire for a year), and it's just as simple. Purchasing the photo, you're still going to do it per photo. I see no difference whether you purchase a standard amount of normal credits each month, or have a "subscription" plan where you purchase a standard amount of credits per day (essentially). Except that the company benefits when you let those daily ones expire.
I agree with this point 100%
If a buyer or accountant wants stability (which is the argument that IS is making), then all a company needs to do is buy a credit package.
IS currently has packages that range from $13 for 10 credits ($1.30/credit) to $1,450 for 1,500 credits ($0.97/credit).
A company can easily purchase a credit package and then use the credits as they are needed.
A subscription service is very different.
Buyers want a subscription service because they can get images for bargain basement prices.
Agencies want a subscription service because it allows the agency to absorb 100% of the profits for unused credits (and there are loads of them).
While a credit package might have unused credits at the end of the year, it will usually only be a small % of loss. A subscription service has a much higher rate of credit loss, since most people don't work weekends or holidays.
Weekends and holidays account for ~ 32% of the year. That doesn't include vacation days or sick leave. So, at least 32% of the profits will be absorbed by the agency (since buyers will rarely buy on those days).
Most of you already see this sort of activity on SS. During the week, you will get lots of downloads, but during the weekends or holidays, you will see a significant drop off. Well, that drop off is money in the bank for subscription services, but lost royalties for us.
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Sorry guys, but I think that in 2 or 3 years everybody will understand what happened today whit IS ,3 months ago? whit StockXpert. That's when the agencies will make profits over my back and sending me 25 cents for my work. Hope I'm strongly wrong on this ::)
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Unbelievable. hatman was right :) Thank goodness.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67685
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Sorry guys, but I think that in 2 or 3 years everybody will understand what happened today whit IS ,3 months ago? whit StockXpert. That's when the agencies will make profits over my back and sending me 25 cents for my work. Hope I'm strongly wrong on this ::)
No way. What just happenned (about 15 mins ago) was that iStock clarified the details of their intention to wipe out the subscription based competition. Anyone who makes most of their income at Shutterstock & iStock will now want to be exclusive at iStock. They now own the RF stock business. And probably from now on and into the future.
I always quite liked Shutterstock, so that's a pity. Dreamstime can rot in hell for all I care.
Unless or until someone comes up with a new business model, iStock is RF from now on.
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Under this scheme contributors always get paid based on the full subscription payment for every day that a customer actually makes a purchase. Very fair (except of coutse those credits have been bought at deep discount).
Sorry hatman but that's not how it will or even could work. Your theory means that all commissions would be calculated at the end of the day. That kind of load would crash their servers every single day. Not to mention that it would defeat the purpose of having different size downloads because you could potentially earn more from a XS download than from a XXL.
The real system will undoubtedly screw all contributors and buyers, with iStock pocketing the difference.
The much-hated istock proves the venom-spewers wrong once again.
As was just announced, they will be paying a standard percentage payout calculated on a minimum credit value of 96 cents per credit, which is the minimum currently being paid. In addition, they will be paying for EACH credit used, not a single unchanging pittance no matter which size is downloaded.
This is a very different model. It's understandable that it's hard to think outside of the moldy box currently being used by some other companies, but thank goodness someone is willing to do it. :)
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I'll eat my shoe if at the end of the day contributors aren't making less and buyer's aren't getting less for the dollar (with iStock pocketing the difference on both ends).
You want fries with that? ;D
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On 2008-04-04 11:54:03, kkthompson wrote: (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67685)
Is there a minimum payout?
Yes. We'll guarantee the same minimum payout as we do today on the Pay-as-you-go side. So right now, the lowest priced (non-sale) credit is 96˘. You receive 20 to 40% of that. Clear canisters will receive a minimum 19˘ and Diamonds will receive a minimum 38˘. And yes, this means that sometimes iStock will be paying out more than we take in per credit.
What's the maximum payout available?
Contributors stand to make more per file than they've ever made before from iStock. Here are two examples of what a non-exclusive can make off subscriptions:
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 480 uses only 10 credits that day, all on one of your files, you'd earn 480 × 20% × $130*. That means a payout of about $26 for your single file.
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 30 uses only 10 credits that day, including 5 credits on your image, you'd earn (30/2) × 20% × $10*. A payout of about $1.
* These values are 'Credit Package Value per Day', and have not been set yet. They are for illustrative purposes only.
Who gets the money when no credits are used on a day?
iStock does. This will offset the times where iStock will be paying out more in royalties than was paid for the credit, because of the guaranteed minimum on these days.
Why are you doing it this way?
This way we share in the risk and reward with the contributors, and still guarantee no less than what's currently paid out.
Will there be cannibalization of Pay-as-you-go?
Some clients will migrate to the new model, but we think we'll have lots of new customers that couldn't use our services before. Remember, this was one of the most requested features by people who wanted to become customers.
How often will stats be udpated?
Because Subscription credits expire daily, we'll update them once per day after everything has been tallied (i.e. after midnight for the day before).
Is this royalty structure set in stone?
We've modeled the subscription plan on a number of assumptions. If after we have a few months data, we find we were off on our assumptions, we'll revisit the royalty structure.
Hope this answers some of your questions.
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
LOL exactly what I thought
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Is that a direct quote from an istock person hatman? Do you have a link?
edit: forget that. I found it, and fixed your post. I hope that is allright.
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Istock has no need to screw contributers to gouge more money from them, it does not make business sense, as the contributers are customers as well and vital to the operation of their business.
....istock makes money in the end, and it helps the contributers as well and IMO is very attractive.
....
The end of the day calculations would not crash their servers, in fact quite the opposite, it is more efficient.
....
What business are you in? Of course it makes business sense. This is a corporation, the bottom line and margins are all that matter. Especially when you're being taken over by a private fund. I'll eat my shoe if at the end of the day contributors aren't making less and buyer's aren't getting less for the dollar (with iStock pocketing the difference on both ends).
Also please explain how this wouldn't be in increase in load on the servers. You're going from a simple per transaction dual entry into the database to a complicated calculation based on how many downloads by that client had been carried out in the day. Think about it. There will be a lot more queries and inserts necessary per transaction than before. Think about all the table locking issues in this parallel system that doesn't have downtime to only do the calculations. I'd be shocked if iStock's system can handle this.
As a matrix based calculation (which all database calculations are (object coding)) the calculations are no more difficult. There would be no modification to the primary database necessary, instead of updating all contributer file earnings with each database refresh, just the normal earnings would be. At the end of the day a separate database runs through all the daily sub sales and determines the daily sub sales credits due each file, which is then inserted into the primary database in 1 pass, then the contributer database is refreshed as normal.
The lag time would be minimal. Modern computers can blaze through millions of matrix calculations each second.
The amount of calculations for an entire day of activity on istock in linear passes through the database is insignificant next to just 10 seconds of a modern 3D video game where literally millions of similar calculations are made (just to refresh the pixels at 30 fps takes at least 30 million calculations per second) across multiple databases each have to be continuously updated as well.
The buisiness concepts that I am talking about hold true throughout all industries. We are their employees. Istock holds its position because it only allows the best from form their employees and a not insignificant percent of their employees work can only be found there. The primary way they attract customers is not because they are the cheapest, it is because they are the best and can offer products that nobody else can. If all of a sudden they anger their employees, they run the risk of losing their exclusives, which gives them the products that nobody else has. If all of their exclusive all of a sudden drop their exclusivity and sign up with DT, all of the attraction of IS vs. DT is gone. In this case "how do we pay our employees the least" vs. "how do we attract more buyers" are directly conflicting goals, hurting your contributers directly hurts their ability to attract more customers unless they become a bargain basement shop and sell at the cheapest prices around. In the end nothing helps them gain total market dominance more than attracting more exclusives, which hurts their competition just as much as it helps them (since exclusives tend to be closer to the cream of the crop than the bottom fringe). The only way to attract more exclusives is to show them the money, not devalue their work.
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The only way to attract more exclusives is to show them the money, not devalue their work.
Based on the recent update, I'd say that they agree with you. Also, you were spot on with the end of day calculation method of dispersing remaining available funds.
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
This thread attracted some attention from the higher-ups ... good to see!
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I think that very few people expected such good results from this. I was so dissapointed when I first read that IS was going to sell subscriptions but this is the best possible scenario.
