MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Sites that no longer exist => Veer => Topic started by: Microbius on September 23, 2011, 10:19
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Just got the email:
"Introducing Veer Subscriptions
Later this year, Veer will begin offering image buyers the opportunity to purchase monthly
and yearly image subscriptions through a Veer Subscriptions web site.
The new site will share registration functionality with veer.com, giving new and current
customers convenient access to a high volume of images at reduced prices. Customers will
be able to download 30 images each day, which should prove popular since it’s more
than most competing subscription services offer.
Contributor benefits
The subscription model offers a new royalty stream that doesn’t require you to upload images
a second time. We’re also pleased to announce a higher royalty rate for contributors than
you’ll find at competing microstock web sites, with royalties up to $3.75 per download.
As an added bonus, your subscription sales and earnings will be integrated with your current
dashboard view on veer.com, allowing you to keep track of everything in one place. No
additional tax paperwork or contributor agreements are necessary.
Pricing and royalties
Each active subscription has a daily royalty pool that is shared by contributors whose images
have been downloaded. The royalty pool is divided by the number of images downloaded to
determine the royalty split for that day.
Basic subscriptions have a base royalty pool and come with basic licenses. Extended
subscriptions, with extended protection plans and unlimited reproduction licenses, have a
base royalty pool of $3.75.
If a subscriber downloads one image — your image — you’ll get the entire pool for that
subscription, on that day. If a subscriber downloads 10 images in one day, and only one of
those images is yours, you’ll receive one-tenth of that pool.
The new rate card explains the downloads/royalties relationship in more detail. In your
dashboard, you’ll be able to tell how many other images a customer downloaded each day by
the royalty shown for any image listed.
Opting out
The subscription model described above is designed to be lucrative for the Veer contributor
community. As this is a new development that you might not have been anticipating, we’re
offering contributors a one-time opportunity to opt out. As of October 8, 2011, anyone who
applies to be a contributor will be automatically opted in.
To opt out, send an e-mail to [email protected] with the subject line “Subscription
opt-out.” In the body, provide your contributor alias (if applicable), the e-mail address you
registered with if different from this one, and include the message “I do not wish to participate
in the Veer Subscription program at this time. Please exclude my images from the subscription
web site.”
Opt-out e-mails must be time-stamped before 11:59 pm (PST), October 21, 2011."
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With an all time low commission of 0.10c if the buyer downloads all their allocation for the day.
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I have quite a lot pictures at Veer that I don't have on any other microstocksite (uploaded them at a time there Snapvillage was midstock) so I will opted-out. Subscription really becomes a kind of new pest, but kudos to Veer that they offer an opted-out, much appreciated.
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UNLIMITED RUN under subscription for cents??? COME ON VEER ????
Added:
"• Extended plans include the Unlimited Reproduction license and the Extended Protection Plan."
and all that for just 3.75 down to 0.13
OPT OUT is MUST here!
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I wish that sites would list the lowest possible royalties instead of listing the highest possible royalties (which are usually meaningless), or at least the range. Nice of them to give us an opt out option though (for now?).
Subs EL sounds like a bad idea at these prices.
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One of the most cr*p subs plan ever heard...
10c subs?
What's next?
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I have to say Veer really knows how to push me off the site. First, they decide to sell raster sizes for vectors. Then, they make it tedious to upload by requiring extra high resolution jpegs. Now, subs. They've done a lot to destroy that initial excitement of Dash for Cash. Oh well.
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I didnt get the e-mail and i also cant find the royalty chart for those subs. I checked the contributor FAQs and there's the chart for regular sales, but no sign of the subs.
Could anyone please toss a link to the subs info?
Merci!
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http://www.veer.com/more/media/62936/veer_contributor_rate_card__090811_.pdf (http://www.veer.com/more/media/62936/veer_contributor_rate_card__090811_.pdf)
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Thank you much mister Etien :)
Ok... that didnt take long to decide to opt-out; selling an EL for $0.13 (or $0,14-3,75), nuhuh.
Kudos to veer for the opportunity to opt-out though!
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Thanks for posting the rates and the letter people (I didn't get it). I just opted out w/ a note saying that I thought the minimum was too low and that it was way too low for an EL license.
Hopefully if enough people opt out for these reasons they will amend the program to cover these concerns.
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sended Opted-out request.
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I did not receive the information directly but I sure as heck am going to let them know what I think and so should YOU!
What exactly should we all demand from them?
.10 cents payment is unacceptable for any size of download
EL's are unacceptable.
Placement on products is unacceptable
Maximum usage should be ______ (100,000 or less?)
