What a fun post with so many amusing comments from everyone! 

Sympathies on the loss of the business.  My 2c would be to keep the relationship open and bide your time.. do-it-for-free photographers can often have short life spans and you may be back in business when that happens.

.. is the ridiculous RPD that makes it worthless for me to upload to them anymore!

I honestly preferred the older days when you got fewer downloads but at rates that held a modicum of respectability. 

With the change I gained nothing.  My overall revenues did not go up year on year, and, to add insult to injury, the RPD has fallen flat on its face.  Cant understand, what kind of a strategy is that!!?! 

Yep, its a bit complicated to come up with a fair price   

For one thing, other contributors are in a fairly wide range of pricing. On another point, I couldn't really find EL type licensing option which leads one to believe that a buyer has fairly liberal usage rights - thus price should be on higher side. 

It also seems that Pond5 sells footage a lot more than images at the moment.  Does a lower expectation of sales volume  justify higher pricing? I tend to think so. 

And the final push - it has to be said - microstock is eating itself down to the bone with such miserable rates at many (most) agencies that its nearly not worth the effort of shooting, processing, keywording and uploading images any more - not too much longer anyway if this trend continues ... 

Here then is an opportunity to price to more decent levels, and to try get a fair return on the creativity and work involved in the production of microstock images.  Kudos to Pond5 for that !! and I hope more agencies follow a reversal of the rate-dumping that's become pretty rampant at the moment.  Instead of chasing rates DOWN there's a need for the agencies to start building rates back up based on their individual market strengths and content style/ quality, whatever!  So that they can make money easier and, just as importantly, contributors can get a much more fairer return.

Plus.. the subscription model needs to die - unless it can be supported with huge (and I mean really HUGE) volume of sales. Or at least the contributors should have an opt out option on it.

Just starting with Pond5 and finding life somewhat confusing at the moment 

How (and HOW exactly) does one set the price of an image?  The Upload section has a Price box with a default $ 1 already featuring in it.  What exactly does that mean? What size is that for? How does it influence all other sizes/ licenses of the image?

Any help much appreciated 

Anyone know about them? Or has used them?

http://art-profiles.com/

While they get downloads, I find them frequently disappointing on RPD - my port has certainly seen better days on 123RF!

The Trevi fountain in Rome or a Town Hall on an island in Scandinavia - can these be commercially featured in a photographer's (non-editorial) stock port?  Or are there specific restrictions/ and copyright issues to clarify with regards to landmarks, monuments, buildings etc?

Shutterstock (most helpfully) posts a list of sites and locations where specific restrictions apply.  However I imagine that this list cant be fully exhaustive - thus bringing back the question - how does one know which locations may be copyright protected.  Are there any general guidelines one can follow?

I got paid 13th December (Paypal) so I think the payment date problem in sporadic and not across the board.  However RPD/ income on 123RF has declined significantly for me in most recent months so not happy with overall performance.. its like the more you upload the less you make on RPD.   

Pity.. when I first started with 123RF few years ago I was so optimistic about this site!

During the course of this year I've more or less stopped new uploads to,

IS, GL, Alamy, Veer, Bigstock - reasons were either related to their operating policies or dire lack of sales (or both).

In the bright New Year my focus will be to try and spot agencies with fresh and innovative marketing approaches - that go beyond dumping rates as fast as possible to sub levels and thereby progressively destroying the entire income structure.  I dont know if I'll find any - but, one day, who knows!  Or perhaps one of the above existing ones will come back on.  One lives in hope of better things I guess 

Received an acceptance email as well.

1.  Refreshing to see that pricing and commission structure is not overly defensive as it completely avoids the ridiculous sub. commissions of so many other sites.

2. Interesting to note from the guideline their preference for more natural shots versus the studio isolates so common in microstock.

Two great positives there - the clear market approach and a fair, more logical pricing and commission (esp on subscription packages)

Wishing them great luck in the marketplace.

Condolences and heartfelt sympathies for Mark and all the other loved ones lost during the recent holiday season.  May they rest in peace and in a better world than the one they leave behind.

Am I the only one or is someone else seeing a drop (with a capital D) in sales at Veer?

While they've never been a high performer for me, however in recent months there seems to be a pretty noticeable slack off in downloads, and also the occasional better -rated downloads seem to have vanished.  Just wondering is it it just me.. or is this a trend that others have been noticing as well..