MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => Microstock Services => Topic started by: Microstockr on April 12, 2017, 12:34
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Hey guys,
for the last 2+ years we've been working hard developing a new application called Microstockr Pro helping photographers track their earnings. If you’ve ever taken stock photos and uploaded them to multiple agencies, you know that checking your sales can be very time-consuming and frustrating.
That's where Microstockr Pro tries to help.
By looking at your whole portfolio history, you can view its overall performance, check your best earners and see sales patterns you weren't able to notice before.
Check out this introduction video:
https://vimeo.com/209760056 (https://vimeo.com/209760056)
We're still in BETA, so you can download our app and use it for FREE:
http://microstockr.com/microstockr-pro (http://microstockr.com/microstockr-pro)
Join us and let us know what you think.
Cheers!
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Looks very nice!
I am using mobile version whole the time... Very useful for me! Especially during morning coffee! Just trigger and... :o 8)
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Im trying now and it's looking very well done, can't wait the Shutterstock fetching available !
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Is it advisable to keep it open and running to update or are refreshes necessary? Seems a bit heavy on processor to keep running. Just asking.
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Looks really nice! It includes nearly all the agencies that I submitted to. BTW, I entered the username and password for Fotolia and it said "username for this agency is used by another account". I may have created another Microstockr account before. Is it possible to delete the previous account so that I can fetch the data from Fotolia for my new account?
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I am using it and I have to say that it is a really great application!
Not clear how it will cost when it will be out of Beta. Some indications?
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After installing the software I can't open it (Double clicked the icon on desktop but nothing happens, in Win10).
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Is there an option to track Adobe/Fotolia sales?
https://contributor.stock.adobe.com/
I have tried to use my Adobe details with the Fotolia account but it won't accept them.
Great looking app.
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I haven't been able to get pond5 working for several months now. Desktop app on imac
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@cg3dphoto, @miR156, @Cider Apple please check your messages we sent a PM with details.
@shoopinoz Adobe Stock will be integrated after we launch the app. Right now we are polishing it and removing bugs.
@Chichikov the app will be very affordable, no surprises in store.
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@cg3dphoto, @miR156, @Cider Apple please check your messages we sent a PM with details.
@shoopinoz Adobe Stock will be integrated after we launch the app. Right now we are polishing it and removing bugs.
@Chichikov the app will be very affordable, no surprises in store.
Adobe Stock and Fotolia are the same thing, no?
And Fotolia is already supported. So just call it Fotolia/AdobeStock (or AdobeStock/Fotolia)
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There looks to be more agencies that are trackable in the phone app over the desktop app. Will all agencies be available on both platforms at some point?
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Adobe Stock and Fotolia are the same thing, no?
And Fotolia is already supported. So just call it Fotolia/AdobeStock (or AdobeStock/Fotolia)
Apparently they are the same thing, but behind the scenes they are 2 different agencies with 2 different infrastructures. For example sales on Adobe Stock are reported in the Fotolia dashboard, but not vice versa. So, we cannot parse only one agency and show you the results. We have to parse both of them for the time being.
We intend to add Adobe Stock in the near future.
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There looks to be more agencies that are trackable in the phone app over the desktop app. Will all agencies be available on both platforms at some point?
Yes, eventually we want to match the agencies in the mobile app. We will resume adding new agencies after we launch.
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Does it work for videos too?
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Does it work for videos too?
Yes, it does for supported agencies.
It even matches the videos together automatically. Give it a go.
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Adobe Stock and Fotolia are the same thing, no?
And Fotolia is already supported. So just call it Fotolia/AdobeStock (or AdobeStock/Fotolia)
Apparently they are the same thing, but behind the scenes they are 2 different agencies with 2 different infrastructures. For example sales on Adobe Stock are reported in the Fotolia dashboard, but not vice versa. So, we cannot parse only one agency and show you the results. We have to parse both of them for the time being.
We intend to add Adobe Stock in the near future.
What will happen when there will be a sale on the Adobe Stock, it will be reported twice?
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What will happen when there will be a sale on the Adobe Stock, it will be reported twice?
No, we'll probably work out a system similar to what we're now doing with iStock / Getty.
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I notice that the stat for iStock /Getty is below the actual values reported on Getty ESP, does it only include sales from iStock, but not the sales from Getty and partner programs?
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I notice that the stat for iStock /Getty is below the actual values reported on Getty ESP, does it only include sales from iStock, but not the sales from Getty and partner programs?
Do you mean the balance? If so, that is the sales amount minus any payout. iStock / Getty reports sales on the 20th and they do payouts for amounts over $100 on the 25th. If you have say $250 sales for last month they will transfer that money to you and the balance becomes $0.00, but if you only have $70 there will be no payout and the balance will still be $70 next month.
Does this help?
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No, I was referring to the monthly earnings. The earnings for Jan and Feb this year are significantly lower than the actual values I saw on Getty ESP.