Subscription downloads should be paid on a scalable credits system based on size
What have I missed?
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Does it say anywhere how much they will be charging for the subscriptions and then what our % of the sales will be (not $ amount)?
This seems similar to iStock's subscription plan (except iStock's minimum is $0.65 (http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/about-royalties)). One thing I don't like about a plan like this, is it looks like we are getting a better deal than we really are (at least in the case of iStock.. not totally sure how Veer will work)
On iStock they say you will get a fixed % of the sold credits for that buyer.. like Veer, so if the buyer has a $10/day subscription and only buys your image and you are at %20, you will get $2 for that sub download. Since buyers often don't fill their subscription it looks like the photographers could get paid well.
The problem is, when buyers are buying images they will fill at least most of their subscription. The days they don't buy, they won't be anything and iStock takes all the money on those days. If there are 20 working days in a month that means 10 days they don't buy images and 10 days iStock gets to keep 100% of the sub package, making our % closer to 13% than 20% (in this example)
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Thanks. I'm out.
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Does it say anywhere how much they will be charging for the subscriptions and then what our % of the sales will be (not $ amount)?
It doesn't say it, but as an assumption let's say they price it similar to the competition, so maybe around the $250 per month base.
Out of that they will pay out $3 each day the customer downloads anything - and nothing on each day the customer doesn't download.
Hard to calculate a percentage, but it clearly means that they will not be taking any risk - maximum payout will be $90, which (assuming a price of $250) comes down to 36%.
Taking out weekends we'll end up around 20 "download days", that would mean 24% payout.
Anyway, the whole idea is crap.
Yes, introduce subs, that's fine with me. But then make it competitive (for the contributor), e.g. a minimum payout per download of at least 35 cents (equals DT, better than first two levels on SS).
And ELs as subs is a no-go.
ETA: I didn't get the e-mail.
And I would love to hear from Veer's representatives here what they have to say about the feedback here.
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I'm definitely opting out. I have only a small number of files on Veer (painful upload and glacial review process), so quitting altogether if they later drop the opt out will be easy.
If they are serious about having a subscription offering, they'll need to do something about reviewing so they can keep a stream of new content coming to subscribers. Perhaps they're really doing this to dump a bunch of wholly owned content into a subs plan and outside contributors just suffer the collateral damage of industry-worst compensation
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Forgetting about the ridiculous EL commission, $0.10 for an XS sub sale would be pretty bad. But I didn't see any mention of size. Are they going to be giving away XXL sizes for $0.10?
With this and FT's announcement today, and the other things that happened over the last year or so, it seems we are witnessing the ever quickening downfall of microstock. :( I wonder how many of us will still be around 2-3 years from now?
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Any company who thinks paying a contributor 13 cents for an extended license is FAIR is out of its freaking gourd! I am opting out unless some sanity prevails.
And I was beginning to like Veer for giving half decent contributor royalties.
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I wonder how many cancellation e-mails they received today. Just received theirs and sent mine. ;D
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I noticed that if you apply after Oct 8 you are automatically included in this subs program. Anyone that might want to apply to Veer in the future, I suggest you apply now.
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I've opted out as well just now got the email about an hour or so ago.
Definitely nice of them to let us to be able to opt out. Of that.
Now I can get back to the business of uploading my port now that that's out of the way.
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I don't understand the logic here - the more images a subscriber downloads daily the less a contributor gets?
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Just sent my email to opt out. 10 cents is too low, even TS pays more than that.
Extended license subscriptions what
35 cents and I'll opt in. Surely that would be an easier system to work out.
They need to redesign so they take some of the risk on the royality structure not just me.
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I can't see why anyone would accept this. Why don't sites ask some of us befroe they announce things like this? Now they're going to get bombarded with opt out emails. It also tarnishes their reputation, EL's that cheap are a big insult to contributors.
Where's the veer rep here? I would like to see an apology and an alteration to those EL commissions or my enthusiasm to upload anything new to veer will take a hit. I'm not sending my opt out email straight away, lets see if they can dig their way out of this mess and make some quick changes.
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13 cents for an extended license... >:( I'm out
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Wow, that's a far cry from the $28.00 commission Shutterstock gives us for an EL.
Totally unacceptable to me. I'm out too.
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Already sent the opt-out mail...
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I am out, too.
And I asked for a confirmation, because in the past some of my emails went unnoticed...!
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I'm out.
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I'm so disappointed by this. I've always really liked Veer and have appreciated the good commissions I get from sales there. Their presence here used to be very good too, and their manner of communication friendly and supportive.