This should even make mAdelaide who hates subs happy :)
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The amount of calculations for an entire day of activity on istock in linear passes through the database is insignificant next to just 10 seconds of a modern 3D video game where literally millions of similar calculations are made (just to refresh the pixels at 30 fps takes at least 30 million calculations per second) across multiple databases each have to be continuously updated as well.
The difference between the two can be quite dramatic. Calculations done on a 3D video game are basically all done on the CPU (or GPU) which is lightning fast, whereas database calculations usually require multiple disk reads which are orders of magnitude slower.
While speed is always relevant, and the database update for subs will probably only take a few minutes, updating a database will still look like slow-motion when compared to calculations done on a CPU.
I apologize for the tech-speak.
Carry on...
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
This thread attracted some attention from the higher-ups
Negative on that.
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
This thread attracted some attention from the higher-ups
Negative on that.
:D
I'm certain that "the higher-ups" are most definitely aware of this thread (as well as other threads here). I'm equally certain that I'm not one of them.
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
This thread attracted some attention from the higher-ups
Negative on that.
why are i totally lost here... does AAC6D63 stand for something or are you a known face on another forum??
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Sign me up for this! lol
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I'll eat my shoe if at the end of the day contributors aren't making less and buyer's aren't getting less for the dollar (with iStock pocketing the difference on both ends).
You want fries with that? ;D
Crap. Anyone have any hot sauce?
Seriously, I'm shocked on this one. I never expected iStock to be willing to take all of the risk while sharing the reward, because I sure wouldn't have in my business. I hope it works.
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The amount of calculations for an entire day of activity on istock in linear passes through the database is insignificant next to just 10 seconds of a modern 3D video game where literally millions of similar calculations are made (just to refresh the pixels at 30 fps takes at least 30 million calculations per second) across multiple databases each have to be continuously updated as well.
The difference between the two can be quite dramatic. Calculations done on a 3D video game are basically all done on the CPU (or GPU) which is lightning fast, whereas database calculations usually require multiple disk reads which are orders of magnitude slower.
While speed is always relevant, and the database update for subs will probably only take a few minutes, updating a database will still look like slow-motion when compared to calculations done on a CPU.
I apologize for the tech-speak.
Carry on...
Oh I know that, though I was responding to the fact that the calcs surely won't crash the servers, the loading and subsequent writing of the data is what takes time, once the data is loaded though the calculation part of the process is minor, a cpu can handle a ridiculously huge database's worth of calcs very rapidly if it has an efficient data pipeline to send and receive the calculated data. Calculating is what computers do best.
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
This thread attracted some attention from the higher-ups
Negative on that.
why are i totally lost here... does AAC6D63 stand for something or are you a known face on another forum??
Most of us don't use our actual names on the internet. For example, I'm guessing that you are not called Leaf? Am I missing some bigger point?
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The much-hated istock proves the venom-spewers wrong once again.
As was just announced, they will be paying a standard percentage payout calculated on a minimum credit value of 96 cents per credit, which is the minimum currently being paid. In addition, they will be paying for EACH credit used, not a single unchanging pittance no matter which size is downloaded.
This is a very different model. It's understandable that it's hard to think outside of the moldy box currently being used by some other companies, but thank goodness someone is willing to do it. :)
I'm exclusive at iStock, not a iStock hater. And I guess I like my moldy box because this appears to be much bigger risk than I would take in my business. To be honest I'm shocked, but pleasantly so.
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
This thread attracted some attention from the higher-ups
Negative on that.
why are i totally lost here... does AAC6D63 stand for something or are you a known face on another forum??
Don't know what AAC6D63 is exactly responding to, but I think the others may have been referring to the similarities between my username and a certain istock celebrity. ;)
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Seriously, I'm shocked on this one. I never expected iStock to be willing to take all of the risk while sharing the reward, because I sure wouldn't have in my business. I hope it works.
I am also extremely shocked on this one, but I doubt that IS will take "all of the risk".
They will most likely greatly benefit from the lack of sales on the weekends, holidays, sick days, vacation days, business trip days, etc in which case they will receive 100% of the profit for that day (and we will receive none).
But this is definitely a strong step in the right direction for subscriptions.
I really look forward to SS's response next month. They now have their work cut out for them (if they don't want to lose a lot of contributors).
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^Interesting handle Mr Newbie :-X
This thread attracted some attention from the higher-ups
Negative on that.
why are i totally lost here... does AAC6D63 stand for something or are you a known face on another forum??
Don't know what AAC6D63 is exactly responding to, but I think the others may have been referring to the similarities between my username and a certain istock celebrity. ;)
found by google.
http://digg.com/users/AAC6D63 (http://digg.com/users/AAC6D63)
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Seriously, I'm shocked on this one. I never expected iStock to be willing to take all of the risk while sharing the reward, because I sure wouldn't have in my business. I hope it works.
I am also extremely shocked on this one, but I doubt that IS will take "all of the risk".
They will most likely greatly benefit from the lack of sales on the weekends, holidays, sick days, vacation days, business trip days, etc in which case they will receive 100% of the profit for that day (and we will receive none).
Well those weekend "lost profits" go to equalize the losses iStock will incur by paying higher per credit then what the buyer paid when the subscription is fully used (because the subscription costs will be less then lowest credit price of .96 per credit currently offered). I don't see an actual risk for the contributors here, do you? Unlike the other subscription models where you have to worry about cannibalization, contributors aren't making less than per credit sales, they're actually making the same or potentially much more. So there isn't an added risk for contributors really unless I'm missing something.
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Don't know what AAC6D63 is exactly responding to, but I think the others may have been referring to the similarities between my username and a certain istock celebrity. ;)
Yep, like maybe this guy (http://www.istockphoto.com/bitter).
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Don't know what AAC6D63 is exactly responding to, but I think the others may have been referring to the similarities between my username and a certain istock celebrity. ;)
Yep, like maybe this guy ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/bitter[/url]).
Yep, that's the one
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I need to get companies to buy exactly one of my pictures during weekends :D
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On 2008-04-04 11:54:03, kkthompson wrote: (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67685)
What's the maximum payout available?
Contributors stand to make more per file than they've ever made before from iStock. Here are two examples of what a non-exclusive can make off subscriptions:
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 480 uses only 10 credits that day, all on one of your files, you'd earn 480 × 20% × $130*. That means a payout of about $26 for your single file.
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 30 uses only 10 credits that day, including 5 credits on your image, you'd earn (30/2) × 20% × $10*. A payout of about $1.
* These values are 'Credit Package Value per Day', and have not been set yet. They are for illustrative purposes only.
Who gets the money when no credits are used on a day?
iStock does. This will offset the times where iStock will be paying out more in royalties than was paid for the credit, because of the guaranteed minimum on these days.
Isn't anyone else thinking if it sounds too good to be true????? it's a little ridiculous, one person getting a whole day's royalties if that's the only photo sold that day - isn't it? $26? Trust me, they are only doing something this outrageous to keep the Exclusives from jumping ship. It will change. I give it 6 - 12 months and there will be a new controversy, just like this one.
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The microstock world just changed.
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The microstock world just changed.
I just call my clairvoyant about this. She said that I will become a sailor ??
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Isn't anyone else thinking if it sounds too good to be true????? it's a little ridiculous, one person getting a whole day's royalties if that's the only photo sold that day - isn't it? $26? Trust me, they are only doing something this outrageous to keep the Exclusives from jumping ship. It will change. I give it 6 - 12 months and there will be a new controversy, just like this one.
At least you'll have something positive to look forward to.
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Don't know what AAC6D63 is exactly responding to, but I think the others may have been referring to the similarities between my username and a certain istock celebrity. ;)
Yep, like maybe this guy ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/bitter[/url]).
Yep, that's the one
ahh thanks. ok
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So there isn't an added risk for contributors really unless I'm missing something.
I think that this does indeed sound a little too good to be true, but we'll have to wait and see.
For instance, the two examples that were given in the IS thread (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67685&page=1) do not contain enough detail for me:
Contributors stand to make more per file than they've ever made before from iStock. Here are two examples of what a non-exclusive can make off subscriptions:
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 480 uses only 10 credits that day, all on one of your files, you'd earn 480 × 20% × $130*. That means a payout of about $26 for your single file.
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 30 uses only 10 credits that day, including 5 credits on your image, you'd earn (30/2) × 20% × $10*. A payout of about $1.
