Author Topic: Image Pricing? (Read 10310 times)

Redneck · « **on:** August 16, 2013, 20:11 »

Would anybody like to discuss the pricing of image licenses?

I have seen many very good Symbiostock sites and yet I hesitate to add them to my network because I think they don't value their work enough. Why do most of you price a full size image at 300 dpi, which will obviously qualify for most print campaigns at $20 or less?
Whoever wants to do any prints will probably pay more for the printer (ink, labor, offset etc) than you charge for the most important part of the campaign. Why do you sell yourself that cheap?
I do understand the need for cheap blog sized images. Most bloggers are privateers and don't have the budget to pay double digit amounts for pictures.
But full sized print quality images?
They don't need to be priced at lowest microstock level, IMO. Print campaigns have a budget. Why make one of the most efficient parts of the campaign the cheapest one? There's no practical reason for it, IMO.

Let me hear what you guys think.

PhilD · « **Reply #1 on:** August 16, 2013, 21:47 »

I agree with Redneck.

It does seem that microstock prices do prevail on most Symbiostock sites. I can't fathom why the time, effort, creativity, etc. needed to create the images, as well as build and maintain an SY stock image business site is not valued more by their own creators/owners.

For serious image buyers the actual image price is only a part of their overall cost. They are investing time and money in searching and obtaining the exact image they need or want. Whether they pay $10 or $100 is not a deal breaker if they get the image they need/want. If they find the right image for $100 why would they reject it on the basis that it cost $100 and throw away their time already invested to go look for a $10 image that might not be really what they need/want?

Anita Potter · « **Reply #2 on:** August 16, 2013, 21:53 »

I've left mine all at the default pricing scheme and all I've seen with the sites I've looked at are either default or under. I don't think I've seen anything priced higher.

I do have things I'll be uploading after I get finished with the SEO part. Those will be individual and then I need to figure out the pricing to sell them as a zipped set.

I don't think I have an individual file I feel would be worth $100 but that doesn't mean I can't come up with one down the road.

Pilens · « **Reply #3 on:** August 16, 2013, 22:08 »

One part of my port is more or less all over the micros. How would I justify an e.g. 5 times higher price on my own site if a buyers finds out and sends me a nasty e-mail? So, I feel my Symbiostock site pricing needs to be in line with what the micros are charging. IMHO Leo's "default" price setting of the Symbiostock theme is right at that spot.

I kept the other part of my port off the micros. I am glad now that I can experiment on ImagoBorealis how that exclusive content will be doing in comparison. Original size price range for this "premium collection" is between $80 and $96 (for a RF type license).

I had one sale so far. It was an exclusive premium collection photo for $40 at 1600px medium size. I like to take this as encouragement to expand my premium collection, although I know that 1 sale is hardly a statistically reliable base to build on.

plrang · « **Reply #4 on:** August 17, 2013, 03:30 »

I am over the defaults

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #5 on:** August 17, 2013, 04:56 »

I am a little over the defaults I think, as all images on my site are now exclusive there and new ones have never been available elsewhere I have been considering going up a little

picture5469 · « **Reply #6 on:** August 17, 2013, 05:46 »

I reduced them by 40% but not that I have a mix of exclusive content and non exclusive and now I cant change them in bulk without changing the exclusivity status

cathyslife · « **Reply #7 on:** August 17, 2013, 06:56 »

Good point. Mine were at the default and i think i will raise them a little. And i am going to raise the exclusives a little more than that.

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #8 on:** August 17, 2013, 07:10 »

I should mention maybe that I have put one licence one use, not one licence and use for whatever you like forever more

easybuyphotos.com · « **Reply #9 on:** August 17, 2013, 08:36 »

I would love to price my photographs at higher prices..............but I have all my Easy Buy Photos on microstock sites and if I don't reflect that price level I'm undermining my Symbiostock site and wasting all this time and effort. I do have images with Alamy a lot exclusively there as RM and have not decided to put them on my Sy site. I hope Symbiostock will grow as a concept into a higher value marketplace but it has been born from a microstock idea of fair pricing for artists. We are after all discussing this thread on The Microstock Group.

marthamarks · « **Reply #10 on:** August 17, 2013, 12:17 »

Quote from: easybuyphotos.com on August 17, 2013, 08:36

I would love to price my photographs at higher prices..............but I have all my Easy Buy Photos on microstock sites and if I don't reflect that price level I'm undermining my Symbiostock site and wasting all this time and effort. I do have images with Alamy a lot exclusively there as RM and have not decided to put them on my Sy site. I hope Symbiostock will grow as a concept into a higher value marketplace but it has been born from a microstock idea of fair pricing for artists. We are after all discussing this thread on The Microstock Group.