I could even live with the general subs plan, on the basis that it would vary according to the buyer's activity on a given day - and some days would be more rewarding than others. (Even so, I'd have liked the option to trial it and then opt out if it didn't work well for me over a spread of time).
BUT, that EL commission feels like a real slap in the face. I never would have expected that from them.
The shenanigans at FT are the sort of thing I've come to expect from them, but I had a certain level of trust in Veer, and a sense that they had more empathy for creatives. At the very least, I would have expected them to take into account the high commissions we get elsewhere for ELs, and the fundamental reason why that is so. ELs should never come cheap, to the agency or to us.
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Opted out.
Ridiculous commission rates.
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Opt-out
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"Opt-out e-mails must be time-stamped before 11:59 pm (PST), October 21, 2011."
What?
I can't opt out any more?
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"Opt-out e-mails must be time-stamped before 11:59 pm (PST), October 21, 2011."
What?
I can't opt out any more?
Ummm... It's September you still have just under a month to opt out ???
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I am out, too.
And I asked for a confirmation, because in the past some of my emails went unnoticed...!
I got an instant acknowledgement reply email, I've kept that as proof.
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I'm going to wait for their response, I sent a link to this thread. Crazy announcing it before the weekend, why do sites think that's a good idea? It just gives people 2 days to send their opt out emails before they have a chance to say they've messed up and make an amendment. I do think they will change this, they aren't istock or FT.
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I'm out. If I wound't do so Fotolia could reset my rank to transparent. :P
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Crazy announcing it before the weekend, why do sites think that's a good idea?
Agreed, it's bananas.
Good idea to send link to this thread, and I do hope you're right.
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"Opt-out e-mails must be time-stamped before 11:59 pm (PST), October 21, 2011."
What?
I can't opt out any more?
Ummm... It's September you still have just under a month to opt out ???
Ah! Sorry!
We are still in September! My mistake! I thought this month till 21th...
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Wow, that's a far cry from the $28.00 commission Shutterstock gives us for an EL.
Totally unacceptable to me. I'm out too.
Yep. I just got a 28.00 EL from SS yesterday.
They allow an opt-out for this, but they wouldn't allow an opt-out on Partner Programs?
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I'm in a state of shock. An extended license for a several pennies? Something this insulting is reason enough to pull an entire portfolio rather than opt out.
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I opted out and If they go ahead and make this compulsory in the future I will be out of veer..
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Opted out
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now opted out
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Wow....a new low by any site. This plan for EL licensing is less them most sites sell RF photos for. What the heck are they thinking???? If this is true then it also cuts there own throats for there EL pricing. They had been getting $100 for an EL but who would pay that now when they can buy a EL sub plan for $250 and download 30 photos a day for a month. The buyer could get 900 photos licensed for EL use for $250. That's just insane...
Opted out as soon as I read this.
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It seems that at Veer they really think that all contributors are "people that carry cellphones that take pictures and video" as mentioned in older thread.
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Waow, never received the email about subscription information.
I've just opted out now.
Do you received any opt out confirmation in return??
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Opted out on the day I received the mail. I never got the confirmation mail though.
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Lee just made a post on the topic
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/veer-subscriptions-the-good-bits-and-the-not-so-good-bits.html (http://www.microstockdiaries.com/veer-subscriptions-the-good-bits-and-the-not-so-good-bits.html)
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I hope someone from veer comes here and tells us they are listening to our concerns soon. That hacker might not of helped, I'm still struggling to get to this page now.
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I've opted out of the plan and let them know that I thought the commission on Unlimited reproduction is way too low!
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I will wait till October 20th then I will opt-out if remain the same...
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I opted out the other day. Didn't get a reply though.
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I opted out today. I figure I can always change my mind if they improve on the deal or somehow convince me it isn't as awful as it seems at first glance.
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Still no response from them. Were used to FT and istock not listening but this is unusual from veer. There's usually someone keeping an eye on this forum. With everyone opting out, the subs scheme will be a disaster. They really need to make changes quickly.
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So disappointed.
I had such high, high hopes for Veer and liked them so much.
In the end it all comes to this - a sale every 4 months and a new subscription plan for 0.10 cent.
Sorry Veer, but this won't work for me. I can't speak for the others, but in my case a minimum of 0.30 for subs would be acceptable.
Leave EL's out of this.
For those who don't know how the downloading process work, this is what happens in our printing house: my boss tells me, 'today you'll be downloading images'. Fine, I start up the computer, login to the site, and download the whole of my allowed quota. The whole, not just half. All the 25 - 30 images in one go.
We don't do that every day, but when we download, we do it in full.
I assume other designers have similar downloading tactics.
And I do not want to get paid 0.10 cent for an image.
