Quote from: tickstock on March 16, 2015, 10:10

New facebook ad from SS, unfortunately when you click through you get a 404 error "Doh!".  I guess they'll get that sorted out soon.  It will be interesting to see if the pricing has changed now that they say "we offer the lowest price per image in the entire industry."
"New Flexible Plans. No daily download limits!"
http://www.shutterstock.com/pclp?id=FBUSSAVE

Does that link lead to the offer you're talking about?  If so, it's still in test. I see the 25-per-day pricing.

It does.  I would think you would get it or will very soon, this is some of the text and it says every member.  Maybe try clearing your cache first?:
Every member has access to our complete library of over 50 million royalty-free photos, illustrations, video clips, and music tracks - not to mention the largest vector collection in the industry.


One Collection
All Access
Unbiased Search
Flexible Plans
No Daily Limits
100% Royalty Free

If they are removing the daily limit, it is either because they believe it will make no difference, OR because their detailed research suggests it will result in fewer downloads. 

Hopefully they didn't devise this plan to make you get less downloads.

Quote from: tickstock on March 15, 2015, 19:32

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on March 15, 2015, 16:06

I just don't see this as a big change for contributors or for existing customers; it does take one item off any checklists of those comparing iStock and Shutterstock when considering which subscriptions to buy, and that may be the primary goal - remove potential objections.

That's probably why they did it but I think it will definitely result in buyers downloading more, if it wouldn't then why would SS have this restriction in the first place?

When they started, SS offered unlimited images - check the Wayback machine for November 2004 and you'll see this:

"Where stylish stock photography meets the subscription model! Just sign up for a plan, pay one low fee, and download as many images as you need. All of our photos are royalty-free and subject to a single licensing agreement"

The one low fee was $90 a month and they boasted that they added 2,878 images in the last week.

They quickly figured out this wouldn't work and by June 2005 they had the 750 a month limit. Price was $139 a month and they added 4,618 photos the prior week. The collection was just under 200K images. By October 2006 they added the 25 a day limit (price was then $159 and they were over 1 million images). I'm guessing with the growth came some heavy downloaders they needed to discourage.

Back then, they would put the price up, wait a few weeks and then decide what they'd pay us. They needed to see what happened with download patterns before they set our royalty.

At this point they have over a decade's worth of download numbers and the subscription part of their business is less and less important as time goes by. Back then it was 100% of their business and if they effed it up by overpaying contributors they'd have gone out of business.

I have no details on their data, but I'm guessing they see clients who regularly don't download their 25 a day as well as skip weekend downloads, so there's no reason to believe they'd change anything if the daily limit were lifted. And if their overall business in any way looks like my split between subs and everything else, subscriptions are now about 40% of their business. They can afford to give this a try and always put the cap back on if something bad were to happen

I'm not saying I think everyone will download the maximum now and it will be a disaster for SS.  I'm saying their margins will be slimmer because there will be more downloads per user.  They've said many times that they like to pay out about 30% for all products, if this plan means they are paying out 40% what do shareholders say?  Do they eat the loss in profit or do they try to make it up by raising prices or cutting royalties?  Maybe buyers will only download 1% more but I doubt it, if it wouldn't make any real difference then SS would have had this more user friendly approach for a long time.  It will make a difference to their margins what they do in response will be what's interesting.

SS is known for rolling out tests for limited number of users. They do A/B tests, etc, you of all should know this. Before anything is rolled out globally, you wont see changes on the website. Tickstock could shut every body up here by posting a screenshot.

Quote from: tickstock on March 15, 2015, 12:03

No conspiracy, they have already started selling them.  I have been offered this new subscription and people have been talking about it on twitter, so I know I'm not the only one.

I think I have the same thing ruxpriencdiam has.  It says 750/month and when you click through it still says that with no mention of 25/day.  As I mentioned earlier SS already acknowledged it on twitter. 

Can I just point out how disingenuous the title of this thread is? If you're first reading it you might think SS is ending subs. All they're doing is lifting the 25-per-day-limit, but keeping the monthly limit, the pricing, everything else the same. In other words, it's just a marketing tactic to attract new customers. They're not lowering prices, they're not changing what we get paid, they're not ending anything, they're not giving any more content to customers. (In fact, this might just be a test.)

I think once customers know that some people are getting 750/month they will ask for that rather than the 25/day model.  It seems that once they start this they probably will have to do it for everyone.  How would you feel getting the worse subscription plan while other people are paying the same for the better one?

I see nothing on their forum. Strange, such a change should generate a very active discussion I think

Might be that new or a small trial?

I'm sure their test showed this offer was more attractive and would get more people to sign up. The number of DLs per month has stayed the same.

Yes I'm sure it's more attractive because customers will download more.  I doubt you know what downloads per customer are for these new subscriptions since they just started.  Over the next few months, if it is rolled out to most customers then I would expect downloads to go up.  I don't think you will see anything on the first few days it's rolled out to a small percentage of customers.

Big difference between SS and iS: When iS offers discounts you make less, but when SS offers discounts they still pay you the same amount.

That's not true.  When SS offers a discount on enterprise sales those discounts "flow" to the contributor as has been said before.  You get a percentage of what the customer paid for those sales.  Subs pay a set rate but that is the same at iStock too.  I'm assuming discounts to image packs also "flow" to the contributor but if you have something specific that says those discounts don't then please do post a link to that.

Quote from: tickstock on March 15, 2015, 10:38

Like I said they are probably showing different things to different people.  For me, right now, they are saying 750 images per month with no mention of 25 a day.  I would be willing to bet I'm not the only one seeing this.

Mine shows daily limits as others are saying.

Much better than the iStock pricing page which delivers a server error for me these days because iStock fails to geo locate my IP address. The only way I can get to the pricing page is via a VPN in a different country. I raised this on their bug thread and was told to open a support ticket. As if !

Check out twitter people are tweeting about it now.  "I really like the new format from @Shutterstock! 750/month instead of 25/day is awesome!"  that was favorited by Shutterstock.

Shutterstock hasn't lowered their prices. Instead they're going after the midstock market and charging higher prices for big customers.

I've seen Shutterstock offering a lot of discounts in the past couple months.  20% off image packs or subscriptions and now it appears they are offering a monthly subscription instead of a daily one.   I think it's great if you are getting some higher priced sales, it seems from most of the comments I've seen on here that those are rare and may be getting rarer.  If yours are up then great.  One off sales aren't going to move the market much though, it's the very low average price that is doing it.

Pete I think you are replying in the wrong thread but what I see is different.  This the text from what I'm being shown, there is nothing here or anywhere I can find that mentions 25/day. 

Subscribe and Save

Try our most popular plan and get 750 images a month, every month
1 YearSAVE 20% $199/month

Quote from: tickstock on March 14, 2015, 09:57

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on March 14, 2015, 08:52

Plus the Essentials Subscription includes 750 images a month for $166. $.22 cents per image. Great for buyers, horrible for contributors.

Looks like Shutterstock got rid of daily limits too, is that new?

not in my browser

This is all I see:  "Try our most popular plan and get 750 images a month, every month" no mention of a daily limit anywhere.

I thought it was obvious I was talking about the door shots that were rejected, those shots even if shot a little better to make them technically acceptable would have very little chance of making any money.  They aren't that useful.  The yellow door can be used for advertising, it has copyspace, bright colors, an interesting focus while the rejected doors you thought should have been accepted don't.  That's why those should have been rejected and even if accepted wouldn't sell anyway.