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I love microstockr app but I use it 95% on my mobile phone and 5% on my computer. When I want to take a look at my sales is when I'm not home and I just want to check my balance in 30 seconds. Sadly, the mobile app is not updated often. Few agencies are broken. I had issue with canstockphoto. Now alamy and pond5 are unavailable. My question is, are you working on both platform mobile and desktop app to be improved ?
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I love microstockr app but I use it 95% on my mobile phone and 5% on my computer. When I want to take a look at my sales is when I'm not home and I just want to check my balance in 30 seconds. Sadly, the mobile app is not updated often. Few agencies are broken. I had issue with canstockphoto. Now alamy and pond5 are unavailable. My question is, are you working on both platform mobile and desktop app to be improved ?
Yes, and lately we've been focusing heavily on the Pro desktop app, hence the late mobile updates. But, we've just released an update fixing pond5 and adding iStock back for android and the iOS one is coming soon.
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I downloaded and checked it out. Impressive graphics and well structured BUT... With time I have built and refined a very elaborate EXCEL sheet covering all my needs, I guess the same stands for all professional Microstockers. I keep my statistics manually spending no more than half an hour per week and it is far more accurate. The reason being that I contribute to agencies that are not provided in the app and that I include commissions and other sources of income in my excel. This means that as an income or even a statistics tool this app (or any other for that matter) is inadequate for me.
On the other hand, having a portfolio of 800+ illustrations, it is impossible to keep track of how individual images or series do in their total capacity. I do have a general idea of what works best or worst but I loose it in the middle tiers. Some sites like SS give you some options but the overall picture is lacking.
I see that you have done a pretty good job in this area. Although some features like folders/lightboxes don't work in the version I downloaded I expect there will be improvements and debugging in the future.
I would suggest you emphasize this part of the app with some more options and more graphics (trends, selling curves, etc.). If this is done I would definitely be a customer. Even if no more agencies are added having these statistics will be an invaluable tool for planning and asses that is impossible to custom-make and manually track.
I hope this was helpful
Best of luck
G.
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I downloaded and checked it out. Impressive graphics and well structured BUT... With time I have built and refined a very elaborate EXCEL sheet covering all my needs, I guess the same stands for all professional Microstockers. I keep my statistics manually spending no more than half an hour per week and it is far more accurate. The reason being that I contribute to agencies that are not provided in the app and that I include commissions and other sources of income in my excel. This means that as an income or even a statistics tool this app (or any other for that matter) is inadequate for me.
On the other hand, having a portfolio of 800+ illustrations, it is impossible to keep track of how individual images or series do in their total capacity. I do have a general idea of what works best or worst but I loose it in the middle tiers. Some sites like SS give you some options but the overall picture is lacking.
I see that you have done a pretty good job in this area. Although some features like folders/lightboxes don't work in the version I downloaded I expect there will be improvements and debugging in the future.
I would suggest you emphasize this part of the app with some more options and more graphics (trends, selling curves, etc.). If this is done I would definitely be a customer. Even if no more agencies are added having these statistics will be an invaluable tool for planning and asses that is impossible to custom-make and manually track.
I hope this was helpful
Best of luck
G.
Hey Nazlisart,
thanks for your feedback, much appreciated.
Did you get a chance to use the Collections? We implemented them to be the equivalent of Folders/Lightboxes on agency sites. The only difference is the app does not automatically take them from an agency site, but rather you have to create them on your own and add pictures manually. You only have to do it once though and you can add pictures from different agencies too.
Also, did you try the Match All feature which automatically groups the same image on different agencies? It makes life a lot easier.
In any case, feel free to suggest new helpful features since we're very open and implement a lot of the things users request of us.
Cheers.
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In any case, feel free to suggest new helpful features since we're very open and implement a lot of the things users request of us.
Cheers.
Ok, since you're asking for suggestions:
Currently the app is built around sales only, i.e. images without sales do not show up.
Would it be possible to retrieve all accepted images from the agencies (and let us assign them to collections)?
This would allow to better see how new images are selling (imagine some kind of "automatic" collection by upload date), what's the sell through rate (sellers vs. non-sellers) per agency/upload date/collection, calculate RPI per agency/collection...
Other than that:
- possibility to sort images by downloads / revenue inside of collections
- keyword search to ease assigning images to collections
- more statistics features for collections, e.g. flexible timelines showing downloads/revenue, total and per agency
Maybe I'll come up with more...
I have to say I do like it a lot.
Thanks!
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...
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I downloaded and checked it out. Impressive graphics and well structured BUT... With time I have built and refined a very elaborate EXCEL sheet covering all my needs, I guess the same stands for all professional Microstockers. I keep my statistics manually spending no more than half an hour per week and it is far more accurate. The reason being that I contribute to agencies that are not provided in the app and that I include commissions and other sources of income in my excel. This means that as an income or even a statistics tool this app (or any other for that matter) is inadequate for me.