That's my thinking, exactly. Everything up on my SYS site at this moment is for sale somewhere else. But starting this fall, I'll make some exclusive images available here, and will certainly price those higher.

picture5469 · « **Reply #11 on:** August 17, 2013, 12:30 »

I want to take off this 40% discount, but cant unless i do each file individually or when the premium plugin becomes available.

cthoman · « **Reply #12 on:** August 17, 2013, 12:43 »

Quote from: PhilD on August 16, 2013, 21:47

For serious image buyers the actual image price is only a part of their overall cost. They are investing time and money in searching and obtaining the exact image they need or want. Whether they pay $10 or $100 is not a deal breaker if they get the image they need/want. If they find the right image for $100 why would they reject it on the basis that it cost $100 and throw away their time already invested to go look for a $10 image that might not be really what they need/want?

$10 to $100 is a pretty big range. I think that would be a deal breaker in a lot of cases. I'm all for higher prices, but it definitely has to be something that makes sense too.

Redneck · « **Reply #13 on:** August 17, 2013, 13:54 »

Quote from: picture5469 on August 17, 2013, 12:30

I want to take off this 40% discount, but cant unless i do each file individually or when the premium plugin becomes available.

Yes you can. Just set the discount back to "00" and then "apply to all images".

picture5469 · « **Reply #14 on:** August 17, 2013, 13:59 »

Won't that also change exclusivity status?

I have some non exclusive and exclusive images

EmberMike · « **Reply #15 on:** August 17, 2013, 14:11 »

Quote from: Redneck on August 16, 2013, 20:11

...They don't need to be priced at lowest microstock level, IMO. Print campaigns have a budget. Why make one of the most efficient parts of the campaign the cheapest one? There's no practical reason for it, IMO...

Remember that even at standard microstock prices, Symbiostock site owners are still making out better than with the microstock agencies by not having to give up 50-80% of the cost of the image.

For me, the sweet spot for my vectors seems to be around $10-12. Sure that's pretty standard microstock fare, but in keeping 100% of each sale I'm doing far better than anywhere else while still keeping things within a reasonable range as compared to microstock.

Let's face it, people are well aware of microstock these days. I don't think we're going to attract a lot of buyers if we're pricing our stuff at double or more of what it goes for elsewhere.

Redneck · « **Reply #16 on:** August 17, 2013, 14:35 »

Quote from: picture5469 on August 17, 2013, 13:59

Won't that also change exclusivity status?

I have some non exclusive and exclusive images

No, I don't think so. I was afraid it would change the release status when I did this but it left it untouched.

Redneck · « **Reply #17 on:** August 17, 2013, 14:46 »

Quote from: EmberMike on August 17, 2013, 14:11

Quote from: Redneck on August 16, 2013, 20:11
...They don't need to be priced at lowest microstock level, IMO. Print campaigns have a budget. Why make one of the most efficient parts of the campaign the cheapest one? There's no practical reason for it, IMO...

Remember that even at standard microstock prices, Symbiostock site owners are still making out better than with the microstock agencies by not having to give up 50-80% of the cost of the image.

For me, the sweet spot for my vectors seems to be around $10-12. Sure that's pretty standard microstock fare, but in keeping 100% of each sale I'm doing far better than anywhere else while still keeping things within a reasonable range as compared to microstock.

Let's face it, people are well aware of microstock these days. I don't think we're going to attract a lot of buyers if we're pricing our stuff at double or more of what it goes for elsewhere.

I actually think an image will be purchased because the buyer likes/needs it. The price is not the main criteria.
And you can't really compare images since every one is unique. I also believe starting to price products aggressively will create a race to the bottom. We should instead price our products the way that both parties, artist and customer, get something with a certain value. With full sized images at 20 bucks or less the customer will probably pay more for the shipping of his products than for the image that has been printed a thousand times. How can he value what he purchased from you?

cthoman · « **Reply #18 on:** August 17, 2013, 15:21 »

Quote from: Redneck on August 17, 2013, 14:46

I actually think an image will be purchased because the buyer likes/needs it. The price is not the main criteria.
And you can't really compare images since every one is unique. I also believe starting to price products aggressively will create a race to the bottom. We should instead price our products the way that both parties, artist and customer, get something with a certain value. With full sized images at 20 bucks or less the customer will probably pay more for the shipping of his products than for the image that has been printed a thousand times. How can he value what he purchased from you?