* These values are 'Credit Package Value per Day', and have not been set yet. They are for illustrative purposes only.
In the first example, it shows a buyer that has a daily credit limit of 480! 480 seems like an awful lot of credits for one day.
Interestingly enough, the credits "value" is stated as only $130. That calculates to a cost of 0.27/credit for the buyer, which is almost exactly the same as the cost of an image on SS ($199 for 750 images or 0.265/image).
But if you calculate the cost of the subs package for a month ($130/day * 30 days), then it comes to $3,900/month. I can't imagine someone spending that much money for a month (but what do I know).
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The microstock world just changed.
You got that right brother...
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So there isn't an added risk for contributors really unless I'm missing something.
I think that this does indeed sound a little too good to be true, but we'll have to wait and see.
For instance, the two examples that were given in the IS thread ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67685&page=1[/url]) do not contain enough detail for me:
Contributors stand to make more per file than they've ever made before from iStock. Here are two examples of what a non-exclusive can make off subscriptions:
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 480 uses only 10 credits that day, all on one of your files, you'd earn 480 × 20% × $130*. That means a payout of about $26 for your single file.
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 30 uses only 10 credits that day, including 5 credits on your image, you'd earn (30/2) × 20% × $10*. A payout of about $1.
* These values are 'Credit Package Value per Day', and have not been set yet. They are for illustrative purposes only.
In the first example, it shows a buyer that has a daily credit limit of 480! 480 seems like an awful lot of credits for one day.
Interestingly enough, the credits "value" is stated as only $130. That calculates to a cost of 0.27/credit for the buyer, which is almost exactly the same as the cost of an image on SS ($199 for 750 images or 0.265/image).
But if you calculate the cost of the subs package for a month ($130/day * 30 days), then it comes to $3,900/month. I can't imagine someone spending that much money for a month (but what do I know).
I kinda thought from this statement:
* These values are 'Credit Package Value per Day', and have not been set yet. They are for illustrative purposes only.
that these numbers were picked randomly to give an example of how the numbers would be calculated (and were purposely unrealistic so as not to be quoted as an actual pricing structure). I could be wrong, though. The part about the minimum credit value is pretty straightforward, in my opinion, and I think that is the part that most alarmed contributors who voiced concerns about the idea.
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"Interestingly enough, the credits "value" is stated as only $130. That calculates to a cost of 0.27/credit for the buyer, which is almost exactly the same as the cost of an image on SS ($199 for 750 images or 0.265/image)...."
That's a very astute observation Geopappas. But remember that iStock will 'guarantee' a minimum value per credit of 96c for the photographers, so 96c x 20% = 19c minimum payment per credit.
If the overall pricing is similar to SS, the big differences are: IS charge more for higher rez images, and, photographers get paid based on the subscriber's maximum daily limit whether that limit is spent or not.
The REALLY big difference is the scheme whereby a single sale in a day can attract payment based on 100% of that day's allowance, generating the occasional very large commission payment for a single sale.
The fact that iStock is prepared to assume that 100% of each day's allowance is 'spent' must suggest that their research determines that the number of days when a subscriber makes no purchase at all must be very large, and confirms what Yuri has been saying that the payout ratio at SS is quite small.
The big impact of this new scheme will be felt at DT, StockXpert and 123, who will now be seen to be quite miserly (and in fact unacceptable) compared to iStock.
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The big impact of this new scheme will be felt at DT, StockXpert and 123, who will now be seen to be quite miserly (and in fact unacceptable) compared to iStock.
Those were my thoughts exactly. That is why I started another thread on this topic (here http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,4164.msg40940/topicseen.html#new).
I feel that the other sites will definitely be looking at this new model, especially SS (since they are coming out with their royalty increase next month).
I also feel that some submitters might possibly change their alliances if things turn out the way IS seems to indicate.
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The fact that iStock is prepared to assume that 100% of each day's allowance is 'spent' must suggest that their research determines that the number of days when a subscriber makes no purchase at all must be very large, and confirms what Yuri has been saying that the payout ratio at SS is quite small.
Also if the whole days allowance wasn't spent IS benefits the most. They get 60-80% of it.
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The last part of this statement from kthomson:
"Yes. We'll guarantee the same minimum payout as we do today on the Pay-as-you-go side. So right now, the lowest priced (non-sale) credit is 96˘. You receive 20 to 40% of that. Clear canisters will receive a minimum 19˘ and Diamonds will receive a minimum 38˘. And yes, this means that sometimes iStock will be paying out more than we take in per credit...."
...suggests that iStock subscribers will indeed be buying credits at less than 38c.
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The clarification is good news. But it doesn't change the fact that sub sales have cannibalized credit sales at the other sites which have run a dual format. The iStock sub program is better than the SS sub program for contributors. But if it comes at the expense of credit sales, then earnings will drop, not rise. I'm sorry, but I'm not getting excited about this.
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The fact that iStock is prepared to assume that 100% of each day's allowance is 'spent' must suggest that their research determines that the number of days when a subscriber makes no purchase at all must be very large, and confirms what Yuri has been saying that the payout ratio at SS is quite small.
Also if the whole days allowance wasn't spent IS benefits the most. They get 60-80% of it.
... and the contributors get 20-40% of it, where at other sites they get nothing of this surplus.
If a subscription sales won't generate less per credit than I'm making now, I don't see how my per image sales will be "cannibalized", plus each subscription sale comes with a "virtual lottery ticket" that may increase the royalty unexpectedly if the customer does not max out that day. :D
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That's an excellent phrase, bitter - "virtual lottery ticket". I like it.
Yes, this is a great scheme where contributors cannot be paid less than they earn at present, and every sale comes with that added bonus of the 'virtual lottery ticket'.
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The fact that iStock is prepared to assume that 100% of each day's allowance is 'spent' must suggest that their research determines that the number of days when a subscriber makes no purchase at all must be very large, and confirms what Yuri has been saying that the payout ratio at SS is quite small.
Also if the whole days allowance wasn't spent IS benefits the most. They get 60-80% of it.
... and the contributors get 20-40% of it, where at other sites they get nothing of this surplus
I know, but I wanted to point out, that it's not only the days without sales that will bring extra money to IS. And it's 20-40% if the buyer purchased only one of your pictures. Otherwise you have to split that between all the contributors.
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... and the contributors get 20-40% of it, where at other sites they get nothing of this surplus.
If a subscription sales won't generate less per credit than I'm making now, I don't see how my per image sales will be "cannibalized", plus each subscription sale comes with a "virtual lottery ticket" that may increase the royalty unexpectedly if the customer does not max out that day. :D
Exactly what I said on pg. 2 of this thread. It will cannibalize, but for the better. The "cannibalized" downloads will earn the same or more than they would have before.
Dan doesn't yet seem to understand how different this program is from the other subscription sites. I know it shocked . out of me.
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I've seen the example repeated several times of a 1 credit sub sale yielding 19c to an independent contributor. That's less than what I currently make with iS XS sales.
I average nearly $1.00 per sale at iStock these days. I'll be shocked if this sub plan doesn't trump that average.
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... and the contributors get 20-40% of it, where at other sites they get nothing of this surplus.
If a subscription sales won't generate less per credit than I'm making now, I don't see how my per image sales will be "cannibalized", plus each subscription sale comes with a "virtual lottery ticket" that may increase the royalty unexpectedly if the customer does not max out that day. :D
Exactly what I said on pg. 2 of this thread. It will cannibalize, but for the better. The "cannibalized" downloads will earn the same or more than they would have before.
Dan doesn't yet seem to understand how different this program is from the other subscription sites. I know it shocked . out of me.
Istock is trying to attract every halfway decent stock photographer to go exclusive with them. They will exert complete and utter dominance over the market if that happens. They will be free to price at will and do just about anything they want. They would have a virtually unlimited supply of good photographers for their macro business and would not have to worry about their macro competition stealing their well trained photographers. Their only micro competition would be the bargain basement shops that take everything. They figured out the way to destroy their competition, steal all of their good contributers. The more exclusives that they get, the more they can sink their claws in their competition by raising their prices and paying their contributers more, further gaining more exclusives. With each exclusive they gain their competition gets a little worse, making them even more attractive to buyers, allowing them to further raise prices, gain more exclusives, and hurt their competition even more. It would not surprise me on bit if in 2-3 years, IS prices are 3-5X what they are now, and each contributer makes 3-5x more per download, and the % of people exclusive is very high, yet despite their rising prices their traffic skyrockets as they have no competition to their quality. The only thing that could be done to prevent this is the other sites getting together and raising commissions almost simultaneously with IS, so that when IS raises prices and commissions, and contributers hit that exclusivity calculator link, they aren't left with an overwhelmingly easy decision to go exclusive. (ask yourself, if IS raised commissions 300% tomorrow, how long would it take you to go exclusive with them (and virtually double that 300% to 600%). I suspect most here would do it in a heartbeat).