Sorry, Veer.
I too, will be opting out.
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opted out, as fast as I can type.
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Don't understand why Veer thinks they can or should low ball contributors. They are already one of the most difficult sites to upload to and by most accounts produce lackluster results. This is not going to help them get content.
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Opt out - Sad to see Veer trying to pull this off
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Also opted out.
I am just concerned that there are many Veer contributors out there that don't read this forum and is fooled by the statement: “We’re also pleased to announce a higher royalty rate for contributors than you’ll find at competing microstock web sites, with royalties up to $3.75 per download".
This is utterly misleading and may fool many contributors in accepting this very bad deal. If enough contributors opt out they might rethink their plan, but if the majority accept it they will just continue and implement it unchanged.
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So any good ideas to reach out to more Veer contributors....
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I'm hoping the Veer Reps will reply to this thread. Some crazy tiny royalty numbers have been mentioned... are they true... is the math correct?
I'm on the verge of opting out but I would like the (usually attentive) Verified Veer people to provide clarity. I see the royalties will be based on a sliding scale but surely the brainiacs in the Veer accounting department have made estimates.
So Verified Veer People please answer these questions: What is the estimate payout for each sub? What is the estimated payout for each extended license sold?
Thanks
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We appreciate the points raised here and in Lee's article. Thanks for your patience in hearing our reply.
First on the $3.00 - $0.10 per download:
When designing our subscription royalty model we did not want to follow the approach of other subscription sites that pay a fixed royalty per download, because of the imbalance of what the company earns versus what the contributor earns. Let's say a subscription site pays $0.25 per download, their customers pay $250 for a 31 day subscription, amounting to a daily spend of $8.06. An estimated average of nine downloads per day means $2.25 royalty is paid to contributors (who's images were downloaded by a customer) and $5.81 is kept by the site. For four downloads, the site pays $1.00 in royalties and keeps $7.06. One download per day, the site pays $0.25 in royalty and keeps $7.81 - that's a 3% royalty to the contributor.
So we decided to do things differently and create a more balanced royalty model for Veer subscription. Unlike other sites, Veer offers a guaranteed "royalty pool" of $3.00 per day, per image-downloading customer. Whether a customer downloads thirty images or just one image per day, we pay out the full $3.00 to contributors. Compared to the previous example, if a Veer customer downloads one image, the contributor gets $3.00 (the other site would pay only $0.25). Four downloads, Veer pays $0.75 per image. Nine downloads, $0.33 per image royalty. I won't give away our pricing yet but I can say it's less than $250 per month.
As Lee points out, most customers don't use their full quotas, and so $0.10 per image is an outlier. With a typical range of five to fifteen downloads per day, the typical Veer subscription royalty per image is between $0.20 to $0.60, which is consistent - and in many cases better - than other subscription sites.
Veer's subscription model is different than other sites by paying out the full share of $3.00 per image-downloading customer per day regardless of the number of downloads. In a few cases, we acknowledge that Veer contributors will earn less per download than other sites but in many cases, contributors will earn much more per image than other sites. We believe the law of averages is on side with contributors in Veer's subscription royalty model.
Regarding the extended license royalty, we aligned our extended license rate to what we found in our market research of daily download subscriptions. Veer needs to be on par with the playing field and so we've designed our extended license royalties to be, in our view, a standard price for this type of subscription (to be presented at launch). We're by no means trying to insult our contributors and we appreciate everyone's concern. As always, Veer is committed to openness and transparency with our community.
As part of this commitment we have given our existing contributors the option to opt-out, but that said, we believe our offer is competitive with the current market and we are glad to offer this new subscription revenue stream to our contributors. We hope you join us.
Aaron
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We appreciate the points raised here and in Lee's article. Thanks for your patience in hearing our reply.
First on the $3.00 - $0.10 per download:
When designing our subscription royalty model we did not want to follow the approach of other subscription sites that pay a fixed royalty per download, because of the imbalance of what the company earns versus what the contributor earns. Let's say a subscription site pays $0.25 per download, their customers pay $250 for a 31 day subscription, amounting to a daily spend of $8.06. An estimated average of nine downloads per day means $2.25 royalty is paid to contributors (who's images were downloaded by a customer) and $5.81 is kept by the site. For four downloads, the site pays $1.00 in royalties and keeps $7.06. One download per day, the site pays $0.25 in royalty and keeps $7.81 - that's a 3% royalty to the contributor.