On the other hand, having a portfolio of 800+ illustrations, it is impossible to keep track of how individual images or series do in their total capacity. I do have a general idea of what works best or worst but I loose it in the middle tiers. Some sites like SS give you some options but the overall picture is lacking.
I see that you have done a pretty good job in this area. Although some features like folders/lightboxes don't work in the version I downloaded I expect there will be improvements and debugging in the future.
I would suggest you emphasize this part of the app with some more options and more graphics (trends, selling curves, etc.). If this is done I would definitely be a customer. Even if no more agencies are added having these statistics will be an invaluable tool for planning and asses that is impossible to custom-make and manually track.
I hope this was helpful
Best of luck
G.
Hey Nazlisart,
thanks for your feedback, much appreciated.
Did you get a chance to use the Collections? We implemented them to be the equivalent of Folders/Lightboxes on agency sites. The only difference is the app does not automatically take them from an agency site, but rather you have to create them on your own and add pictures manually. You only have to do it once though and you can add pictures from different agencies too.
Also, did you try the Match All feature which automatically groups the same image on different agencies? It makes life a lot easier.
In any case, feel free to suggest new helpful features since we're very open and implement a lot of the things users request of us.
Cheers.
Hi again
I tried to use the collections but it doesn't give me any images to put in (I guess this is a bug).
In any case to elaborate a bit more about my previous post. I definitely agree with dirkr above. Here are some features that, I think, would also be very VERY useful concerning sales by image/collection:
- Image/Collection life-cycle projection curve. With some simple statistics you can have an approximate prediction of what a project (image or collection) will make in it's microstock lifetime. This way you know if it did worth your time before it completes it's cycle and assess if you want to work more on it. Read this post for more info about image life-cycle to see in length what I refer to: http://blog.microstockgroup.com/the-tyranny-of-the-microstock-lifecycle/ (http://blog.microstockgroup.com/the-tyranny-of-the-microstock-lifecycle/)
- Trending - Images/Collections, RPI and Overall Income/Downloads. 3 to 5 values (up - middle - down)
- Automatic retrieval of SS Collections and their statistics
- Option to select & compare Images/collection in some graph with different colors and different options like income, RPI, views etc.
- Pie charts for selected images/collections
Furthermore
- You can also add "blank fields" of manually adjusted inputs that would be named (like "Commissions", "Day Job", "Trust Fund" etc.) and filled by the user on a weekly/monthly basis and that would be integrated into the overall statistics.
- Pie charts showing what percentage of your income comes from which agency and/or other income sources.
- Conversion of all the different values to a single currency (and not only Dollar or Euro) retrieving data from the Forex Exchange
All this would convert your app into a very powerful income tool and would allow the user to assess where to emphasize their business and adjust accordingly.
I know that what I suggested means a hell of a lot more work but you can compensate by offering your app into a basic/professional/premium subscriptions (or something like that) with different options. You will also have the basis to expand to a much wider audience than mickrostockers. Musicians, print/t-shirt artist, audio/web book writers, YouTubers and other professionals that combine internet (meaning automatically retrieved) income and real world (manually filled) income would love to have a tool like this.
If you do this right and with a little luck in a couple of years of hard work GOOGLE will buy you out to an early retirement!!!!
Then you will remember your good friend "Nazlisart" and you will sent him 3% of your buy-out money for his suggestions... ;)
Have a Good one!
G.
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Ok, since you're asking for suggestions:
Currently the app is built around sales only, i.e. images without sales do not show up.
Would it be possible to retrieve all accepted images from the agencies (and let us assign them to collections)?
This would allow to better see how new images are selling (imagine some kind of "automatic" collection by upload date), what's the sell through rate (sellers vs. non-sellers) per agency/upload date/collection, calculate RPI per agency/collection...
Other than that:
- possibility to sort images by downloads / revenue inside of collections
- keyword search to ease assigning images to collections
- more statistics features for collections, e.g. flexible timelines showing downloads/revenue, total and per agency
Maybe I'll come up with more...
I have to say I do like it a lot.
Thanks!
Yes, it would be possible to retrieve all images, even the ones without sales. We haven't done that already since it generates a lot of traffic on the agency servers and takes a lot of time. Think about it this way, if for regular sales we could get that information from the sales page, excel files or agency APIs for files that haven't sold we need to individually parse every image page in the portfolio. This will also put a strain on their servers if everyone is doing it. That's why we haven't done it so far. We occasionally receive emails from agency warning of traffic spikes and restrictions imposed.
Eventually we want to add a lot more filters to the Collections pop-up. We want to match all the filters currently found in the Downloads/Best Sellers tabs. That means sorting by Earnings/Downloads/RPD/RPI, choosing custom time intervals, filtering by agency, media, etc. So, this will solve your points about 'possibility to sort images..' and 'more statistics..'.