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I respect your views Waldo, but I don't think you're right in this instance. And the clue is given by the IS 'best match' search - exclusives are given 8 spaces in the top 100 and non-exclusives are given 4 spaces. If IS wanted to dominate with its exclusive portfolio, exclusives would have all the spaces in the top 100 and non-exclusives wouldn't get a look in.
What iStock wants is 'just enough' exclusives to make it 'different' and 'appealing' to customers. But not so many that it ends up paying out 40% commissions to everyone. It wants the right balance between exclusives and non-exclusives. Top heavy in exclusives would destroy its financing.
And if it becomes all powerful in the industry, that would mean lower payments to contributors, not higher; whenever a corporation gains complete control it is always the suppliers that end up with lower margins.
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And if it becomes all powerful in the industry, that would mean lower payments to contributors, not higher; whenever a corporation gains complete control it is always the suppliers that end up with lower margins.
Short term financing matters not compared to long term benefits. As the exclusive level gets too high, raise prices to the subscribers, (which raises commissions a little too, but priced to overshoot the exclusive overpayment). You are right that in the end the photographers get the shaft....however, that cannot occur until their competition is beaten. As is they cannot beat the competition by offering a cheaper product than the competition, the only way that they can beat the competition is to offer a product so superior that the difference in price is minor compared to the difference in quality. The only way to do that...steal all of their contributers. The only way to do that...give 'em an offer they can't refuse. Once the competition is beaten into submission, then the place too eek out profits is to turn the attention to the contributers and slowly but surely give them the shaft, but with minor competition they have no choice but to accept. Until that time come that contributers get the shaft, IMO IS is going to change the market to reward us as much as possible in their fight for supremacy, if my thinking is right, it is a very good time to be a MS photographer as the war for the best contributers will line peoples pockets. At least I can hope. It is a sound business strategy on their part, especially with the financial backing of Getty to make it happen, that they can live with a short term zero profit or even operating in the red to crush their competitors. They are the only company that is really poised and positioned to really make a power grab and consolidate the industry, this might be the beginnings of it.
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I'll wait until the actual numbers come out, but if the "virtual photo lottery" is reality, it sounds interesting.
Waldo, the reason why your theories won't become reality is the same reason why we don't have only McDonald's in the burger business, it's why we don't only have two soft drink companies, why there are still many auto makers and why in any other industry, the one big company can't drive out all the competition and dominate, as you have suggested.
Some will fall, some little ones will survive in specialty markets and a few of the big ones will continue to compete in the marketplace. Also some of the other large agencies will combine resources, whether through mergers or acquisitions.
They aren't just going to be stomped out by all the best photographers going exclusive with iStock. There is a virtually unlimited supply of good photographers that can fill the holes left by anyone going exclusive with one agency.
If this plan is what it is being touted as, which is an increase for everyone, then it's good news and other agencies will follow with the same or some counter program to sweeten the pot. Nothing better for us than to have the agencies competing by offering us more money, or more profit for our photos! ;D
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As this is my first post ever I would like to say hello to everyone..
I don't see any of the sites beating the rest and Eating them like the "cookie monster"..
It all comes down to us.. I contribute to the top 7 sites listed on the right and I will never consider becoming an exclusive.. I don't see the logic behind it.. I see exclusives as an unlucky minority who never had the chance to really discover what can happen if they fully take the time to equally submit to all the big 6..
If they would listen to me (which they won't) I would suggest all exclusives to quit and start submitting everywhere they can.. Only in that case it's a "Win Win" situation for photographers..
Seriously, why to let Istock take over your lives :)
I feel very good and I don't care which stock website wins.. I win anyway ;)
I would like to see us all independent.. My utopia is a stock photo world where no one goes exclusives.. Then I wouldn't worry until it's the end of the world..
Best wishes for All of "us"..
Just remember our fate is in our hands..
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I'll wait until the actual numbers come out, but if the "virtual photo lottery" is reality, it sounds interesting.
Waldo, the reason why your theories won't become reality is the same reason why we don't have only McDonald's in the burger business, it's why we don't only have two soft drink companies, why there are still many auto makers and why in any other industry, the one big company can't drive out all the competition and dominate, as you have suggested.
Some will fall, some little ones will survive in specialty markets and a few of the big ones will continue to compete in the marketplace. Also some of the other large agencies will combine resources, whether through mergers or acquisitions.
They aren't just going to be stomped out by all the best photographers going exclusive with iStock. There is a virtually unlimited supply of good photographers that can fill the holes left by anyone going exclusive with one agency.
If this plan is what it is being touted as, which is an increase for everyone, then it's good news and other agencies will follow with the same or some counter program to sweeten the pot. Nothing better for us than to have the agencies competing by offering us more money, or more profit for our photos! ;D
There is an unlimited supply of photographers, however there isn't an unlimited supply of time. If IS steals a bunch then steals a bunch of customers because of it, noobs aren't going to come in and replace the guys going exclusive overnight, to get to the level of the exclusives that left, it will take months, if not years to develop the quality and depth of portfolios that they are replacing.
The difference between this situation and McDonalds for example, is that McDonalds hasn't figured out a way to make make all of the ranchers that supply them with meat, only supply them with meat and nobody else, and all decent ranchers sell to McDonalds. Therefore all other burger joints are selling low grade crap compared to what McDonalds is selling because they have a partial monopoly on all of the good beef available from ranchers.
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Hi Waldo4 your posts are very interesting but really hard going to read. Can you do us a favour and use a few paragraphs because I find myself skipping the last half which is a shame. :)
... and the contributors get 20-40% of it, where at other sites they get nothing of this surplus.
If a subscription sales won't generate less per credit than I'm making now, I don't see how my per image sales will be "cannibalized", plus each subscription sale comes with a "virtual lottery ticket" that may increase the royalty unexpectedly if the customer does not max out that day. :D
Exactly what I said on pg. 2 of this thread. It will cannibalize, but for the better. The "cannibalized" downloads will earn the same or more than they would have before.
Dan doesn't yet seem to understand how different this program is from the other subscription sites. I know it shocked . out of me.
Istock is trying to attract every halfway decent stock photographer to go exclusive with them. They will exert complete and utter dominance over the market if that happens. They will be free to price at will and do just about anything they want. They would have a virtually unlimited supply of good photographers for their macro business and would not have to worry about their macro competition stealing their well trained photographers. Their only micro competition would be the bargain basement shops that take everything. They figured out the way to destroy their competition, steal all of their good contributers. The more exclusives that they get, the more they can sink their claws in their competition by raising their prices and paying their contributers more, further gaining more exclusives. With each exclusive they gain their competition gets a little worse, making them even more attractive to buyers, allowing them to further raise prices, gain more exclusives, and hurt their competition even more. It would not surprise me on bit if in 2-3 years, IS prices are 3-5X what they are now, and each contributer makes 3-5x more per download, and the % of people exclusive is very high, yet despite their rising prices their traffic skyrockets as they have no competition to their quality. The only thing that could be done to prevent this is the other sites getting together and raising commissions almost simultaneously with IS, so that when IS raises prices and commissions, and contributers hit that exclusivity calculator link, they aren't left with an overwhelmingly easy decision to go exclusive. (ask yourself, if IS raised commissions 300% tomorrow, how long would it take you to go exclusive with them (and virtually double that 300% to 600%). I suspect most here would do it in a heartbeat).
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Withdrawn.... :)
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Darn it. I would have been really interested in your take on this, Lisa. :(
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Oh, I see that might have looked a bit cryptic... ooops!
I was just questioning the logic of the comments about how the world would be a utopia if the exclusives went independent. (after just having to defend the last impolitic comment I made on these forums via sitemail I thought better of it ;) )
As for the overall subscription plan - my head is reeling. I am horrible at math so I can only go on what the smarter folks have figured out.