I have bundled images that cost $80. They do sell, but fairly infrequently compared to my normal images (especially considering their value). I have to assume that some of that is budget/cost related. I was actaully thinking of opening a Symbio site with just those bundled images, but I wasn't sure if the site would pay for itself.

cathyslife · « **Reply #19 on:** August 17, 2013, 15:31 »

Quote from: cthoman on August 17, 2013, 15:21

I have bundled images that cost $80. They do sell, but fairly infrequently compared to my normal images (especially considering their value). I have to assume that some of that is budget/cost related. I was actaully thinking of opening a Symbio site with just those bundled images, but I wasn't sure if the site would pay for itself.

Could you add a second domain to your existing hosting account to see if it would be worth it? At least you wouldnt be paying for more hosting fees, only the domain name and your time spent building the site.

Travelling-light · « **Reply #20 on:** August 17, 2013, 16:00 »

Quote from: Redneck on August 17, 2013, 14:46

Quote from: EmberMike on August 17, 2013, 14:11
Quote from: Redneck on August 16, 2013, 20:11
...They don't need to be priced at lowest microstock level, IMO. Print campaigns have a budget. Why make one of the most efficient parts of the campaign the cheapest one? There's no practical reason for it, IMO...

Remember that even at standard microstock prices, Symbiostock site owners are still making out better than with the microstock agencies by not having to give up 50-80% of the cost of the image.

For me, the sweet spot for my vectors seems to be around $10-12. Sure that's pretty standard microstock fare, but in keeping 100% of each sale I'm doing far better than anywhere else while still keeping things within a reasonable range as compared to microstock.

Let's face it, people are well aware of microstock these days. I don't think we're going to attract a lot of buyers if we're pricing our stuff at double or more of what it goes for elsewhere.

I actually think an image will be purchased because the buyer likes/needs it. The price is not the main criteria.
And you can't really compare images since every one is unique. I also believe starting to price products aggressively will create a race to the bottom. We should instead price our products the way that both parties, artist and customer, get something with a certain value. With full sized images at 20 bucks or less the customer will probably pay more for the shipping of his products than for the image that has been printed a thousand times. How can he value what he purchased from you?

I think it's sometimes true that an image will be purchased because the buyer likes/needs it, but I also think there are many buyers who would rather have something cheap and good enough, than something better but more expensive. With so many photos available, you are limiting your sales by only having more expensive images.

We have two price levels on our site, and so far we have only sold the images at the lower price levels. In other words, we have earned far more from images that are cheap but good enough, than from ones we think are good

However we are keeping some of our files at higher prices because we think those particular files won't sell often enough to be worthwhile at lower prices, and those files won't be going on the micros. (Unless one of the micros brings in a good deal, which seems unlikely).

cascoly · « **Reply #21 on:** August 17, 2013, 17:45 »

I've priced my images under the defaults - my competition is with the microstock agencies, not with alamy & others that charge $50 or more.

http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=67 shows the average prices (a few sites haven't upgraded to the version that includes prices in the symbiocard). Until recently, all prices were similar, with one site set at more than 10x the average. but now there are 7 sites with a price of $30 or more for large. however average prices are down about 10% from what they were a month ago

PhilD · « **Reply #22 on:** August 17, 2013, 18:40 »

Quote from: cascoly on August 17, 2013, 17:45

- my competition is with the microstock agencies, not with alamy & others that charge $50 or more.

I have images on Alamy. But I really don't see Alamy as competition. The competition is to get our images seen by buyers that are looking for what we offer. Someone is always willing to take a little less - so to compete with agencies on price is a race to the bottom $.

It might surprise many to know that there is a potentially huge number of image buyers that are not really aware of "agencies" - micro or otherwise:

Ref para: Public Awareness of Stock Agencies in http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/myth-that-microstock-agencies-hurt.html

I thought perhaps one vision for Symbiostock was to provide us with a tool to break free to some degree of the agencies and their bottom feeder pricing and discounting.

CrackerClips · « **Reply #23 on:** August 17, 2013, 20:40 »

I've been giving a great deal of thought to this issue as well. I'm getting to the point in our site development that I will want to be turning on the network soon and I have some of the same concerns as Redneck. First let me say, to each their own. Symbiostock is giving everyone the opportunity to run their business in whatever manner works best for them. I fully support that and this is from my viewpoint only.