Keyword search is something that's been on our list for a while now and we want it to replace the current title search we currently have. After that we also plan to introduce keyword stats and add some way to display which keywords perform better.
Further additions will be agency performance comparisons where you can directly compare which agency sells better for a given interval and a couple more ideas.
All this will get added probably after we launch in a couple of months.
Hope this helps.
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I love using the app but I've just noticed some figures are wrong. Tallies for some images from iStock are way out... at first I thought it would be iStock's fault but I've just noticed Bigstock has a wrong balance also. Just one particular image I went back and counted the number of downloads on the site (9), the app says only 2.
Has anyone else noticed wrong figures for downloads?
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I love using the app but I've just noticed some figures are wrong. Tallies for some images from iStock are way out... at first I thought it would be iStock's fault but I've just noticed Bigstock has a wrong balance also. Just one particular image I went back and counted the number of downloads on the site (9), the app says only 2.
Has anyone else noticed wrong figures for downloads?
We sent you a private message.
Cheers.
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Hi, love the application!
Is there any plan to support Adobe Stock anytime soon please? I don't have a Fotolia account since I only signed up recently and they switched over everything to Adobe.
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Hi, love the application!
Is there any plan to support Adobe Stock anytime soon please? I don't have a Fotolia account since I only signed up recently and they switched over everything to Adobe.
Hey Raphoto,
we are currently finishing up our product and preparing it for launch. After that we'll resume adding new agencies and Adobe Stock is at the top of that list.
Hope this helps.
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Excellent, thanks & keep up the great work!
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I really like Mircostockr Pro. One request though: Could you allow multiple accounts per agency? This is important for iStock/Getty now that my iStock account and my Getty account use different logins on the same system.
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I really like Mircostockr Pro. One request though: Could you allow multiple accounts per agency? This is important for iStock/Getty now that my iStock account and my Getty account use different logins on the same system.
This is important for me to, I have 2 accounts at Pond5
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As of this morning, I am having issues with the software. It will not start..... I have no issues with PC or anything like that. No changes made, no windows update, no nothing.....
Tried all there is, run as admin, compatibility, reinstalling, .....
Anyone had this issue?
Win 10 OS
Forgot to mention.,... I can see the process in the task manager.
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There is a bug for Windows users that is causing rarely that the app will be off screen, you can easily fix this by deleting the following file:
C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microstockr\settings_1.json
Hope this helps
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It actually did. thanks
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I really like Mircostockr Pro. One request though: Could you allow multiple accounts per agency? This is important for iStock/Getty now that my iStock account and my Getty account use different logins on the same system.
I need this too!
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Sounds like a direct competitor for microstock analytics. Would be interesting to see how the finished version compares. I suggest the developer takes a look at that and cover all those bases at a minimum if they want to compete.
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The newly launched subscription prices are way too high for hobbyists. I'm out.
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The newly launched subscription prices are way too high for hobbyists. I'm out.
If you earn so little that $5/month is too much, then you probably don't even need the app. I don't mean that in an offensive way.
IMO the price they chose is fine.
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The newly launched subscription prices are way too high for hobbyists. I'm out.
too expensive for me at the moment. I'm sorry, I liked the program.
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I am out too.
And about the subscription plan, no thanks
Excellent app, but not deserving more than a fix $20 a year, imho
The newly launched subscription prices are way too high for hobbyists. I'm out.
If you earn so little that $5/month is too much, then you probably don't even need the app. I don't mean that in an offensive way.
IMO the price they chose is fine.
So you are ready to pay this application the same price as Photoshop?
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Very nice software but also for me it's to expensive.
Good luck with your program!
:)
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My respect for the authors and what they have done, but I cannot accept to pay for Photoshop+Lightroom - $12/month but for Microstockr Pro - $8.49/month! I think it's not adequate price!
I am out!
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It could be the best statistic program, so, I spent some time helping with bugs and problems... got nothing in return, but too high subscription price. I'm out too.
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Same here, too expensive for me. Just compare what you pay for PS/LR.
Also it did have bugs until the end (not showing all sales).
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I'm out too, as it's a bit overpriced for hobbyists. A still Alamy login issue not resolved btw.
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Bugged, very slow, still no adobe stock support - i'm out too
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It could be the best statistic program, so, I spent some time helping with bugs and problems... got nothing in return, but too high subscription price. I'm out too.
Same here, been involved with the beta, offering bug reports and ideas.
I'll pay €30 for this, fixed price. I _hate_ subscription software.
I do wish the devs good luck, I hope it all works out.
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Don't understand why people keep comparing the price of this niche app and the price of Adobe PS+LR subscription (with huge user base), but not with competitive niche products like StockPerformer and MicrostockAnalytics.
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Don't understand why people keep comparing the price of this niche app and the price of Adobe PS+LR subscription (with huge user base), but not with competitive niche products like StockPerformer and MicrostockAnalytics.