My initial reaction was that istock's having subscriptions was a disaster, but after reading the details and implementation it looks like there is good reason to be optimistic.
Just in wait-and-see mode at this point :)
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Just in wait-and-see mode at this point :)
It's getting more popular that jumping off tall bridges and hoping there's water, and that it's warm ;D
The same reasons why one mega restaurant can't control the beef supply or someone else can't control the supply of most anything else, and drive the competition out as a result, is also why one stock agency can't get "all" the good photographers to go exclusive, no matter what their program promises.
I'll toss in what the "perfect" stock site would be. (feel free to tell me I'm crazy or it's just plane dumb.)
Lets call it a co-operative, because I don't know what else to call it.
Photographers upload photos and everyone has to do a specified amount of volunteer reviewing per month, based on how many photos they upload. So someone who uploads two photos would have to do less work than someone who contributes 1000 photos. As you perform the reviews, your photos would be moved into the review que.
Flaw is that some people would find that their photos were being refused by people who wanted to cut down the competition. So there would also be a review, or challenge to an independent appeal reviewer, for any questions. This would be a paid position of reviewer appeals.
People who don't have the time to review and do their part of the work, could forfeit 10% of their months earnings, to pay for hired reviewers. Same as below, excess is returned to the co-op.
When a photo sells, the member gets nothing until the end of the month. Every month, the agency profits would be calculated, 40% deducted for operations (see reviewer above, programming, monitors, server space, Etc.) 60% assigned to every member who had a download that month.
Hypothetical numbers. There are 50,000 photos downloaded in February. The gross profit is $50,000. 40% or $20,000 is deducted for operations, leaving $30,000 to be divided between the images and photographers who had a download and meet the minimum payout of $50. That translates into 60c per photo downloaded, for everyone!
People who are under $50 will have that credited to their account, until they reach payout. If someone decides to close their account, they will be paid all their credits and have their photos removed within 30 days.
Should the 40% be too high and there's an excess, or insufficient, after the first year, the operations percentage will be reduced or increased to create a zero budget situation. Either way, the contributors will divide profits based on their individual sales numbers as part of the total months profit.
OK so how's that? Operator owned, self regulated, self reviewed and all profits are returned to the co-op owners, who are the contributors. The only money taken out is for maintaining the site and any paid positions such as a manager, accountant, review appeals.
Should regulations and rules need to be decided, one vote per contributing member. A democratic process and equal voting representation for all members.
The co-op would be operated as a non-profit Corp.
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Race, your scheme will be about as successful as the growth in the Russian economy between 1917 and 1996. ie. zero.
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Im with hatman here- mixing business with politics screws up both.
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Race, your scheme will be about as successful as the growth in the Russian economy between 1917 and 1996. ie. zero.
You are probably correct. I don't support any political agenda, but I know that some failed systems, are proof enough that they will never work. I'll leave it at that. ;D
Co-ops are not quite the same, and some have been very successful. Real simple, the owners are the workers. Some businesses that were going to shut down were purchased by the workers in the recent past. I always wonder if they immediately took a cut in benefits and feebees and reduced the labor costs, to stay in business. But one thing that they could count on, was some high priced CEO who gets paid a million dollars, to come in with some "five year plan" that will turn everything around, and they usually only last two years, before the plan falls flat and the CEO is dumped, but paid for his full contract. Workers know what's wrong, and how to fix it, on a grass roots level.
Owner/operator stock agency where the image providers share in the profits. All the things that some people say an agency should do, can now be a reality. Photographers can't whine and complain about the company, percentages, or reviewers, because they are it. (my favorite part)
It will never happen, but it would be a good education for people who have never operated their own business or have never been self employed. Once they see what all the regulations and expenses are, they would view the agencies as something more than a website that just sucks money from our work. Agencies would gain a huge amount of respect from those photographers.
Hopefully the new iStock package will work out to benefit photographers, subscribers and the company. Everyone comes out a winner.
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when do the subscriptions start anyhow?
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I somewhere heard 26th of May.
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Racephoto - a similar enough model works very well in most law and accounting firms ....
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I have a question regarding this quote:
Is there a minimum payout?
Yes. We’ll guarantee the same minimum payout as we do today on the Pay-as-you-go side. So right now, the lowest priced (non-sale) credit is 96˘. You receive 20 to 40% of that. Clear canisters will receive a minimum 19˘ and Diamonds will receive a minimum 38˘. And yes, this means that sometimes iStock will be paying out more than we take in per credit.
What is a clear canister? Pre-bronze? They don't tier their commissions right? Somehow this quote makes it sound like they do. I thought only exclusives got more. I guess if I knew what they mean by clear canister...
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Non-exclusives will get a minimum $.19 .
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Pixart:
I believe that a clear canister is the base canister (< 250 downloads).
As a contributor sells more, they get different canisters. You can see them here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/icons.php
Although, freelancers (aka non-exclusives) get different canisters, their royalty % does not change from the base 20%.
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wow, this thread has all ready made it into the top 10 list!!
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Didn't think it was necessary to start a new thread, but thought you'd all be interested that they have released more info:
http://www.istockphoto.com/opt-out-info.php (http://www.istockphoto.com/opt-out-info.php)
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it still appears to be confusing and rather disappointing ,hope I am wrong!
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it still appears to be confusing and rather disappointing ,hope I am wrong!
If I'm guaranteed to make no less than I do now on a per-image purchase, and this program opens up possibilities for companies who in the past were not able to purchase from istock, I guess I don't see what's to be disappointed about... but that's just me I guess. :)
Good thing is, you can opt out any or all of your images if you wish. In fact, I encourage all of you to do so. It increases the likelihood of downloads for those opted in. ;D
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it still appears to be confusing and rather disappointing ,hope I am wrong!
I guess I don't see what's to be disappointed about... but that's just me I guess. :)
my biggest concern about sub models it may encourage ppd buyers to switch into sub buyers especially as the price gap between the two models widens (subs and ppd)
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my biggest concern about sub models it may encourage ppd buyers to switch into sub buyers especially as the price gap between the two models widens (subs and ppd)
In this case--where we are guaranteed to make *at least as much* (and possibly more) from the sub buyer as we do from the pay-per-image buyer--why is that a bad thing? If the price gap widens, it is only widening to our benefit.
I could understand why someone whose only frame of reference is SS might think "subscription" is a dirty word, but this is not a case of being paid less for subscription purchases. What am I missing?
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my biggest concern about sub models it may encourage ppd buyers to switch into sub buyers especially as the price gap between the two models widens (subs and ppd)
In this case--where we are guaranteed to make *at least as much* (and possibly more) from the sub buyer as we do from the pay-per-image buyer--why is that a bad thing? If the price gap widens, it is only widening to our benefit.
thank you for your input
ok I see your point and agree with that as long as there is no lose in our income it sounds fine.I am not a maths person so I don't quite understand how it will work.anyway perhaps it's best wait and see.
as for price gap obviously I have nothing against prices to go up but what I mean is when ppd prices go up I think sub prices should too in order to keep the ratio at same level thus not making buyers wanting to switch from one to another. I am not only referring to IS prices but all other site that is offering subs.
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Do I understand it right, we can opt-in or out as we wish, even at image by image level?
Regards,
Adelaide
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Do I understand it right, we can opt-in or out as we wish, even at image by image level?
Regards,
Adelaide
yes you can opt out even at the image level - images that are opted out will show up in the search labelled with a little leaf icon. Given you are guaranteed a minimum payout of 19c per credit (same minimum as now with the cheapest credit bundle), there doesn't seem to be any reason to opt out as all it's doing is cutting down potential sales.
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I think the "you're guaranteed to earn at least as much as now for each downloaded image" mantra is a little bit misleading. If I understand it correctly, it's more like : "you're guaranteed to earn at least as much as the current minimum $/credit" (that is $0.19/credit for non-exclusives).
But a quick and dirty analysis of my recent (ppd) sales shows an average royalty of around $0.24/credit (26% more than the minimum $0.19).
If most subscription buyers are smart consumers, they will spend enough of their daily credits to make it a good deal. Which would make $0.19/credit royalties more common and may result in a decrease of our average $/credit (and therefore, lower earnings).
But on a positive note, we have to take into account the random sub buyer who spends only a few of his/her daily credits on one of our images (which would increase the average $/credit), and the fact that buyers may be tempted to buy more images than they need, or to buy bigger sizes than they need (which would increase the volume of purchased credits).