I come from a traditional stills background and know from experience that a single license can be worth many thousands of dollars. It doesn't happen these days as much as I'd like but it does still happen. My experience in the micro arena, outside of footage, comes from a few hundred images placed with the micro outlets over the last few years. I've learned from this experience that I can still make hundreds or even well over a thousand dollars from some micro images due to the increased volume of sales over time. So I wanted to approach our symbiosite with both ends of the market in mind.

Although I've priced some of our more basic images (photo objects & backgrounds) with current micro pricing, the bulk of the images we'll be adding to our site will be our "premium" collection. With these images I'm striving for two distinct pricing bands. The two smallest sizes (bloggee and small) are priced with volume sales in mind. The images are sized for web usage and are affordable for graphic designers, small businesses, really anyone who needs an image for the web and is willing to pay for it.

In the second band are the two larger sizes (medium and large). They are sized for more custom tailored usage such as print. I'm capping the medium size at 2300 pixels on the long side giving approx a 5x7 print at 300dpi. It is still relatively affordable at $25. My thinking here is that for 25 bucks a small business can get an image for a smaller print use (such as a direct mail piece) for a fraction of the cost involved in designing, printing and delivering that mailer.

For the large I've more than doubled the size from the medium (up to 5600 pixies long side) and have doubled the price to $50. This size is for a significant use (full page, magazine cover, on up to billboard size). For anyone who needs an image for this type of usage, 50 bucks is more than reasonable.

In addition, when the functionality becomes available I plan to be offering extended licenses for resale products and print runs over 100,000 copies. The premium pricing will be for single use with discounts available for multiple use requests. The term length for the premium images will be for the life of the product. In other words, if you license an image for a website you can use it on that website for as long as you like. The license will expire when you remove the image from that site. If licensed for a direct mail piece it can be used for the life of THAT design up until the print limit is reached.

My goal is for the end user to pay a price that is reflective of the benefit they are getting from the image. A small local business using an image on their website should be able to get an image for an inexpensive price while a large company putting print adds in multiple magazines should pay a reasonable price that coincides with the benefit they are receiving from that image.

It may not be a perfectly designed licensing model and there WILL be things that come up that I haven't even thought of but I'm comfortable with the overall idea and believe it will meet both my needs and my customers needs for a sustainable future.

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking at present. Comments are welcome.

LesPalenik · « **Reply #24 on:** August 17, 2013, 20:46 »

Quote from: Redneck on August 16, 2013, 20:11

Why do most of you price a full size image at 300 dpi, which will obviously qualify for most print campaigns at $20 or less?
Whoever wants to do any prints will probably pay more for the printer (ink, labor, offset etc) than you charge for the most important part of the campaign. Why do you sell yourself that cheap?
I do understand the need for cheap blog sized images. Most bloggers are privateers and don't have the budget to pay double digit amounts for pictures. But full sized print quality images?
They don't need to be priced at lowest microstock level, IMO. Print campaigns have a budget. Why make one of the most efficient parts of the campaign the cheapest one? There's no practical reason for it, IMO.

I fully agree with Redneck and CrackerClips, and just changed my prices. Keeping the two small size affordable, and raising the prices for the large sizes (I also increased the default size for medium size from 1000 to 1200 pixels). I'm still only setting up my site, and will adjust the prices for premium images as I get to them.

I don't worry about competing with the same images of mine on the other agencies, since I don't have them on many sites, and anyway, as my SYS site starts selling, some of the "duplicate" images will be purged systematically from the other agencies. In addition, at this early stage, realistically, not too many images will be sold or seen on SYS sites, or compared with the same images on the other sites (hopefully that will start changing in 2014).

Bulk Pricing Utility
What I would like to see, is some versatile bulk pricing utility. For instance, select all exclusive images, certain categories, or some collections and apply special pricing just to those images. Excluding some images or narrowing down the previous selection would be also nice.
It would be quite useful to have a very flexible selection process (select by all kinds of criteria - keyword, category,date, etc), ideally also nested selections, and then being able to run the pricing utility just on the selected images.
Keep the selection process totally independent, so the selected images could be used potentially as input also for other processes to be added in the future (zipping, export, resizing, applying a new watermark. etc).

klsbear · « **Reply #25 on:** August 17, 2013, 22:23 »

I left my images at the default setting to begin with while I worked my way through the set up process. My reasoning being that they are at several micro sites but also that most of them were shot with my older Canon 30D so the large size is not all that large by today's standards. I'm shooting with a 5d MkIII now. I may keep some of these exclusive to my site and will be more selective about which sites get them if I upload elsewhere. I do like Crackerclips reasoning for two bands of pricing, lower end for blog and small, higher priced for medium and large. I plan to review my pricing and most likely will bump up the pricing in the near future.

marthamarks · « **Reply #26 on:** August 17, 2013, 23:11 »

I also agree with Redneck and Cracker Clips. One of the reasons we're all going through this process is to be able to control the prices we charge for our products and the revenue we get from them. If we were thrilled to be giving them away for peanuts on SS, FT, etc, we would just stick with that system.