Maybe because PS+LR are almost indispensable for most of us, when Microstockr is not?
Even a product like Affinity Photo, not even so famous as Photoshop, but probably very more complex to develop that Microstockr (and you should consider that there was already a base of development for other platforms), and very more useful for a photographer not using Photoshop, costs only $40 without any subscription plan.
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Excellent software, been using it for a year, fast bug fixes, fast help response. Sadly I must part, too much for a hobby but I'll gladly return if I up the game.
Sent from my SM-J510FN using Tapatalk
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Even a product like Affinity Photo....
3d max is 185 a month, Premier Pro is 20 a month or 50 for the all-in pack should I continue? do you know audio software prices? - Huge! And I use/used many different apps for my microstock production. But does it make any sense to compare all those products? You are saying that this mango is pricy and potato is cheaper and indispensable for most of us.
Don't understand why people keep comparing the price of this niche app and the price of Adobe PS+LR subscription (with huge user base), but not with competitive niche products like StockPerformer and MicrostockAnalytics.
Maybe because PS+LR are almost indispensable for most of us, when Microstockr is not?
Again. It is niche product only for microstock contributors. Do you use StockSubmitter? Or StockPerformer ( €29/month) and MicrostockAnalytics ($39.99/3 months)? You either need those products or not. Not defending anything, and agree that beta users could get better discounts. But we should compare comparable products.
And I would like the discussion heading the direction of price/features comparison with direct competition (may be in the new dedicated topic) not any software in the world.
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The problem is not that the price of the software is too high, the problem is that microstock just produces so little revenue nowadays that is it hard to justify any expense!
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The software have all the sales data for each contributor. So, I think that they can do a percent subscription for each user. Like, let say, about 1 to 5 % from the total revenue. So, if user earn 100 $/month, next month he/she must pay around 1 to 5 $...
Just an idea....
8)
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Like someone already said, if you can't afford $5 for it then you most likely don't need it.
It is a niche software, you have alternatives as stock performer, microstock analytics and your excel spreadsheets, so it is pointless to compare it with Photoshop an so on.
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The software have all the sales data for each contributor. So, I think that they can do a percent subscription for each user. Like, let say, about 1 to 5 % from the total revenue. So, if user earn 100 $/month, next month he/she must pay around 1 to 5 $...
Just an idea....
8)
So if I make say 10k$ a month, then I should pay 100 to 500$ a month? No, thanks ;)
In my opinion contributors who make less than 500$ (or actually even less than 1k) don't really need this app. They can just use Microstockr mobile app or free StockSubmitter to check daily sales.
And also there is no need to subcribe (to this or competitive apps) for anyone, you can use it for like 1-2 month a year to analize your portfolio and sales and to get bigger picture.
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Even a product like Affinity Photo....
3d max is 185 a month, Premier Pro is 20 a month or 50 for the all-in pack should I continue? do you know audio software prices? - Huge! And I use/used many different apps for my microstock production. But does it make any sense to compare all those products? You are saying that this mango is pricy and potato is cheaper and indispensable for most of us.
Don't understand why people keep comparing the price of this niche app and the price of Adobe PS+LR subscription (with huge user base), but not with competitive niche products like StockPerformer and MicrostockAnalytics.
Maybe because PS+LR are almost indispensable for most of us, when Microstockr is not?
Again. It is niche product only for microstock contributors. Do you use StockSubmitter? Or StockPerformer ( €29/month) and MicrostockAnalytics ($39.99/3 months)? You either need those products or not. Not defending anything, and agree that beta users could get better discounts. But we should compare comparable products.
And I would like the discussion heading the direction of price/features comparison with direct competition (may be in the new dedicated topic) not any software in the world.
It is a product that can surely be a plus to report our earnings (and other) in a nice, simple and efficient way, but what more else?
And okay, it is a niche product, I totally agree with this.
But at this price, and you can see it here, a lot of potential users just became "not users at all"…
Is it better to get 100 users for $100 a year, or 500 users for $25 / $30 a year?
In fact the great question is "how much users Microstockr has?"
I am sure that the Microstockr developers have already made their sums and taken their decision accordingly.
As I (and other here) have done.
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I loved it but I'm out too. There are too many incorrect tallies to totally rely on it alone. I have still been tracking my own sales the whole time I've used it. What I did love was that it alerted me to the sales but it's very unreliable and buggy as many have said. I couldn't complain while it was free but I will just have to go back to checking each site myself. Thank you for the time I did get to use it for free!
It's still early days for me with microstock, under two years, so I'm not earning enough to justify it anyway.
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There should be some "trial" version of such software, with only agency balances and history. Everything else is more specific for some pple that analyse data to shoot new sets.
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I too have been a beta user for quite some time and like the product, but the price is too high. It's not a matter of what I can afford. I can afford to pay $100 a month, but that's not the point, It's how much value does it provide me. It gave me interesting stats that I stopped tracking because it was too much trouble, but I haven't missed them and won't miss them again. It doesn't provide any real value. I haven't made any business decisions based on the information it gives me. I haven't made any more sales based on the information. The Android app is worth $10 a year to me. This is maybe worth twice that, not 10 times that.
