Hi,

I just want to make a calculation for myself. Maybe later I let you know about my idea.
For that I need the information as follows (I forgot to save that info in the past, sorry):

BEFORE shutterstock changed everything in June 2020:

Lowest revenue for contributors were 25 Cent, isn�t it? (Lowest level/ 20 or 25%?)

That time already exist subscrition which were that cheap -if used - and shutterstock paid 25 Cent to the contributors, then shutterstock makes a minus.
Which subscrition THAT time was just okay for shutterstock in that way, that they did not have a minus, but plus min, if paying the contributors that 25 Cent?

Does anybody here remember that?

To make it short:
How much a customer had to pay per image, if using the best subscrition and contributors getting their 25 Cent and shutterstock earns without minus.

I hope, you got me LOL

Okay, i will include it in my calculation.

Okay, to the point and what is in my mind:

IF there would be an existing agency with good enough SEO and so on, so sales would be really okay - might be not same like SS, maybe more similar to Adobe or so.
If this agency would give us a garancy of minimum 25 cent per sale like SS did in the past.
1) Which subs they could offer to customer without loosing money?

22%?
Okay lets make it easy: lets say 25%.
So the lowest price for the customer would be 1 $, so the contributor could get his minimum of 25 Cent, right?
1 $ nowadays is totally to much?
Who buys these very very big subs? Big firms, who already have enough money and usually could say: No matter, if one image cost 1 $, right?
But they buy hundreds, because it is so cheap and easy. But at least they really use only 2 from 100 images? So they also do not care, if they do not use the full subs of 750 images or whatever.
And that all only because the ones who searching for the right images, cannot decide directly, if they need this or that image?

2) If this agency promise us 50%, then the real price for the customer would be 50 cent instead of 1 $. Cheaper than in 1) and nicer for the contributors too, getting 50% - even still the same 25 cent.

3) The problem is, that on pond5 the price for biggest image size is minimum 5 $ and 2,50 $ for the contributor.
Depending on each image, I would not care to get only 25 cent for most of my images, but some I would like to get money like on 'alamy (in the past). On pond5 we could control it OURSELVE by setting our own price and we can go up and down - follow the market.
Yes, pond5 will never promote the photos on their site, we know. But if pond5 does not want to do it - and we have to respect their decision, why do not WE promote it?
But HOW?
Lets think, what we could do to get more customer to pond5 and buy our photos there! If suddenly many more customer also buy photos on pond5, that would not be a problem for pond5, isn�it?

I know, after SS the idea about pond5 grow also and here again in me.

But let us really think seriously, how we all together could get more Photo customer to pond5! If we find good ideas, THEN MAYBE more contributor are brave to move to pond5.

Maybe like this: Photos we not care about we still offer on that cheap agencies. But our better images (Alamy exclusive images for example), we sell on pond5.

BUT WE NEED CUSTOMER for PHOTOS on pond5!

And HOPEFULLY pond5 at the end also see their profit and our engagement and finally invest more in promoting their photo site.

Well, just a dream! Or not?
Sorry for the long text.

The only alternative would be a new agency, but thats the worst idea, I think.

@kall3bu

We don't get a percentage, we get a minimum of 10� for subs. We do get a percentage of other sales. These are two different matters.

Levels (which stink because they reset every Jan.) are 15-20-25-30% for some sales. We used to get a percentage based on lifetime download dollars, not number of downloads.

Now about subs. We used to get a minimum of 25� until someone earned $500 which is roughly 2,000 download at 25�. Pretty simple. Lifetime earnings.

Now we get a minimum of 10�

Please read this carefully. Look at the third column, where the price the buyer pays is shown:



Most of our sales come from the 350 and 750 packs. Who is that and why? I haven't seen any good answers. But start at the 350 pack with the highest price for a buyer, where they pay SS 57� an image. The commission for those downloads at 15% would be = .855 cents. Less than 10 cents. Now look at the most expensive 750 pack. 33� an image, we'd get we'd get .0495 cents per download. Instead we get 10 cents.

If you care to look at the sales that don't have pink or yellow in the top 12 rows, we get paid the percentage as promised.

Yes, if we had an agency that sold images for a flat fee and we got a fixed percentage and could earn more for more sales, that would be interesting. In that case, 50% is a fair number.

You might want to look at Wirestock, because they are adding direct sales from their platform, at a fixed rate, paying us a fixed fee. None of the old foolishness of what size image, which might have mattered in real photo, but realistically, digital? Hopefully they will never introduce any subscription plan! Or if they do, it will still be a couple dollars and image, minimum.

Yes, I know about this, how it works. but at least you gave me the information I needed:
That means: If there would be a agency giving us 50% and sell images in subscriptioin (not only of course!) for 350, that means we would get our 25 Cent - well in real 28,5 Cent. and even if offering 750, we still would get 16,5 Cent, if paid 50%. (Still more than 10 cent now on SS)

I guess, I know what you mean about the direct sales via wirestock - the ones which they wanted to include the extra channels, isn�t it? And there we get not the 15% cut, but �only� a percentage, but that could be big money depending on who is buying it. Or did I miss something?

Quote from: Uncle Pete on May 23, 2021, 13:32

If you care to look at the sales that don't have pink or yellow in the top 12 rows, we get paid the percentage as promised.

Is that actually a percentage of the revenue like Adobe offer with their new plan for Creative Cloud for Teams and Enterprises? If not what is it a percentage of?

A percentage of the actual license price paid by the person/account that downloads that image. Nothing else implied. If they pay $10 and we're at 25%, we would get $2.50 for that download. If they pay $1 we would get a quarter.

My only point is we get a percentage, not a fixed payment. While the subs we get a number, not a percentage for almost everything in the 350 and 750 packs. The percentage would be below the minimum promised, if it was a percentage.

Example, 750, no contract, the buyer pays .33 per image. We would get .8250 per download at a real 25%. No I'm not thankful and grateful for getting a dime instead of 38 cents. Just doing the math.

(yes I know, we are paid on the total possible downloads, not real actual download numbers. While iStock takes a month or more to credit us for the real download number and has a 2 cents minimum! And a fixed rate of 15%. Just a matter of everyone screwing with us at different rates in different ways.)