Right now, I'm mostly going with the default prices, but I have already upped slightly (to $25) what I charge for a large with a few "special" images. I may well go much higher, even up to $50, for "special" images in the future. Hard to do it right now when they're all already on SS, FT, etc.

Add me to the list of those requesting some way to bulk-adjust prices without having to do them all at the same level.

Please keep this conversation going. It's important to understand all the ramifications of different price points.

cascoly · « **Reply #27 on:** August 18, 2013, 00:09 »

these comments are not addressed to/at anyone here... but I've often noted that there are many photographers who haven't kept pace with the modern world -- many pictures that sold for $100 or $1000 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago did not sell because of their intrinsic value, but because of the market. today, there are many sources of free images, so for many of us, our images are just not going to sell at those higher price levels - and they shouldn't! as buyers become smarter and features like google Images become more powerful, stock images will be much more a commodity than a fine art market. More power to those who can sell their images at $100 or more from a sym site, but I don't think that's going to be the norm

meanwhile, even at low prices of $5 - $10 with symbiostrock we are going to be getting 10x to 50x what the agencies pay. and that's ignoring those subscriptions that give away XL sized images for 1 credit.

LesPalenik · « **Reply #28 on:** August 18, 2013, 04:56 »

Recently, on FAA forums there were several threads re: pricing, and surprisingly, the general consensus by the successful sellers based on their selling experience was that raising the prices (in reasonable range) usually resulted in more sales.
On the other hand, lowering the prices connotated lower product quality, and seldom led to sales.

On Shutterstock, if you buy on-demand 2 images at $29, that would work out to $14.50 per image and it could be a 4-6MP size (admittedly, it could be also a 40MP panoramic image). So, pricing a level-3 SYS exclusive image that is not available anywhere else at $15-$20 is really not out of the range.

Ron · « **Reply #29 on:** August 18, 2013, 05:32 »

From SS

All JPEG sizes and vectors

€179 EUR
25 downloads

€39 EUR
5 downloads

Small and med JPEG sizes only

€39 EUR
12 downloads

€179 EUR
60 downloads

Redneck · « **Reply #30 on:** August 18, 2013, 09:11 »

Quote from: cascoly on August 18, 2013, 00:09

these comments are not addressed to/at anyone here... but I've often noted that there are many photographers who haven't kept pace with the modern world -- many pictures that sold for $100 or $1000 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago did not sell because of their intrinsic value, but because of the market. today, there are many sources of free images, so for many of us, our images are just not going to sell at those higher price levels - and they shouldn't! as buyers become smarter and features like google Images become more powerful, stock images will be much more a commodity than a fine art market. More power to those who can sell their images at $100 or more from a sym site, but I don't think that's going to be the norm

meanwhile, even at low prices of $5 - $10 with symbiostrock we are going to be getting 10x to 50x what the agencies pay. and that's ignoring those subscriptions that give away XL sized images for 1 credit.

The fact that people WANT cheap images does not mean that photographers have to deliver them. I think we need to break free from the "I can only sell something if I'm as cheap as possible" thinking because it will only go downwards from there. Cut yourself lose from competing over pricing only. Images are as unique as their buyers. I would not buy an image just because because it's cheap. I'd buy it because I think it works for my purpose. And it has been said before, print campaigns requiring full size images have a certain budget. Why not use it?

LesPalenik · « **Reply #31 on:** August 18, 2013, 09:30 »

cthoman · « **Reply #32 on:** August 18, 2013, 10:02 »

Quote from: Redneck on August 18, 2013, 09:11

The fact that people WANT cheap images does not mean that photographers have to deliver them. I think we need to break free from the "I can only sell something if I'm as cheap as possible" thinking because it will only go downwards from there. Cut yourself lose from competing over pricing only. Images are as unique as their buyers. I would not buy an image just because because it's cheap. I'd buy it because I think it works for my purpose. And it has been said before, print campaigns requiring full size images have a certain budget. Why not use it?

