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Author Topic: Shutterstock One-Day Subscription  (Read 12224 times)

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« on: March 21, 2008, 07:44 »
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Take a look over here: http://www.shutterstock.com/subscribe.mhtml

You can subscribe for one day which is new, download 25 images and pay 29 Euros. 29 Euros are currently $ 44.95.
That means the customer has to pay $1.80/ image. I as a photographer if I am over the $500 mark receive $0.30.
That is ~16,7% commission!! Even lower than IS.

So does that mean we are looking forward to a huge raise in May?

I just calculated for the cheapest/image subscription:
1 year = 2049 Euro= $3175 = 25X365 images
If the user uses it fully that means ~ he pays about 35 cents/image, which seems fair to me if the photographer receives 30 cents :-)
But of course the customer most likely will use it on weekends and holidays as well as on some days he might just forget to download the 25 images. I would be very interested in the real commission a photographer receives.



« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2008, 08:43 »
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From a photographer's point of view, this is a very negative development. It means that low-volume downloaders, who have so far paid $5+ per HiRes image, giving us a relatively healthy profit, are now able to get the cheaper subscription downloads as well, leaving very little for us, unless we get a special deal on these downloads.

« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2008, 08:55 »
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uhm I am not sure how I feel about those new products. Obviously SS will have to make some good changes in our comissions in may, they did mention so ......

I guess we will have to sit patiently and wait.

Freezingpictures:
I am on a subscription site which gives 50% to the photographer. Normally I get 0.65-0.75 per download. So I guess shutterstock is giving us about 20% comission from the gross sales they make. Numbers match up since ELs cost $100 and we get $20.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2008, 09:00 by andresr »

« Reply #3 on: March 21, 2008, 09:02 »
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For sure subscriptions are very bad for photographers.
In case where customer buy subscription for one year than die in car crash we get nothing  ;D  
We should be to pay according to the size of portfolio (50%) AND number of  sold photographs (50%).

« Reply #4 on: March 21, 2008, 09:52 »
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Take a look over here: http://www.shutterstock.com/subscribe.mhtml

You can subscribe for one day which is new, download 25 images and pay 29 Euros. 29 Euros are currently $ 44.95.
That means the customer has to pay $1.80/ image. I as a photographer if I am over the $500 mark receive $0.30.
That is ~16,7% commission!! Even lower than IS.


When I go to the link, I don't see a daily subscription?!?!

I only see subscriptions that start at 1 month.

jsnover

« Reply #5 on: March 21, 2008, 11:01 »
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Likewise - I don't see a 1 day option on that page? Does that mean they deleted it or does it only show in certain markets?

I wasn't best pleased when I noticed a while back that the extended licenses were offered in more packages than originally set up. The highest price (per image) choice gives us the same commission as the lowest (per image) extended license.

I have a hard time imagining someone would buy extended licenses and then not use them, so especially with these, it's very hard to swallow getting such a small percentage of what SS takes in.

If a daily subscription was a one-time thing for people who'd never signed up before (i.e. you can't ever get it again), it'd make more sense to me than offering it as an option over and over to the same account.

« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2008, 11:58 »
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I see both new products: the 1-day subscription costing 29 Euros (25/day) and the 1-week subscription costing 79 Euros (10/day).

p.s.: Personally I don't care at all what sale strategies they adopt. The only thing that matters to us is income (not even submitter percentages). Shutterstock as of now is doing ok, even if I'm feeling big, big fluctuations on a daily basis, the review times are getting longer (and more importantly: unpredictable) and the image lifespan getting shorter. Definitely not optimistic facts, but if they raise the per-download income enough and if the sales stabilize, I'm ok with it (no matter the products).

One more thing: What I certainly don't like is, on the other hand, the traffic analysis of SS on Alexa: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/shutterstock.com. Especially compared to iStock (which has almost a 4x rating) or by checking the 3-year stats.

dbvirago

« Reply #7 on: March 21, 2008, 12:06 »
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You want to see something interesting, put in shutterstock and dreamstime for 3 years.
or 5
« Last Edit: March 21, 2008, 12:10 by dbvirago »

helix7

« Reply #8 on: March 21, 2008, 14:53 »
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The aproximate commission that SS pays out has been debated before, but I think it is generally the lowest in the business regardless of what the average really is. Yuri estimated it at somewhere around 10-15% if I recall, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was accurate.

It's terrible, and unfortunately we'd be fools to be in micorstock and not work with SS because of the overall good earnings. But just imagine how much better those earnings would be if they paid a fair commission.


« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2008, 17:22 »
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one day  subscriptions? I don't think it could be called subscriptions,but it just be buffet ,eat as much as you can(almost) that doesn't sound great to me,I hope not they will  go in to this.

« Reply #10 on: March 21, 2008, 18:57 »
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This subject can be debated ad infinitum.

My view is: low commissions give the agency spare budget to spend heavily on advertising - hence the low commissions at IS and SS for many people translate into the highest actual income.

At the other end of the scale is an agency like Featurepics - high commissions, no money left for anything else.  Result: low sales, low income.

« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2008, 20:19 »
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This subject can be debated ad infinitum.

My view is: low commissions give the agency spare budget to spend heavily on advertising - hence the low commissions at IS and SS for many people translate into the highest actual income.

At the other end of the scale is an agency like Featurepics - high commissions, no money left for anything else.  Result: low sales, low income.

True, but is that what's happening here? More and more we seem to be seeing agencies desperately offering lower and lower prices, to grab business from one another, resulting in less overall income for us.

Too many agencies at the moment, IMHO.

Too many photographers too, I daresay :) Some of you will have to give up ;)

Linda
« Last Edit: March 21, 2008, 20:24 by Travelling-light »

« Reply #12 on: March 21, 2008, 20:43 »
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"Desperately offering lower and lower prices...."

Really?  Where have you seen that?  If anything the opposite is true - big price increases recently at BigStock, Istock, Fotolia.

What is dragging income down is the subscription agencies - yes, they are fighting amongst themselves, waiting to see what SS will do in May, and in the process they are all devaluing their businesses.

I said it many months ago and I'll say it again - the more agencies that are launched, and the more they squabble amongst themselves trying to scrape an income from the tail end of the market, the more the genuine high volume customers will get fed up and go to Istock (or to DT or FT).

None of these new agencies will take customers from the big players; 80% of the market has gone to the big guys and all the new agencies are fighting for the remaining 20%.

I expect to see more and more quality photographers go exclusive at iStock.  And the agencies will only have themselves to blame.

« Reply #13 on: March 21, 2008, 21:41 »
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"Desperately offering lower and lower prices...."

Really?  Where have you seen that?  If anything the opposite is true - big price increases recently at BigStock, Istock, Fotolia.

What is dragging income down is the subscription agencies - yes, they are fighting amongst themselves, waiting to see what SS will do in May, and in the process they are all devaluing their businesses.

I said it many months ago and I'll say it again - the more agencies that are launched, and the more they squabble amongst themselves trying to scrape an income from the tail end of the market, the more the genuine high volume customers will get fed up and go to Istock (or to DT or FT).

None of these new agencies will take customers from the big players; 80% of the market has gone to the big guys and all the new agencies are fighting for the remaining 20%.

I expect to see more and more quality photographers go exclusive at iStock.  And the agencies will only have themselves to blame.

Yes, I meant the subscription sites.


lisafx

« Reply #14 on: March 21, 2008, 22:17 »
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I expect to see more and more quality photographers go exclusive at iStock.  And the agencies will only have themselves to blame.

Well most of your posts give the impression you are already on that track.  What's the holdup? Are you waiting out your 6 months on DT? 

Personally I would not consider going exclusive on istock with their being in a constant state of flux.  First Getty brought big and somewhat unwelcome changes and now there are new owners only a couple of years later.  How long will the new owners hold onto it before passing it on to the next bidder?  And what havoc will they wreak in the meantime? 

No thanks, I like security, and just like in the other kind of stock market, that only comes with diversification.

helix7

« Reply #15 on: March 22, 2008, 00:13 »
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None of these new agencies will take customers from the big players; 80% of the market has gone to the big guys and all the new agencies are fighting for the remaining 20%.

The last published statistics I saw in Graphic Design USA suggested that only about 50% of graphic designers have even tried a microstock agency at all. So there is still plenty for all of the agencies to fight over. They don't even need to worry too much about converting people to their agency. There are still many new users to be sold.

I expect to see more and more quality photographers go exclusive at iStock.  And the agencies will only have themselves to blame.

If SS went out of business, then yes I'd probably go exclusive at istock. Short of that happening, exclusivity and me are not likely to pair up. So far this month SS is my top earner. In order for exclusivity to make financial sense, istock would need to be top earner and represent 60% or more of my total monthly earnings (accounting for monthly sales fluctuations, etc). And even then, I'd be extremely nervous about doing it. I'd also have to wait until hitting diamond to get that 40%, as anything less just doesn't make sense.