Over $100 a year to track sales? I don't think so.
As others have said, I wish the developers luck and when this trial balloon deflates, I hope they price it at what the market will bear.
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My respect for the authors and what they have done, but I cannot accept to pay for Photoshop+Lightroom - $12/month but for Microstockr Pro - $8.49/month! I think it's not adequate price!
I am out!
I'm also out!
Way too expensive for just the curiosity of checking some stats!
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been using this for a year or so, it's a great app, but like others have said, too expensive to pay $6 a month when this is just a hobby to me. I understand that a lot of hard work has, and continues to go into keeping the app working, but a price similar to the mobile app would be more appropriate
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I've been using this for almost two years, submitted some bug reports and some feature suggestions.
I have to say I've had very few problems with it. I really like it (apart from the lack of a decent scroll bar).
I was ALMOST expecting long term beta users to be able to continue using it for free, and definitely expecting a discount, thinking maybe $1.99/month max. But $6 a month is around about 5% of my monthly take, which I think is a lot for something which doesn't aid productivity that much.
For that reason, with regret, I'm also out. Shame.
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Great response, Gary. Yeah, I think they really missed the boat on the value the beta testers could bring. I have sung its praises on several forums as well as on their Twitter and FB page. Now, not so much
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I'm using Stockperformer for 7.5 Euro per month (basic subscription). Since it's the cheaper subscription plan, not allowing e.g. to create collections and seeing some other insight data, I was using Microstockr Pro as a supplement. Now that MS Pro became subscription-based (which in principle is absolutely natural), I don't see myself paying for it the full price (6.79 USD with discount, or 7.99 without) just to have the ability to create collections and Match All features. Other than that Stockperformer, for its basic subscription fee, has all the features of MS Pro. I guess the owners of MS Pro could have thought about that scenario, i.e. that Stockperformer subscribers might want to keep MS Pro for extra features, but definitely at a lower cost.
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Yeah this price is higher than I would have liked. I'm torn. A few bucks less per month and I would be sold. I'm on the fence with this amount.
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Hey guys,
First of all, thank you for everyone who has been a Beta user. It is probably our fault for not communicating our appreciation of them well enough, maybe through a bigger discount. Lesson learned.
We wanted to make a few mentions, maybe to clarify things a bit.
1. The market for microstock photography is comprised of thousands of contributors out of which only a fraction are willing to pay for a software helping with sales tracking. This means there's a cap to the number of subscribers we'll probably have and a certain price we cannot go below for this project to be worthwhile. We have thought about the prices long and hard for over 2 years. We have even contacted a few marketing and pricing specialists so we'd have an amount that's affordable to as many people as possible. This is very close to as low as we can go, to support us the creators of this software and the infrastructure/hardware needed. Developing this requires expert level design and IT skills and A LOT of time. None of which comes cheaply. But we are stock photographers ourselves and this product is our baby.
2. Microstockr Pro is definitely a niche product. Since the market is so small, no big company will enter and develop such an app because it is not worth it. Hence, comparing our app to Photoshop and Lightroom which have a mainstream market of millions of users is not really fair. Adobe does not have any competition and can charge whatever they want. The reason, we think, they charge $9.99 for Photoshop & Lightroom is because a lot of people would use their software illegally anyway, so why not grab a piece of that market too? They can afford it and it's a smart move.
Not many people remember that only a couple of years ago Photoshop cost $699 and you also had to pay a few hundred dollars for every update.
Comparing this to Microstockr Pro is like comparing apples and oranges. What if Adobe decided to charge $4.99 instead? Following that logic no other product should be more expensive since it's not more complex. It is called dumping price and is used by dominant players to control the market.
3. The agencies change all the time. Our app will never be a finished product because it will always require updates and adjustments. Hence development will never cease. In order to support it, we needed a subscription based model and a steady income to support it. Otherwise, we would've charged once and considering the market is small, when the cash ran out development ceased. So, in a way, subscription was the only way to go.
Hope this perspective clears things up a bit and helps others see things from our side too.
Cheers.
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Thanks for coming by and responding. I actually thought about most of what you said and don't disagree with any of it. You guys can't afford to do it for less than will turn a profit. But from our perspective we have to weigh the value to us and I think for many, there is a gap between what we are willing to pay and what you are willing to charge. I really hope you get enough subs to keep it going as it is an excellent product.
To give you my perspective, I really liked the product and used it several times a day. Looking at it from that way, it's worth what you are charging. But, prior to becoming a tester, I only spent a few minutes a month tracking sales. When I first started in this business 12 years ago, I tracked every image, every acceptance/rejection and every sale. As much as I liked having those stats, I realized that the time I was spending did not correlate to any revenue so I quit.