So, what is appropriately priced?

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #33 on:** August 18, 2013, 10:06 »

Quote from: cthoman on August 18, 2013, 10:02

So, what is appropriately priced?

Buyer - £ free
Seller - £ as much as possible

PhilD · « **Reply #34 on:** August 18, 2013, 10:20 »

Quote from: cthoman on August 18, 2013, 10:02

So, what is appropriately priced?

I based my pricing on 2 factors - my past Alamy sales history and image size/resolution.

CrackerClips · « **Reply #35 on:** August 18, 2013, 11:44 »

Quote from: cascoly on August 18, 2013, 00:09

these comments are not addressed to/at anyone here... but I've often noted that there are many photographers who haven't kept pace with the modern world -- many pictures that sold for $100 or $1000 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago did not sell because of their intrinsic value, but because of the market.

That is very true. The market for stock pictures has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. Years ago I was often surprised by how much a simple, non-unique image could command. Having said that, I'm still surprised to see on my macro agency sales reports good license fees for the type of images that are much more cheaply available via microstock. I still regularly receive sales reports with both RF and RM fees of $500 or more for a single license. The problem, of course, is that the volume of sales is no longer there. I also receive many (way too many) macro fees for images that are the same or actually worse than micro fees. Buyers of course are happy to pay as little as possible but price in my experience is not the most important factor.

Agencies are figuring out ways to to profit by selling images by the pound. Unfortunately, photographers are not benefiting from this model. I admit that initially it seems like common sense for us to sell directly for cheaper than the micro agencies where we have work BUT we do not have (and probably won't have anytime soon, if ever) the volume of licenses that the agencies have. So for me, anyway, that is a losing proposition. In addition, the symbiostock default pricing has just been dramatically undercut (independent pricing) by a certain well known micro agency. Should the symbio default pricing be lowered now? As an individual, I can't compete with that and provide a sustainable living for me and my family. I don't feel compelled to try and compete with the micros.

Stock industry pricing is all over the board these days. I've got images at different outlets selling at a wide spectrum of prices. The cheapest priced outlets have never been my biggest earners. Buyers buy at different places and different price points for many reasons. I don't think we can control that to any great degree with our individual pricing. I'm simply looking to provide a place (my symbio site) for a segment of the market that is happy shopping there because it meets their overall needs. If that segment of the market is big enough, I will prosper and will continue to be able to make images that meet their needs in the future.

Ron · « **Reply #36 on:** August 18, 2013, 12:10 »

I have a hard time believing statements of 500 dollar for an image licence on regular bases, because on the Alamy forum, the die hard RM shooters keep saying they hardly get those sales these days.

chromaco · « **Reply #37 on:** August 18, 2013, 12:19 »

I think it might be important to add that symbio site owners need to keep in mind who their customers are likely to be when setting up pricing. A customer who is willing to pay a hundred dollar fee for an image is probably not browsing google for the appropriate image. On the other hand the customer who finds you via the search engines may not have ever used an agency. I try to ask myself what I would pay for this image and set my pricing accordingly. If you have the type of images that will appeal to professional buyers and you feel like you can reach them direct then charge for it. But if you are more likely to get the 2nd category of buyers you should adjust your pricing for that market.

easybuyphotos.com · « **Reply #38 on:** August 18, 2013, 12:28 »

Quote from: chromaco on August 18, 2013, 12:19

I think it might be important to add that symbio site owners need to keep in mind who their customers are likely to be when setting up pricing. A customer who is willing to pay a hundred dollar fee for an image is probably not browsing google for the appropriate image. On the other hand the customer who finds you via the search engines may not have ever used an agency. I try to ask myself what I would pay for this image and set my pricing accordingly. If you have the type of images that will appeal to professional buyers and you feel like you can reach them direct then charge for it. But if you are more likely to get the 2nd category of buyers you should adjust your pricing for that market.

I agree

Also through the eight years I have been doing this the biggest market for my images has been web usage. I have only had one large print deal (bus shelter advert), most are web pages or 1/4 magazine or newspapers pages. The market has moved from the traditionally high fees and is continuing to evolve and we can't change that. Between free images from Google for Google drive and magazines that should know better going after free Flickr images for the thrill of a credit line, I'm happy with my price points, I'm attempting to give buyers good quality images at fair prices and hold onto 100% of the image licenece fee.