So we decided to do things differently and create a more balanced royalty model for Veer subscription. Unlike other sites, Veer offers a guaranteed "royalty pool" of $3.00 per day, per image-downloading customer. Whether a customer downloads thirty images or just one image per day, we pay out the full $3.00 to contributors. Compared to the previous example, if a Veer customer downloads one image, the contributor gets $3.00 (the other site would pay only $0.25). Four downloads, Veer pays $0.75 per image. Nine downloads, $0.33 per image royalty. I won't give away our pricing yet but I can say it's less than $250 per month.
As Lee points out, most customers don't use their full quotas, and so $0.10 per image is an outlier. With a typical range of five to fifteen downloads per day, the typical Veer subscription royalty per image is between $0.20 to $0.60, which is consistent - and in many cases better - than other subscription sites.
Veer's subscription model is different than other sites by paying out the full share of $3.00 per image-downloading customer per day regardless of the number of downloads. In a few cases, we acknowledge that Veer contributors will earn less per download than other sites but in many cases, contributors will earn much more per image than other sites. We believe the law of averages is on side with contributors in Veer's subscription royalty model.
Regarding the extended license royalty, we aligned our extended license rate to what we found in our market research of daily download subscriptions. Veer needs to be on par with the playing field and so we've designed our extended license royalties to be, in our view, a standard price for this type of subscription (to be presented at launch). We're by no means trying to insult our contributors and we appreciate everyone's concern. As always, Veer is committed to openness and transparency with our community.
As part of this commitment we have given our existing contributors the option to opt-out, but that said, we believe our offer is competitive with the current market and we are glad to offer this new subscription revenue stream to our contributors. We hope you join us.
Aaron
If $0.20 to $0.60 is the expected average - then why not just give contributors $0.40 - if you had done that - probably everyone who has oped out already would have been on board.
But the real deal breaker is this statement from your own rate card:
• Extended plans include the Unlimited Reproduction license and the Extended Protection Plan.
So at best I can get $3.75 for an extended license and at worst $0.13.
Sorry but no way that is the "standard price for this type of subscription "
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Thanks for coming on here to try to explain things.
Although the average of 9 dl/day might be right for a subs plan. I am guessing there are many 0 download days (weekends spring to mind). In those cases Veer gets 100% - that is fine, except that means that the days that there are a download, there will likely be more - so the actual payment for DL will be lower for the contributors. I wonder how many places either download most of their quota or 0 pictures. From my brief analysis of my sales under the IS subs plan that might actually be the case.
Now if the price for the sub is significantly below 250/month that does make the % paid to contributors higher, but it also undercuts sites that pay more for subs to the contributors which isn't exactly a good thing for the industry or contributors.
3.75 to .13 cents for extended licenses is just crazy talk.
If you didn't have the EL subs and offered .30 or more per DL I bet most would opt in. As it is, I bet most who hear about this will opt out. Sorry.
Thank you for the option to opt out. That is definitely appreciated by me. In general I have been pleased w/ Veer and I'd hate to have to pull my port over this.
(I just spent quite some time deleting half my port from IS because of their new ASA and I'll be back for most of the rest tomorrow, don't even get me started about what Ft has been up to lately, but you won't find my images for sale there).
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Sorry, still not sold. ELs are the deal breaker.
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Thanks for the reply Aaron but the other posters are correct. The extended license royalty is too low. I opted out.
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Sorry Aaron. Your EL commission is an order of magnitude too low. What I don't understand is why you would do this to your own credit based EL sales business. Who would continue to pay $50-$100 for your credit EL sales when they can get them for a few dollars through a subscription plan? It seems to me that you are talking yourself out of a lot of revenue.
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We appreciate the points raised here and in Lee's article. Thanks for your patience in hearing our reply.
First on the $3.00 - $0.10 per download:
When designing our subscription royalty model we did not want to follow the approach of other subscription sites that pay a fixed royalty per download, because of the imbalance of what the company earns versus what the contributor earns. Let's say a subscription site pays $0.25 per download, their customers pay $250 for a 31 day subscription, amounting to a daily spend of $8.06. An estimated average of nine downloads per day means $2.25 royalty is paid to contributors (who's images were downloaded by a customer) and $5.81 is kept by the site. For four downloads, the site pays $1.00 in royalties and keeps $7.06. One download per day, the site pays $0.25 in royalty and keeps $7.81 - that's a 3% royalty to the contributor.
So we decided to do things differently and create a more balanced royalty model for Veer subscription. Unlike other sites, Veer offers a guaranteed "royalty pool" of $3.00 per day, per image-downloading customer. Whether a customer downloads thirty images or just one image per day, we pay out the full $3.00 to contributors. Compared to the previous example, if a Veer customer downloads one image, the contributor gets $3.00 (the other site would pay only $0.25). Four downloads, Veer pays $0.75 per image. Nine downloads, $0.33 per image royalty. I won't give away our pricing yet but I can say it's less than $250 per month.