I guess time will tell if it's a good move for us, contributors.
Erick
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Yes, you are right about that and I've thought that same thing. I guess I'm working under the assumption that there will still be a large base of pay-as-you-go customers, and that the sub customers will include those who were not buying anything before. My personal experience has been that the January price increase cut my downloads by about 20-30% while maintaining the same level of income, or more. I think it will all balance out in the end, and I would rather have a greater number of lower priced downloads than the opposite. They equal the same at the end of the month, but only one progresses me toward my next canister payout level (as an exclusive).
It's definitely a wait and see scenario, but I'm cautiously optimistic. ;)
Edited to add some real numbers:
Under the sub plan, I'm guaranteed a minimum of .28 per credit (based on 30% x 94 cent min). Just to give an idea of my averages right now, for the last 10 purchases, I've received as my 30% royalty:
1 credit - .38
10 credits - 3.70
10 credits - 3.60
10 credits - 3.80
10 credit - 3.40
15 credit - 5.40
5 credit - 1.95
10 credit - 3.40
10 credit - 3.30
5 credit - 2.10
So if my purchases ONLY come from subs, and ONLY from customers who download their full limit every single day that I get a download, and the volume stays the exactly the same, I stand to lose a considerable amount of income. It shouldn't take very long to see how likely that scenario will be. I'm planning to remain opted-in for at least 60 days before drawing any conclusions.
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I expect in the first weedk we will get the minimum amount because the new buyers will fill their daily quotas. Once they have had a sub plan for a while (and a full hard drive), they will be bored with searching for images every single day - then maybe they will not care so much about downloading their max and out earnings will rise by a small amount.
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From all of the official IS explanations that I have read and analyzing the #'s, there is one thing that I have realized this is yet not explained well (that I have seen, maybe I am missing seeing the magic sentence) that may not be the most favorable.
It relates to the minimum guarantee. I have not found the minimum guarantee per credit language (please correct me if I am wrong). It seems moreso that they guarantee a bare minimum, that no file can be sold that will net a royalty of less than .19, but that only relates to the smallest files. From what I have seen it is entirely possible that for larger files that # can in fact dip below .19 per credit, they just guarantee that you will get at least .19 for the download. If this is the case (I hope that I am wrong, but not heartbroken if I am not), then some may not be too happy about it. However I do think that the two extreme cases, where the customer downloads the quota completely triggering the .19 floor, or vice versa where you get an only sale lottery ticket, will be rare cases. The full quotas will show up at first, but over time as the novelty wears off we'll see on average that just about every sub sale is from a customer partially using their quota.
It will be interesting as we will be able to plot trends, once it starts a good thread to have going would be the average credit per sub that people are seeing, so that customer trends with regards to # DL'ed and % of sub used on average per day will come to light. We will be able to see how it changes over time, if good or bad trends, for us, are developing, and also use the data to project onto other sites to see just how much they they are or aren't gouging us with their model. It is entirely possible that we will spot some trends and project some data that will make many people absolutely furious with a site like SS with how much photographers are getting the shaft with their model (or the flipside, we can question how SS is even profitable), as IS's means of doing it allows a data transparency that is hidden behind the curtains at other sites, closely guarded secrets kept from the contributers.
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Well I see that they have replaced the comments column with the subs. So you can easily opt-in/out per image.
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It relates to the minimum guarantee. I have not found the minimum guarantee per credit language (please correct me if I am wrong). It seems moreso that they guarantee a bare minimum, that no file can be sold that will net a royalty of less than .19, but that only relates to the smallest files. From what I have seen it is entirely possible that for larger files that # can in fact dip below .19 per credit, they just guarantee that you will get at least .19 for the download.
I'm not entirely sure that I'm understanding exactly what you are saying, but this is what they have said. The minimum *per credit* price that we will be paid on is 94 cents, so that 19 cents per credit is the 20% royalty paid to non-exclusives/base level contributors. Other canister level exclusives will receive at least their percentage of that 94 cents. This is a per credit used, not per image downloaded, payment. They have said that in some cases this may mean that they are paying out more than they are taking in for a single download, but that overall they think it will work out profitably for everyone (due to the fact that they will keep 100% on days the sub is not used).
Does that clear up what you were confused about? Or am I completely missing it? ;D
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I have not found the minimum guarantee per credit language (please correct me if I am wrong). It seems moreso that they guarantee a bare minimum, that no file can be sold that will net a royalty of less than .19, but that only relates to the smallest files. From what I have seen it is entirely possible that for larger files that # can in fact dip below .19 per credit, they just guarantee that you will get at least .19 for the download.
In the FAQ page, they talk about a "minimum payout per credit", not per download : http://www.istockphoto.com/opt-out-info.php (http://www.istockphoto.com/opt-out-info.php)
Though, they insist on saying : "You will never earn less per credit than you do now", which (as I said in my previous post) is at least misleading (you can earn less per credit than you do now, if you currently earn more on average than the minimum).
However I do think that the two extreme cases, where the customer downloads the quota completely triggering the .19 floor, or vice versa where you get an only sale lottery ticket, will be rare cases. The full quotas will show up at first, but over time as the novelty wears off we'll see on average that just about every sub sale is from a customer partially using their quota.
I hope you're right about the future partial use of the quotas. But I don't think that the triggering of the minimum payout ($0.19) will be such a rare case. Sub buyers don't need to use their full quotas to make it happen :
- In the FAQ first example, a buyer with 30 credits/day uses 10 credits including 5 on one of your images, you earn $1 ($0.2 per credit, we're already almost at the minimum)
- If the same buyer uses only 12 credits, including 5 on one of your images, your earning ends at a calculated $0.83 ($0.17 per credit), so it will be increased to $0.95 (the minimum $0.19 per credit). That's for a buyer using only 40% of his/her daily quota.
(examples are based on non-exclusive minimum $0.19/credit, but they remain valid for exclusives too).
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Yeah I see that, my bad, all of the earlier stuff that I had read had not been disambiguated between minimum payout and minimum payout per credit, but alas they fixed it and I was wrong (good). Disregard the beginning of my last post.
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But a quick and dirty analysis of my recent (ppd) sales shows an average royalty of around $0.24/credit (26% more than the minimum $0.19).
That's exactly my situation. I'm staying opted in for the start, and see how it develops.
A question I saw in the forum, but then no answer was posted (it seems). Given that subs sales earnings are in fact calculated according to the total dlds of the subscriber that day, do we only get to know how much we got from a subs sale the following day?
Regards,
Adelaide
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But a quick and dirty analysis of my recent (ppd) sales shows an average royalty of around $0.24/credit (26% more than the minimum $0.19).
That's exactly my situation. I'm staying opted in for the start, and see how it develops.
A question I saw in the forum, but then no answer was posted (it seems). Given that subs sales earnings are in fact calculated according to the total dlds of the subscriber that day, do we only get to know how much we got from a subs sale the following day?
Regards,
Adelaide
Yes, I think calculations will be done at midnight. So you might wake up and find nothing or you might get a hold of all those unspent daily quotas.
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Yes, I think calculations will be done at midnight. So you might wake up and find nothing or you might get a hold of all those unspent daily quotas.
Just to make things more complicate, doesn't the 24h period counts at the buyer's time zone, not IS office's?
Regards,
Adelaide
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Yes, I think calculations will be done at midnight. So you might wake up and find nothing or you might get a hold of all those unspent daily quotas.
Just to make things more complicate, doesn't the 24h period counts at the buyer's time zone, not IS office's?
Regards,
Adelaide
These questions are answered on the FAQ page:
How can I keep track of my Subscription earnings?
When you go to the file download page for any image (from your 'My Uploads' page), you'll see a new column showing each file's Subscription earnings. You'll be able to track each individual file's Subscription earnings here, with updates every 24 hours.
Is the 24 hour credit limit localized?
At first everything will operate on Calgary time (MST). Once we're satisfied that everything is stable, we will localize the 24 hour period for each individual Subscriber. Contributors will then see earnings staggering out across a full day.
Since the royalties are somewhat dependent on the amount of remaining unused credits at the end of the day, I don't see how they can possibly calculate it in advance of knowing it, so yes, there will be a delay before we see it.
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iStock made a calculator with some example royalties available this afternoon. I realize this isn't final, but I think I finally see the "catch" - the reason I'd generally prefer (as a contributor) to get a credit sale versus a subscription one.