Ron · « **Reply #39 on:** August 18, 2013, 12:48 »

Quote from: chromaco on August 18, 2013, 12:19

I think it might be important to add that symbio site owners need to keep in mind who their customers are likely to be when setting up pricing. A customer who is willing to pay a hundred dollar fee for an image is probably not browsing google for the appropriate image. On the other hand the customer who finds you via the search engines may not have ever used an agency. I try to ask myself what I would pay for this image and set my pricing accordingly. If you have the type of images that will appeal to professional buyers and you feel like you can reach them direct then charge for it. But if you are more likely to get the 2nd category of buyers you should adjust your pricing for that market.

That ^^

CrackerClips · « **Reply #40 on:** August 18, 2013, 13:30 »

Quote from: Ron on August 18, 2013, 12:10

I have a hard time believing statements of 500 dollar for an image licence on regular bases, because on the Alamy forum, the die hard RM shooters keep saying they hardly get those sales these days.

I haven't had a license anywhere near $500 on Alamy in many years. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen elsewhere tho

Edited to add the word "elsewhere"

Travelling-light · « **Reply #41 on:** August 18, 2013, 13:45 »

There are people cruising the web for more expensive images. We have sold several privately. Hopefully in future we will make more of those sales through Sym.
I think there is some sense in making files more expensive for large sizes, and cheaper for blogs, and we'll probably make some changes when bulk editing comes along.

cascoly · « **Reply #42 on:** August 18, 2013, 15:13 »

Quote from: Redneck on August 18, 2013, 09:11

Quote from: cascoly on August 18, 2013, 00:09
these comments are not addressed to/at anyone here... but I've often noted that there are many photographers who haven't kept pace with the modern world -- many pictures that sold for $100 or $1000 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago did not sell because of their intrinsic value, but because of the market. today, there are many sources of free images, so for many of us, our images are just not going to sell at those higher price levels - and they shouldn't! as buyers become smarter and features like google Images become more powerful, stock images will be much more a commodity than a fine art market. More power to those who can sell their images at $100 or more from a sym site, but I don't think that's going to be the norm

meanwhile, even at low prices of $5 - $10 with symbiostrock we are going to be getting 10x to 50x what the agencies pay. and that's ignoring those subscriptions that give away XL sized images for 1 credit.

The fact that people WANT cheap images does not mean that photographers have to deliver them. I think we need to break free from the "I can only sell something if I'm as cheap as possible" thinking because it will only go downwards from there. Cut yourself lose from competing over pricing only. Images are as unique as their buyers. I would not buy an image just because because it's cheap. I'd buy it because I think it works for my purpose. And it has been said before, print campaigns requiring full size images have a certain budget. Why not use it?

I have no argument with that -- I was addressing the broader issue of 'creative destruction' that many photographers seem to miss -- as technology changes, old market patterns change too -- family farms cannot compete with agribusiness unless they find a new niche such as organic food. photos that used to bring $100 now may only bring $10. the photo hasn't changed, but basic economic conditions have

for photography, higher pricing (over $50) makes sense if youre buyers have a big budget -- but an alternate strategy might be to target small businesses that just need a few images. in the old days buyers had no choice but to deal with the big stock agencies - now everyone's a photographer and it's getting easier to have a website for selling images, so the mindset needs to change too

cascoly · « **Reply #43 on:** August 18, 2013, 15:19 »

Quote from: CrackerClips on August 18, 2013, 11:44

Quote from: cascoly on August 18, 2013, 00:09
these comments are not addressed to/at anyone here... but I've often noted that there are many photographers who haven't kept pace with the modern world -- many pictures that sold for $100 or $1000 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago did not sell because of their intrinsic value, but because of the market.

That is very true. The market for stock pictures has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. Years ago I was often surprised by how much a simple, non-unique image could command. Having said that, I'm still surprised to see on my macro agency sales reports good license fees for the type of images that are much more cheaply available via microstock. I still regularly receive sales reports with both RF and RM fees of $500 or more for a single license. The problem, of course, is that the volume of sales is no longer there. I also receive many (way too many) macro fees for images that are the same or actually worse than micro fees. Buyers of course are happy to pay as little as possible but price in my experience is not the most important factor.