As Lee points out, most customers don't use their full quotas, and so $0.10 per image is an outlier. With a typical range of five to fifteen downloads per day, the typical Veer subscription royalty per image is between $0.20 to $0.60, which is consistent - and in many cases better - than other subscription sites.
Veer's subscription model is different than other sites by paying out the full share of $3.00 per image-downloading customer per day regardless of the number of downloads. In a few cases, we acknowledge that Veer contributors will earn less per download than other sites but in many cases, contributors will earn much more per image than other sites. We believe the law of averages is on side with contributors in Veer's subscription royalty model.
Regarding the extended license royalty, we aligned our extended license rate to what we found in our market research of daily download subscriptions. Veer needs to be on par with the playing field and so we've designed our extended license royalties to be, in our view, a standard price for this type of subscription (to be presented at launch). We're by no means trying to insult our contributors and we appreciate everyone's concern. As always, Veer is committed to openness and transparency with our community.
As part of this commitment we have given our existing contributors the option to opt-out, but that said, we believe our offer is competitive with the current market and we are glad to offer this new subscription revenue stream to our contributors. We hope you join us.
Aaron
Thanks for replying. Good to see an agency at least responding.
However I can't see this being as rosey as you portray.
Veer is offering a maximum of $3 per day per customer to the contributors. = $93 per month.
Shutterstock offers a maximum of 25x25centsx31= $193.75 (base level) + extended license are $28
if your on the top level (25x38centsx31 = $294.50) + extended license.
The subscription plan price is important to evaluate further, I don't want you to undercut subscription prices they are already too low and impact on credit sales.
You will get alot more images available for your subscription plan if extended licenses are excluded.
Do buyers really need a subscription plan for extended licenses ? I personally don't want 13cents for an image that people can produce items for resale.
If the royality pool was spread over a week it would be better. I think that alot of people will use the entire quota in a day, and none on the weekend. Worst case for contributors. If it was calculated over a week I would expect to receive royalities above the minimum.
Istock has a similar subscription pool and I can never remember getting more than the minimum amount. I wouldn't expect anything different with the Veer plan.
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I appreciate a Veer representative coming in to try and explain what's planned, but I just don't buy the view of how things will work that they're trying to sell.
It's not as if this is the first subscription plan, and it's not the first to try something other than a fixed download per sale. When Inmagine started up 123rf they briefly tried this 50% of the royalty pool approach, but the low amounts per download had contributors very unhappy and they ended up implementing a floor amount.
iStock's subscription plan has a pool notion, with a floor amount. Even if we ignored the EL issue (and I have no idea what comparable sites you can be looking at that you think what Veer is proposing fits what other sites offer - outside of Photodune, no one else is offering extra rights that cheap), experience says that your idea of 9 downloads a day just isn't how it will work and that contributors will see a lot of those "outlier" royalties.
What makes Veer think that their 9 downloads a day number is realistic? And if you sincerely believe it is, then gamble your money, not ours, on that being true and make the floor amount based on that average. The only way you'll lose on that is if you're wrong about the average number of downloads. I don't see why you would expect contributors to bear the burden of you being wrong about that.
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I appreciate a Veer representative coming in to try and explain what's planned, but I just don't buy the view of how things will work that they're trying to sell.
It's not as if this is the first subscription plan, and it's not the first to try something other than a fixed download per sale. When Inmagine started up 123rf they briefly tried this 50% of the royalty pool approach, but the low amounts per download had contributors very unhappy and they ended up implementing a floor amount.
iStock's subscription plan has a pool notion, with a floor amount. Even if we ignored the EL issue (and I have no idea what comparable sites you can be looking at that you think what Veer is proposing fits what other sites offer - outside of Photodune, no one else is offering extra rights that cheap), experience says that your idea of 9 downloads a day just isn't how it will work and that contributors will see a lot of those "outlier" royalties.
What makes Veer think that their 9 downloads a day number is realistic? And if you sincerely believe it is, then gamble your money, not ours, on that being true and make the floor amount based on that average. The only way you'll lose on that is if you're wrong about the average number of downloads. I don't see why you would expect contributors to bear the burden of you being wrong about that.
+1
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Sorry Aaron. Your EL commission is an order of magnitude too low. What I don't understand is why you would do this to your own credit based EL sales business. Who would continue to pay $50-$100 for your credit EL sales when they can get them for a few dollars through a subscription plan? It seems to me that you are talking yourself out of a lot of revenue.
exactly! we need some fairness on the EL side or this isn´t going to happen
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Thanks for coming on here to try to explain things.