A lot of people think exclusivity is a great idea, and that's good for them. But a lot of people also crunch the numbers and know that for them it would mean a pretty significant pay cut, and I really doubt that too many people would be running to istock even if subscription sites start heading downhill.


« Last Edit: March 22, 2008, 00:14 by helix7 »

« Reply #16 on: March 22, 2008, 08:12 »
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SS is on a very good way to push the more advanced microstock photographers to IS exclusivity.


bravajulia

  • I will do it only for money!!
« Reply #17 on: March 24, 2008, 01:23 »
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I think SS customer is different from other sites customers. With subscrition he download, if he have a lot of time to spend on research, photos that he think will be useful for his job in the future, with many variable if there are, horizontal and vertical shot, etc., buying many photos that never will use. So I don't care too much about the per photo price, not more than selling photos in the microstock market, where customers buy for little something they will use dozens of time. I think the price for all the microstock sites are too low, raising it will never change the number of dowloads

« Reply #18 on: March 24, 2008, 05:10 »
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I wouldn't go expecting any great rate hike on the basis of SS's 25 shots for 29 Euros offer. They've set the price high on that because they know that anybody taking that offer up is definitely going to take all 25 pics.

As they have stated before, if customers on their normal packages took all they were entitled to they'd be running at a loss, so they aren't going give the submitters great big rises on the basis of a few people taking a one day special and probably disappearing, never to be seen again.

Come May, I predict they'll put the photographers cut up to 35c. And I wouldn't be surprised if they raise the minimum earnings requirement from $500 to $750 or even $1000 either.

As for the one day deal, try looking on the bright side. The reason you have to keep uploading to SS is because most of their regulars have already downloaded all your older shots. If they get plenty of one dayers you might find that your old stuff begins to pick up a few hits here and there. 

« Reply #19 on: March 25, 2008, 03:35 »
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I think SS is not going to push it much higher, maybe 35c or 40c but wouldnt be surprised with first $500 still with 25c. If they offer subscriptions in euros, they should pay in euros. $$ is dropping lower and lower and +5c per photo is not even covering the loss!


harry

« Reply #20 on: March 25, 2008, 05:28 »
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I think SS is not going to push it much higher, maybe 35c or 40c but wouldnt be surprised with first $500 still with 25c. If they offer subscriptions in euros, they should pay in euros. $$ is dropping lower and lower and +5c per photo is not even covering the loss!

I dont see why theyd raise it any more than the minimum. The benefit of only selling with a subscription is that no one really knows what percentage they take- so they can lower the percentage gradually over time and itll be hard for anyone to tell. The only problem with this is the number of people going exclusive with istock, but they are influenced by far more than shutterstock, so it makes sense for them to slowly lower the photographer's cut. I bet they rise only 5 cents at a time- now itll go up to 35 cents, and the only people who get that will be on a higher "canister"- you have to have something like 2500 dollars worth of past sales. That way they slowly add a canister system.

lisafx

« Reply #21 on: March 25, 2008, 15:36 »
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If they are going to add a tier above the 500 dl  threshold they already have then the higher producers should get at least .40.  And a minimum of .35 for everyone over 500. 

I must admit I will be disappointed if the raise is only a nickel after the substantial raise in their prices...

« Reply #22 on: March 25, 2008, 16:13 »
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I'm sure there will be lots of speculation on the pay increase leading up to May - I'd personally be in favor of adding extra tiers to the commission structure. It makes sense to reward longer term and more serious contributors who presumably also contribute a greater proportion of the best stock on the site. Theoretically it would be possible to introduce 2 or 3 more tiers to the equation - thereby offering serious contributors a decent enough increase, while keeping the overall cost of the increase in check.

I'd have thought it would be in the interest of the site to try to hold on to as many of the more experienced photographers who are considering IS exclusivity as an alternative.

Although there may well be greater fluctuations in earnings on IS at present, it still offers one big advantage that in my opinion hasn't been fully exploited yet - the potential to offer a progression to contribute to Getty for exclusives. For me if the equation starts to favour exclusivity on IS, I'd probably go that way and concentrate additional energies on developing a RM portfolio.

One other observation - Since I put my uploads to DT on hold about 9 weeks ago, I've haven't had any reduction in income.

« Reply #23 on: March 25, 2008, 16:14 »
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If they are going to add a tier above the 500 dl  threshold they already have then the higher producers should get at least .40.  And a minimum of .35 for everyone over 500. 