Enjoyed working with you and wish you the best of luck.
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I have taken up a sub. My view is that it is a tad on the pricey side but I've enjoyed seeing it develop (for free) through its Beta phase and I enjoy using it - I like the elegant design and it actually saves me time looking at individual stock sites so there is some value there too. It is being updated/improved all the time so I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes over the next few months.
With its pricing it is a bit of a luxury but one I feel is a) worth doing to make my day better and b) happy to support an interesting project in development.
I'm unsure if my sub includes use of the mobile version too, I would think that would be fair to include as well.
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I have taken up a sub. My view is that it is a tad on the pricey side but I've enjoyed seeing it develop (for free) through its Beta phase and I enjoy using it - I like the elegant design and it actually saves me time looking at individual stock sites so there is some value there too. It is being updated/improved all the time so I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes over the next few months.
With its pricing it is a bit of a luxury but one I feel is a) worth doing to make my day better and b) happy to support an interesting project in development.
I'm unsure if my sub includes use of the mobile version too, I would think that would be fair to include as well.
Hey MarkB,
We are actually planning to attach the Microstockr Pro to the Mobile subscription in the near future. So, if you pay for Pro you get the Mobile subscription included. Pay once, use twice. That should add more value to the Pro subscription, while making it cheaper at the same time.
Cheers.
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There is still a problem with figures. The three agencies I have noticed are Shutterstock, Bigstock and iStock. Look at the number of downloads and Microstockr has fewer recorded. I haven't checked any other agencies.
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I've been using Microstockr since the very beginning and always liked it. Unfortunately, because of what iStock did and because some small agencies not supported by Microstockr started working well for me (eg Canva), the app currently reflects only some 70% of my microstock income and almost all of that is SS and Fotolia.
With the amount of images I have online, organizing into Collections is too laborious for me, so I can't use those.
There is still huge benefit in the Match All function and sorting by Best Sellers. But on SS and Fotolia, I can see the best sellers on the dashboard.
So, while Microstockr is a really nice app, it more of a "nice to have" sort of app for me. I got very used to it and I might change my mind, but sorry, at the moment I can't justify paying subscription.
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Hi Microstockr! I am in love with your app since the first day I use it last year.
Especially the "collections" feature. It helps a lot to analyze my item statistic.
Super great impressive job.
Anyway, I have a suggestion that probably could improve this app more.
I am a vector contributor that have a diverse type of categories . Kindly please consider to add this into your next update.
I am also ok if you raise the price a bit to add this (now you know its really important for me) LOL.
Or do let me know if you can create this custom request for me.
What I need:
1. The ability to sort "Collections" by alphabet title and sales (both asc and desc similar to what you have now in the "download" section tab).
2. The ability to create a child sub collection inside a parent collections. For example, if I create a collection "logo vector", i would like to have/create another sub collections under logo vector that will have something like "health logo, animal logo, classic logo and etc". By having this, my categories will be more organized (logo, icon, print, greetings card, character, alphabet, hand drawing, watercolor, badges, and etc). It will be great also if both parent and child collections have sales total as what we have now.
3. The ability to total the whole collection. For example if I have 7 collections in, it will be handy if there is an area that can sum up the total of collection 1-7 sales. Same goes with the sub collections (child). If in my sub collections child folder have 10, there should be a location where it show the total of sale from sub collections 1-10.
4. It will be nice also if in each collection, we can see a pie chart where it show how many percentage from shutterstock, adobe, 123rf and etc. Probably you can hide this in the monthly statistic area as a slide that user can navigate using paging bullet
Thats all, 1-3 is the most important thing, thank you!
Hey guys,
First of all, thank you for everyone who has been a Beta user. It is probably our fault for not communicating our appreciation of them well enough, maybe through a bigger discount. Lesson learned.
We wanted to make a few mentions, maybe to clarify things a bit.
1. The market for microstock photography is comprised of thousands of contributors out of which only a fraction are willing to pay for a software helping with sales tracking. This means there's a cap to the number of subscribers we'll probably have and a certain price we cannot go below for this project to be worthwhile. We have thought about the prices long and hard for over 2 years. We have even contacted a few marketing and pricing specialists so we'd have an amount that's affordable to as many people as possible. This is very close to as low as we can go, to support us the creators of this software and the infrastructure/hardware needed. Developing this requires expert level design and IT skills and A LOT of time. None of which comes cheaply. But we are stock photographers ourselves and this product is our baby.
2. Microstockr Pro is definitely a niche product. Since the market is so small, no big company will enter and develop such an app because it is not worth it. Hence, comparing our app to Photoshop and Lightroom which have a mainstream market of millions of users is not really fair. Adobe does not have any competition and can charge whatever they want. The reason, we think, they charge $9.99 for Photoshop & Lightroom is because a lot of people would use their software illegally anyway, so why not grab a piece of that market too? They can afford it and it's a smart move.