Although the average of 9 dl/day might be right for a subs plan. I am guessing there are many 0 download days (weekends spring to mind). In those cases Veer gets 100% - that is fine, except that means that the days that there are a download, there will likely be more - so the actual payment for DL will be lower for the contributors. I wonder how many places either download most of their quota or 0 pictures. From my brief analysis of my sales under the IS subs plan that might actually be the case.
Now if the price for the sub is significantly below 250/month that does make the % paid to contributors higher, but it also undercuts sites that pay more for subs to the contributors which isn't exactly a good thing for the industry or contributors.
3.75 to .13 cents for extended licenses is just crazy talk.
If you didn't have the EL subs and offered .30 or more per DL I bet most would opt in. As it is, I bet most who hear about this will opt out. Sorry.
Thank you for the option to opt out. That is definitely appreciated by me. In general I have been pleased w/ Veer and I'd hate to have to pull my port over this.
(I just spent quite some time deleting half my port from IS because of their new ASA and I'll be back for most of the rest tomorrow, don't even get me started about what Ft has been up to lately, but you won't find my images for sale there).
the part I bolded above is exactly what I was thinking. buyers probably don't use their full quota each day of their subscirption because they probably dont log in every day just to download images. I am guessing that on the days that a buyer logs in to download files that they get their quota or close to it, but on those days that they do not, "the house" gets all the money. just like a casino, the advantage goes to the house. if you look at averages, you're probably spreading full download days with zero download days - in the end it gives crap to the contributor and bigger returns to the company.
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Veer's subscription model is different than other sites by paying out the full share of $3.00 per image-downloading customer per day regardless of the number of downloads. In a few cases, we acknowledge that Veer contributors will earn less per download than other sites but in many cases, contributors will earn much more per image than other sites. We believe the law of averages is on side with contributors in Veer's subscription royalty model.
That's exactly the point, 'regardless of downloads' is not a good incentive for contributors.
It means I already know the maximum I can make and the only variable is how much less I'll make.
I'll be praying that the buyer downloads less than 30 images, so it puts me against buyers.
The fact that the top is fixed and the fractions variable turn it in a hockey stick graph with only two values above 50% of the full price, the rest below.
The average is always less than 1/5th of the full price.
And so on...
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I get $28 for EL's from shutterstock. Match that and I'll be happy but at the moment, I have no choice but to opt out.
I think the average $0.40 for subs is fair but sites have tried doing it like this before and people only see the worst case scenario. You would get a lot more people opting in with a fixed $0.40 or if you matched the shutterstock $0.38.
I really think this is a big problem, with so many people opting out, your subs collection wont appeal to buyers. They will look elsewhere. I hope something is changed and those that have opted out already are given the chance to opt back in.
Your reputation is on the line here, you will get a lot of respect if you make changes, I think we're all getting tired of sites that make bad decisions and don't have the flexibility to change them.
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Let us opt out of the EL and the option to opt out of the subscription programme in the future if your estimate of the revenue per download turns out to be wrong. Them I and I think a lot more would opt back in.
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Aaron you have the opportunity to get back a lot of contributors if you change the EL pricing, like many others I opted out for now...
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Well, not convinced. I remain out.
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I remain out too, but nobody received opt out email confirmation!!!!? Why such a complicated way of opting out by email??? Why don't you include an option on the veer site??? That's not fair!!! I never received the email information about the subscription plan and when I'm login on Veer I don't see any advert about the subscription plan!!! So, do you planing to trick people by hiding the information and avoid them to opt out easily ans clearly ? Then after the 21st october, the people who don't get the information will be f....and forced to sell subscription? Do you think it's a good way to work together, you the seller and us the photographers??
SS don't move for now, they are actually the only agency really growing in sales and all the others agencies want to kill it by lowering prices again and again, lowering prices is it the only way to fight in business? No clever alternatives??? Are you sure????
We have to warn all agencies: lowering prices is the only way to stop contributors making good pictures quality and to loose work motivation!! How can we pay models with such low earning?Do you think we gonna work and pay you next year?
We see all agencies becoming Leechers and new little worms like photodune want to suck the blood too.
So, for now, thank you to Veer team to write on this precious forum, but please be fair !!!
We also all waiting for opt out confirmation!!!!! And this opt out must be clearly noticed on each contributor account!!!!
thanks
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I opted out, mainly because of the EL pricing.