If I sell lots of large images (or vectors), I am going to get the minimum payout more often than I do now with credit sales. In my case (independent) that is a $1.90 royalty on a 10 credit sale. Most of my large sales are over $2.00, many at $2.50 or $2.75.
I did an example where the buyer has 30 credits a day, spends 10 of them, all 10 on my file. For a 6 month or 1 year subscription I'd get $1.90; if it's 3 months I'd get $2.00
For a 15 credit example, for all subscription terms (30 credits a day) I'd get $2.85. One of my new vectors (15 credits per) has sold 8 times for a total of $27.60. If those had been subscription sales I'd have made $22.80.
The reason I can be worse off with subscriptions than the current plan is that we don't often make the minimums guaranteed by the subscription plan - it's generally quite a bit more.
Things look a little better with 60 credits a day, but if a buyer only uses 45 of those, 15 on my vector, I'm back to the minimum $2.85. Even if my vector is the only file bought - 15 credits is all the buyer spends, I only get $3.90.
I think the lower credits per day packages are the most likely (the subscription biggie does 25 per day 750 per month, for example). I don't expect the 480 credits a day with only 10 spent all on me is a very likely scenario - not impossible, but not likely.
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The reason I can be worse off with subscriptions than the current plan is that we don't often make the minimums guaranteed by the subscription plan - it's generally quite a bit more.
I agree on that.
But the real unknown is how many more subscribers will this attract? How many more dl will we get with this?
Remember that any subscriber switching from another site which gives us .25 or .30$ will bring us more money. A medium size dl will bring us a minimum of 5x0.19 = 0.95$.
If that buyer comes from SS, that's 0.60$ more...
I guess time will tell...
Claude
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Well this is broadly similar to what I was trying to point out in my 'not as good as I thought' thread, in that existing 26c credits get replaced by new 19c subscription credits. In an absolute worst case scenario this would result in a drop in income of 26%.
Of course that worst case scenario will probably never occur.
Set against the 'risk' of the new scheme must be the positives: the possibility of iStock attracting many more customers, the possibility of existing customers buying more images (perhaps even a probability for larger portfolios and those containing 'sets') plus the 'free lottery ticket' of unused credits.
Given the strength of iStock's marketing, my gut feel is that over the longer term this plan will result in an increased income for larger portfolios due to the tendency for subscribers to make multiple purchases. The risk is higher for small portfolios.
I should think its a given that a high percentage of existing customers will switch to subscriptions.
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Interesting calculator.
The most a diamond can earn from a single XS download is $105.50.
The most a non-exclusive can earn from a single XS download is $91.20.
You have to really hit the jackpot for that though. Still something to hope for. Overall I am thinking this might actually get us more money than the current pay-per download set up.
I think (and hope) that this will be enough to put an end to a lot of the smaller Microstock sites that are only alive because of their subscription plans. I would much rather have a higher concentration of buyers at the big 6 sites instead of spread out over 40+ microstock sites. So it's time for Crestock, Canstockphoto, Albuno to start shutting down or make some changes.
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We can only dream of a busy day in the life of a subscription buyer, when he doesn't have much time and dlds only a fraction of his credits.
It may take some time for the new model show its real face. There are positive aspects, and different prices for different sizes is a plus compared to other companies.
Now the opt-in/out option will fuel some discussions in the near future, as it may affect best match. ;D
Regards,
Adelaide
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IS still hasnt addressed the basic question of WHY subscribers would sign on to this plan, when they are going to lose a fair % of their credits unless they are downloading every single day, including weekends. for any subscription service, the weekend DLs drop significantly - but when you have a quota per month, that's not a problem. with IS's plan a buyer loses if they dont work on weekends
it looks like a good deal for sellers, but i'm not expecting a big jump in income. [i'd be delighted to be proved wrong!]
s
http://pix-now.com/main.php
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I'm puzzled with Cascoly's message. Don't sites that sell subs packages have a daily dld limit? StockXpert does.
Regards,
Adelaide
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Just playing with the calculator :
scenario 1 : buyer buys an XL
- non exclusive
- 60 credits/day - 1 user - 3 months
- credits used by buyer : 15
- credits used on your files : 15
==> total royalty : $3.90
scenario 2 : buyer buys an XXL
- non exclusive
- 60 credits/day - 1 user - 3 months
- credits used by buyer : 20
- credits used on your files : 20
==> total royalty : $3.80
Conclusion : in this particular case, you earn less for an XXL than an XL >:(
After trying several scenarios, the "minimum royalty per credit" case seems to be the most common unfortunately, which would lead to a decrease in $/credit and $/download averages.
To get more than the minimum royalty per credit, you have to hope that a buyer will spend only a small part of his daily quota, and only on some of your images.
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Well this is broadly similar to what I was trying to point out in my 'not as good as I thought' thread, in that existing 26c credits get replaced by new 19c subscription credits. In an absolute worst case scenario this would result in a drop in income of 26%.
Of course that worst case scenario will probably never occur.
Set against the 'risk' of the new scheme must be the positives: the possibility of iStock attracting many more customers, the possibility of existing customers buying more images (perhaps even a probability for larger portfolios and those containing 'sets') plus the 'free lottery ticket' of unused credits.
Given the strength of iStock's marketing, my gut feel is that over the longer term this plan will result in an increased income for larger portfolios due to the tendency for subscribers to make multiple purchases. The risk is higher for small portfolios.
I should think its a given that a high percentage of existing customers will switch to subscriptions.
Actually I don't think it's a given that a high percentage of customers will switch at all. Surely the only buyers who are interested will be the heavy users who will already be buying credit bundles. Or whose bean counters insist on subscriptions so they are currently buying elsewhere.
The smallest subscription package indicated by the calculator is ten credits a day over six months, (1800 downloads) costing around 600$. This is a decent outlay - and presumably any istock customer who is interested in that sort of outlay will currently be saving money by buying the 600$ credit bundle. Which gives a per credit price of 1$, not far short of the minimum. I can't see the buyers who are currently paying more per credit than this buying these very large subscriptions
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IS still hasnt addressed the basic question of WHY subscribers would sign on to this plan, ...for any subscription service, the weekend DLs drop significantly - but when you have a quota per month, that's not a problem.
But none of the subscription sites (microstock ones) work this way. They all have a daily limit which they show as a monthly total assuming you download your entire quota each day. You don't get to roll over one day's unused credits to the next.
As to the why, I assume it's the exclusive content and that some large corporate buyers want to buy from the market leader (remember that old phrase from the computer business, "you'll never get fired for buying IBM"?).
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With iStock's plan, contributors will actually start to look forward to weekends and public holidays - its on those days that there is a chance of a sudden lottery win from unspent credits.
Also, I see from my statistics last year that Shutterstock income fell the least during the summer lull and ROSE the least during the Sept to Christmas rush; this suggests that subscription plans reduce the seasonal volatility.
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With iStock's plan, contributors will actually start to look forward to weekends and public holidays - its on those days that there is a chance of a sudden lottery win from unspent credits.
Also, I see from my statistics last year that Shutterstock income fell the least during the summer lull and ROSE the least during the Sept to Christmas rush; this suggests that subscription plans reduce the seasonal volatility.
I was thinking that too about the timing which falls right before things start to taper off a bit for the western summer. It might be another very strategic move on their part. ;)
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I see a lot of arguing about the minimum payout / image. But we should not forget that often people buy your image when they have subscription and in the end do not use that image. Especially if they just want to use up their daily limit. I guess the percentage of not used images is higher than in the normal way when images get downloaded.
I am not really a fan of subscription like on the other agencies. But here iStock is giving us a great deal.
I do not know if the chances of this "lottery wins" increase on the weekend. There are not the same amount of buyers who just buy less images, there are just fewer buyers who probably buy the same amount of images they would buy during the week. So if the buyer do not use his subscription on a particular day we get nothing. iStock is looking forward to the weekends :)
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IS still hasnt addressed the basic question of WHY subscribers would sign on to this plan, ...for any subscription service, the weekend DLs drop significantly - but when you have a quota per month, that's not a problem.