Not many people remember that only a couple of years ago Photoshop cost $699 and you also had to pay a few hundred dollars for every update.
Comparing this to Microstockr Pro is like comparing apples and oranges. What if Adobe decided to charge $4.99 instead? Following that logic no other product should be more expensive since it's not more complex. It is called dumping price and is used by dominant players to control the market.
3. The agencies change all the time. Our app will never be a finished product because it will always require updates and adjustments. Hence development will never cease. In order to support it, we needed a subscription based model and a steady income to support it. Otherwise, we would've charged once and considering the market is small, when the cash ran out development ceased. So, in a way, subscription was the only way to go.
Hope this perspective clears things up a bit and helps others see things from our side too.
Cheers.
-
Hey guys,
First of all, thank you for everyone who has been a Beta user. It is probably our fault for not communicating our appreciation of them well enough, maybe through a bigger discount. Lesson learned.
We wanted to make a few mentions, maybe to clarify things a bit.
1. The market for microstock photography is comprised of thousands of contributors out of which only a fraction are willing to pay for a software helping with sales tracking. This means there's a cap to the number of subscribers we'll probably have and a certain price we cannot go below for this project to be worthwhile. We have thought about the prices long and hard for over 2 years. We have even contacted a few marketing and pricing specialists so we'd have an amount that's affordable to as many people as possible. This is very close to as low as we can go, to support us the creators of this software and the infrastructure/hardware needed. Developing this requires expert level design and IT skills and A LOT of time. None of which comes cheaply. But we are stock photographers ourselves and this product is our baby.
2. Microstockr Pro is definitely a niche product. Since the market is so small, no big company will enter and develop such an app because it is not worth it. Hence, comparing our app to Photoshop and Lightroom which have a mainstream market of millions of users is not really fair. Adobe does not have any competition and can charge whatever they want. The reason, we think, they charge $9.99 for Photoshop & Lightroom is because a lot of people would use their software illegally anyway, so why not grab a piece of that market too? They can afford it and it's a smart move.
Not many people remember that only a couple of years ago Photoshop cost $699 and you also had to pay a few hundred dollars for every update.
Comparing this to Microstockr Pro is like comparing apples and oranges. What if Adobe decided to charge $4.99 instead? Following that logic no other product should be more expensive since it's not more complex. It is called dumping price and is used by dominant players to control the market.
3. The agencies change all the time. Our app will never be a finished product because it will always require updates and adjustments. Hence development will never cease. In order to support it, we needed a subscription based model and a steady income to support it. Otherwise, we would've charged once and considering the market is small, when the cash ran out development ceased. So, in a way, subscription was the only way to go.
Hope this perspective clears things up a bit and helps others see things from our side too.
Cheers.
I think you should listen more to your subscribers and not the marketing "specialists", they are wrong so many times. I would consider to buy subscription if it was 1/3 of the price and probably many more would do. I pay for you mobile app, so I'm willing to pay, if the price is reasonable. It doesn't seem to me logical to sell it for this price. I wonder how many users you loose now, those who could be your prospective customers. Vast majority of microstock contributors are earning less than $150/month, those you will loose almost all. You will keep those who are at 500$/month maybe and you also compete with stockperformer for them. How many of such microstock contributors are there left? 1/1000?. I believe you could go with the price to 1/3 and earn much more. If it works in stock photography business, why wouldn't it work with the app like this. I wonder how would it affect infrastructure cost? App is self standing with its own database. It probably use microstock sites apis to acquire data. So it's not your infrastructure. I don't know what cost is for api, but it's not usually too much. So what is your infrastructure? Website and cloud storage where users download app and updates. I'm experienced web developer so I know that's not that expensive, also you have been paying for all that infrastructure until now. I understand stockperformer's price, as they store and process data on their own servers, which require far greater infrastructure, and they didn't have competition. Well, I'm sorry you haven't asked users for their opinions on price and I am sorry I have to part with the app, as it was great for me.
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Hello! Sorry for the old thread. I just renewed my Pro account after some time without it, but I'm having problems with the iStock info. It shows my money but not the downloaded photos. I've loged in and out and also I did the "rebuild agency database" but nothing happened. I contacted them but meanwhile anyone has the same problem?
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Hello! Sorry for the old thread. I just renewed my Pro account after some time without it, but I'm having problems with the iStock info. It shows my money but not the downloaded photos. I've loged in and out and also I did the "rebuild agency database" but nothing happened. I contacted them but meanwhile anyone has the same problem?
I think they may have just updated it to fix that.
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Hello! Sorry for the old thread. I just renewed my Pro account after some time without it, but I'm having problems with the iStock info. It shows my money but not the downloaded photos. I've loged in and out and also I did the "rebuild agency database" but nothing happened. I contacted them but meanwhile anyone has the same problem?
I think they may have just updated it to fix that.
Yes, it was on their side :)
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