I must admit I will be disappointed if the raise is only a nickel after the substantial raise in their prices...

Totally agree.
Long time submitters/photogs should get at least some extra for their loyalty to the site.  And before the vector illustrators jump in with complaints, on most sites you guys are already getting more than photographers.  Oh where were the days that it was all about photography, jpg files to be uploaded.

Patrick.

« Reply #24 on: March 25, 2008, 16:57 »
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I hope Shutterstock will realise they have to change things quickly.
They are chasing away European customers by letting them pay in Euro with the current dollar rate, and pissing the contributors off by paying them in dollars ,and with a low commission on top of that.

lisafx

« Reply #25 on: March 25, 2008, 18:08 »
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I hardly think the fact they pay in dollars is pissing anyone off.  They are a US company after all.

Don't all the sites pay in dollars - even the ones headquartered in other countries?  What's so different about Shutterstock doing that? 

« Reply #26 on: March 25, 2008, 18:54 »
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I hardly think the fact they pay in dollars is pissing anyone off.  They are a US company after all.

Don't all the sites pay in dollars - even the ones headquartered in other countries?  What's so different about Shutterstock doing that? 

The conversion rates...  way things are going now on some sites they are earning on our back... 
For you Americans a dollar is a dollar... for us europeans a dollar has decreased 25 % in value compared to same period past year..... and on 1000 dollar that is 250 dollar, meaning 160 euro less for us.

While at the same time for us the cost of living  keeps increasing... etc... with almost no return/increase because of the dollar.

So, if charging in euro,  pay europeans in euro, fair deal.

Patrick.


« Reply #27 on: March 25, 2008, 19:03 »
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I hardly think the fact they pay in dollars is pissing anyone off.  They are a US company after all.

Don't all the sites pay in dollars - even the ones headquartered in other countries?  What's so different about Shutterstock doing that? 
Charging the customers in Euro's, that's the difference! None of the other agencies do that, not even the agencies who have an office in Europe, like Dreamstime and Stockxpert.

« Reply #28 on: March 25, 2008, 19:22 »
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I expect that they'll be pitching that particular offer to European customers. I'm sure that if they pitch it to UK customers it'll be in pounds sterling, and probably 25 pounds at that, which equates to around $50 US these days.

« Reply #29 on: March 26, 2008, 01:05 »
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I hardly think the fact they pay in dollars is pissing anyone off.  They are a US company after all.

Don't all the sites pay in dollars - even the ones headquartered in other countries?  What's so different about Shutterstock doing that? 
Charging the customers in Euro's, that's the difference! None of the other agencies do that, not even the agencies who have an office in Europe, like Dreamstime and Stockxpert.

I believe all the Scandinavian agencies charge and pay in Euro, even if Euro is not the currency in any of those countries. The German agencies also charge and pay in Euro.

« Reply #30 on: March 26, 2008, 01:38 »
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I believe all the Scandinavian agencies charge and pay in Euro, even if Euro is not the currency in any of those countries. The German agencies also charge and pay in Euro.

Yes, that's right! But I was talking about agencies who charge their customers another currency than that they pay their contributors. Please name any other agency than Shutterstock who does this, because I don't know any other.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2008, 01:40 by Gregor909 »

« Reply #31 on: March 26, 2008, 01:41 »
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I believe all the Scandinavian agencies charge and pay in Euro, even if Euro is not the currency in any of those countries. The German agencies also charge and pay in Euro.

Yes, that's right! But I was talking about agencies who charge their customers another currency than that they pay their contributors. Please name any other agency than Shutterstock who does this, because I don't know any other.

fotolia does.

« Reply #32 on: March 26, 2008, 01:52 »
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fotolia does.
Really? I didn't know that. I thought you could choose.
I gave up on Fotolia a while ago. So here's another good reason.

lisafx

« Reply #33 on: March 26, 2008, 11:41 »
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Istock was doing that for awhile too, but stopped based on an outcry from contributors who thought (correctly IMHO) that it was unfair.

I certainly do see your point about it being unfair to charge in one currency and pay in a cheaper one.

« Reply #34 on: March 26, 2008, 14:22 »
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It must be hard to keep all their currencies updated so perhaps they have an excuse but i bet if the US $$ was stronger they would make sure to change the amounts.

Currently for the 6 month plan they are charging US $1059
In norway they are charging NOK 7209 which is US $1,419.98

that is 1.33X as much.

« Reply #35 on: March 26, 2008, 15:33 »
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In the UK they are charging 809 which is US $1626.


 

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