But none of the subscription sites (microstock ones) work this way. They all have a daily limit which they show as a monthly total assuming you download your entire quota each day. You don't get to roll over one day's unused credits to the next.
ok, since i dont buy, i've never looked closely at the subscription agreement - i thought credits would available throughout the month -- if credits are lost if not used daily, why are weekends so slow? do most buyers really not care about losing 8/30 days? almost 25% of their credits?
s
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IS still hasnt addressed the basic question of WHY subscribers would sign on to this plan, ...for any subscription service, the weekend DLs drop significantly - but when you have a quota per month, that's not a problem.
But none of the subscription sites (microstock ones) work this way. They all have a daily limit which they show as a monthly total assuming you download your entire quota each day. You don't get to roll over one day's unused credits to the next.
ok, since i dont buy, i've never looked closely at the subscription agreement - i thought credits would available throughout the month -- if credits are lost if not used daily, why are weekends so slow? do most buyers really not care about losing 8/30 days? almost 25% of their credits?
s
??? iStock's subscription plan does not begin until May 26th. The "pay as you go" credit system that they have always had involves credits that expire after a year. No credits are lost otherwise. They will continue to run this option alongside subscriptions which will be offered beginning May 26.
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Interesting calculator.
The most a diamond can earn from a single XS download is $105.50.
The most a non-exclusive can earn from a single XS download is $91.20.
You have to really hit the jackpot for that though. Still something to hope for. Overall I am thinking this might actually get us more money than the current pay-per download set up.
I think (and hope) that this will be enough to put an end to a lot of the smaller Microstock sites that are only alive because of their subscription plans. I would much rather have a higher concentration of buyers at the big 6 sites instead of spread out over 40+ microstock sites. So it's time for Crestock, Canstockphoto, Albuno to start shutting down or make some changes.
Weird I just checked it out today and I put in 480 credits/day, over 100 users, and subscription duration of 3 months... and it shows
-The most a diamond can earn from a single XS download is $105.50.
-The most a non-exclusive can earn from a single XS download is $52.75. (If they use all 480 credits on your images then it goes to $91.20)
Looks like maybe they changed pricing... or maybe I missed something
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ok, since i dont buy, i've never looked closely at the subscription agreement - i thought credits would available throughout the month -- if credits are lost if not used daily, why are weekends so slow? do most buyers really not care about losing 8/30 days? almost 25% of their credits?
That is exactly why subscription plans work, and the more that subscriptions are used by 9 to 5, 5 day a week businesses rather than home based ones the more profit there is in it.
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it will be interesting to see how the istock plan works out in the end.... I am looking forward to hearing what types of actual commissions people end up getting.
It will probably take a few weeks / months to get some decent stats though as all the new subscription customers are going to be eager at the start and download lots of pictures. The one picture jackpots are only going to come later on i would guess.
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it will be interesting to see how the istock plan works out in the end.... I am looking forward to hearing what types of actual commissions people end up getting.
It will probably take a few weeks / months to get some decent stats though (snip)
This problem will be compounded by the fact that the stats on istock itself will be somewhat obscured at the beginning and who knows for how long. They are expecting us to click on each file downloaded in a day to collect the individual stats for each image.
I'm trying to focus on the positive aspects of them not wanting to overload the servers, but... ::)
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I see a lot of arguing about the minimum payout / image. But we should not forget that often people buy your image when they have subscription and in the end do not use that image.
This is the argument that DT and StockXpert have advanced as they've pushed adding subscriptions, but the volume of subscription sales isn't at SS levels on either of those sites - low enough to be economically dissatisfying but high enough to be annoying when it's a level 3 maximum size image that's flying out the door at 21 cents (DT) or a instead of a $7.50 commission for an XXL image (at StockXpert) for 30 cents.
What seems to have happened, at both DT and StockXpert, is that subscriptions have eaten into the $$ totals, not grown the monthly income.
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Given that the biggest subscription competitor for IS is surely SS, how do their packages compare from a buyer's point-of-view? In terms of $$, possibly no gain is offered by IS, am I right? So what is there to attract buyers, the exclusive content?
Regards,
Adelaide
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I have very good experience with SS subscriptions. I had more than 200 dl's there in SS in last 20 days with less than 80 files online, and just 4 dl's on IS in last three months. I hope that buyers on IS will download much more with this subscription program
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As a Noob
I started with IS, uploaded to about 8 sites, closed off 5 of these accounts now leaving IS, SS and DT.
With SS and DT I did have "immediate download gratification", but if your uploads stop the downloads stop, and I have found that with IS they slowly trickle with no "fizz and bang", and my images somehow do not get pushed to the last page by the top sellers and new images, due the the weighting of the best match no doubt.
The proposed Subscription Package from IS is a per credit basis which seems to be lost in some threads, where as SS is a 25c per download payment with no information on the size of the download, the highest percentage of downloads for me on IS are Medium and Large average about 90c a download.
So this subscription package can only be a win win situation for me.
I stopped uploading after January, DT and SS bombed right out but IS has remained constant, making the IS Return Per Image well better.
I have read the argument it is better to have loads of cheap downloads, but I often wonder if I had not uploaded to SS how many of them downloads would have been made at IS instead. ???
By the end of June I will only be uploading to IS, and any subscription downloads will count towards the next canister, and later exclusive status! :)
David
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^ Hmm interesting. DT is one of the sites that has not dropped for me after not uploading for a couple months. In face, last month was my BME at DT and I have not uploaded but a couple files there the past 3 months.
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My Stats:
April to Date:
SS Portfolio 54 Images - 7 Downloads - $1.75
DT Portfolio 54 Images - 0 Downloads - $0.00
IS Portfolio 40 Images - 11 Downloads - $10.87
Since I Started in September:
SS Portfolio 54 Images - 227 Downloads - $76.70 (Inc: $20 EL)
DT Portfolio 54 Images - 29 Downloads - $25.95
IS Portfolio 40 Images - 71 Downloads - $67.27
I started to upload to other sites due to the rejection rate at IS, mainly copyright for a teeshirt and playing cards, which dented my acceptance ratio to 64%.
In hindsight IS is by far the best Revenue Per Image performer for me, even with the smaller portfolio, one cavaet is that my 2 best earners on IS, were rejected by DT and SS, that what makes me wonder what may have been if I just stuck with uploading to IS!
From today I am now on a 4 day week, so I will re-focus on photography for the free day ;)
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No offense, but 40-50 images is hardly enough to draw any meaningful statistics from.
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No Offence taken, but as a noob I can only make decisions based on my small Portfolio, and translate this by a percentage to a "what if" scenario.
David
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Well, my portfolio on IS is very small. But I don't plan to stop uploading there. I believe when people say that IS is excellent, so why should I stop. I still think that subscription method can only bring good
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Given that the biggest subscription competitor for IS is surely SS, how do their packages compare from a buyer's point-of-view? In terms of $$, possibly no gain is offered by IS, am I right? So what is there to attract buyers, the exclusive content?
I don't think my question was understood, I asked about a buyer's point-of-view, not a photographer's. I want to see if there is any reason SS buyers would move to IS.
Regards,
Adelaide
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I want to see if there is any reason SS buyers would move to IS.
Well, naturally, buyers would move to IS because it is the greatest microstock in the world, nay the universe. Woo-yay!
;)
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Given that the biggest subscription competitor for IS is surely SS, how do their packages compare from a buyer's point-of-view? In terms of $$, possibly no gain is offered by IS, am I right? So what is there to attract buyers, the exclusive content?
I don't think my question was understood, I asked about a buyer's point-of-view, not a photographer's. I want to see if there is any reason SS buyers would move to IS.
Regards,
Adelaide
Mocking and bitterness aside, if you remove exclusive content from the equation (since to some it holds no added value), then it becomes strictly a question of price, and I'd say that we can't really answer your question until we see what the pricing at istock is going to be. All we know for sure based on their calculator is that there will be some deep discounts for companies with deep pockets, but whether they will be pulling from the same buying group as SS remains to be seen.
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Oh, I thought the packages prices in IS had already been disclosed. So they're still playing with suggested prices in their calculations?
Regards,
Adelaide
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just thought i would bring this to the front again.
On monday the subscriptions start!!!
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I'm really anxious to see what affect this has on downloads/earnings. I'm guessing initially earnings will go up but who knows about the long term. Yesterday was my best non-EL day there.
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I'm confiant. IS subscription program seems to be contributor friendly. I like idea that we get more credits for bigger size files. A lot of photogs (including me) downsize images for SS, DT, 123 but not for IS. Customers will be there, IS has the best search system (and less keyword spamming) and high quality.