..................

right, that's the effect of a dramatic change in market conditions - it's not an efficient market - heavy users know about microstock agencies, but the average person looking for images may not even know what stock photography is! while this situation lasts there's room for many strategies

DonLand · « **Reply #44 on:** August 18, 2013, 16:41 »

Well, I'm hoping, maybe a bit naively that Sym takes off at least a little. If we can sell enough images a month from say $6 for a blog to say $50 for a large then it would not take many to replace selling hundreds for .25¢. At that point I could see people going Sym exclusive as they would be undercutting themselves by offering their images all over the place. For that to happen we need clients to use a centralized Sym search. This would be a snowball effect. As more photographers come on board Sym gets larger. As more photographers make their images Sym exclusive the the less places the images are available the more clients will come. Granted this may never happen or it may take years but if it starts working and other photographers come on board you basically have a large stock photo site owned by each individual photographer without having to pay any commissions.

Always nice to dream....

CrackerClips · « **Reply #45 on:** August 18, 2013, 16:46 »

Quote from: DonLand on August 18, 2013, 16:41

Well, I'm hoping, maybe a bit naively that Sym takes off at least a little. If we can sell enough images a month from say $6 for a blog to say $50 for a large then it would not take many to replace selling hundreds for .25¢. At that point I could see people going Sym exclusive as they would be undercutting themselves by offering their images all over the place. For that to happen we need clients to use a centralized Sym search. This would be a snowball effect. As more photographers come on board Sym gets larger. As more photographers make their images Sym exclusive the the less places the images are available the more clients will come. Granted this may never happen or it may take years but if it starts working and other photographers come on board you basically have a large stock photo site owned by each individual photographer without having to pay any commissions.

Always nice to dream....

That's what I'm talking about! Nicely put.

Anita Potter · « **Reply #46 on:** August 18, 2013, 17:01 »

Aside from doing the SEO on the sites, we need to find ways to bring the buyers to us aside from the micros.

But this should probably be asked in the marketing sub-forum.

marthamarks · « **Reply #47 on:** August 18, 2013, 17:06 »

Quote from: DonLand on August 18, 2013, 16:41

For that to happen we need clients to use a centralized Sym search. T

Agree with everything you said, Don. And I believe... it will happen.

In the FWIW category, I've included a link to Steve's Global SYS Search Engine in the footer of my site, grouped with the "What is SYS?" and a link to the SYS directory.

No reason why we can't all promote that global search engine on our individual sites, is there?

Anita Potter · « **Reply #48 on:** August 18, 2013, 17:18 »

Thanks for reminding me. I knew I was forgetting some links in my footer.

CrackerClips · « **Reply #49 on:** August 18, 2013, 17:24 »

Quote from: marthamarks on August 18, 2013, 17:06

No reason why we can't all promote that global search engine on our individual sites, is there?

Good idea Martha, I will be adding a link.

DonLand · « **Reply #50 on:** August 18, 2013, 21:10 »

Good idea, I will be adding the Sym network search also!

Redneck · « **Reply #51 on:** August 19, 2013, 07:53 »

I think it's very important not to forget to add symbiostock.info to your list of network partners inside your Symbiostock admin area. This way every SYS site will be searched for the right image.

CrackerClips · « **Reply #52 on:** August 19, 2013, 11:25 »

Quote from: Redneck on August 19, 2013, 07:53

I think it's very important not to forget to add symbiostock.info to your list of network partners inside your Symbiostock admin area. This way every SYS site will be searched for the right image.

Another good idea. Done! I also added a link to the Firefox plugin that searches sybiostock.info from the browser https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/symbiostock/

PhilD · « **Reply #53 on:** August 19, 2013, 11:49 »

Quote from: chromaco on August 18, 2013, 12:19

I think it might be important to add that symbio site owners need to keep in mind who their customers are likely to be when setting up pricing.

I try to ask myself what I would pay for this image and set my pricing accordingly.

IMO I believe it is next to impossible to determine who our customers will be, what they will buy, or for how much. Even on agency sites there is no way to predict who our customers will be or what they will purchase.

Once we venture out on our own via Symbiostock our possible customer base likely increases many fold - who can possibly predict who will buy what and for how much?

Photographers are the harshest critics of our own work. Use sales histories, agency price calculators, and other on-line pricing tools such as fotoQuote to provide pricing guidelines. Googling "stock photo pricing" will provide possible resources for pricing. Not gut feelings of what I "think" my images are worth.

jsfoto · « **Reply #54 on:** August 20, 2013, 05:54 »

I understand both ideas (low prices and higher prices). Actually I'm not sure which path I should follow (tending towards higher prices at the moment). As a matter of fact we do not have experience enough to tell what's the right strategy. So I would suggest a place, where we report our sales exactly: which image, which size and the prize of course. That way we could gain real experience and adjust our pricing.

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