The regular subscription price seems a bit more okay, I just wish there was a way to make the prices start from $0.20 (instead of $0.10)
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I have consistently supported veer on this forum, but this subscription move has completely changed my point of view. Given the high handed way that Corbis has dealt with their rights managed contributors lately, i have to conclude that the upper management of Corbis has gotten some new marching orders. This plan is so bad that it calls into question even continuing with veer at all. I had hoped for some better efforts at veer to market their microstock division, and some better sales given the large rights managed business. Instead, sales at veer are anemic, and my rights managed sales have fallen to a pitiful level. Last month I got 53 cents from corbis rights managed sales- and that was for 2 sales! This from an account that routinely generated between 5k and 10k per month for many years. If this experience is in any way typical of the rights managed collections at corbis ( and I'm not saying it is), then there must be quite an air of desperation at the HQ. Even with Bill Gates' money, they must at least pretend to be a viable business. I think this latest plan by veer is driven by the same dynamics as at istock. The old models generating huge amounts of cash are rapidly disappearing , but the debts and overhead remain. Creating short term windfalls for the company at the expense of the long term health of the business seems to be the order of the day.
I opted out ( using the convoluted email method, with no confirmation) and am ready to dump the whole sorry mess.
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I remain out too, but nobody received opt out email confirmation!!!!? Why such a complicated way of opting out by email??? Why don't you include an option on the veer site??? That's not fair!!! I never received the email information about the subscription plan and when I'm login on Veer I don't see any advert about the subscription plan!!! So, do you planing to trick people by hiding the information and avoid them to opt out easily ans clearly ? Then after the 21st october, the people who don't get the information will be f....and forced to sell subscription? Do you think it's a good way to work together, you the seller and us the photographers??
SS don't move for now, they are actually the only agency really growing in sales and all the others agencies want to kill it by lowering prices again and again, lowering prices is it the only way to fight in business? No clever alternatives??? Are you sure????
We have to warn all agencies: lowering prices is the only way to stop contributors making good pictures quality and to loose work motivation!! How can we pay models with such low earning?Do you think we gonna work and pay you next year?
We see all agencies becoming Leechers and new little worms like photodune want to suck the blood too.
So, for now, thank you to Veer team to write on this precious forum, but please be fair !!!
We also all waiting for opt out confirmation!!!!! And this opt out must be clearly noticed on each contributor account!!!!
thanks
If they did it that way, most everyone would opt out. They send emails only because they are banking on the fact that a good percentage won't read it or won't even receive it, thereby guaranteeing their change a success, as you said. Deceit is everywhere, welcome to today's New Business Plan.
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I remain out too, but nobody received opt out email confirmation!!!!? Why such a complicated way of opting out by email??? Why don't you include an option on the veer site??? That's not fair!!! I never received the email information about the subscription plan and when I'm login on Veer I don't see any advert about the subscription plan!!! So, do you planing to trick people by hiding the information and avoid them to opt out easily ans clearly ? Then after the 21st october, the people who don't get the information will be f....and forced to sell subscription? Do you think it's a good way to work together, you the seller and us the photographers??
*snip*
While i also don't agree with the terms for the subs to me it really doesnt look like they want to deceive us by not sending out a proper warning (they also dont have a history of pulling such tricks; i think most of us are pretty happy with their transparency). I do see a big banner announcing subscriptions when i log in into my submitter account (dashboard section), they sent an email (strange you didnt get it though) and its here on the forums....
They want to give existing contributors the option to opt-out, but probably dont want to implement it on site because its only a temporary offer.
I know i sound like a true cheerleader, but i really have only good experiences with them.
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Ok, i've checked my email and found the subscription advertising, received the 24 September. I'm log in many times, look all the pages but see not advert on the site, sorry, i'm talking about pop up warning direct to contributors, of course, not of commercial advert on the site for buyers!!!
Anyway I'm waiting the sub out confirmation.
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@Aaron,
thank you for taking the time to reply to us. Much appreciated :)
I understand that you cannot change the plan and I respect that.
But I cannot accept it, so I will have to opt out.
I'm sorry.
Also, is there a chance that you could ask them to change the payout limit?
100 dollars in sales at Veer is way too much for someone like me.
I barely have a sale, a dollar so, every few months.
For me it's not happening Aaron, do you think they would agree to lower that limit?
Many thanks, and looking forward :)
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Your reputation is on the line here, you will get a lot of respect if you make changes, I think we're all getting tired of sites that make bad decisions and don't have the flexibility to change them.
Exactly. A stock photo agency need not look beyond Fotolia for an example of a company which lost a significant amount of contributors after attempting to low ball them. Once considered the heir apparent to iStock, they are now teetering on mid tier status. And once they reach mid tier, they will lose even more contributors who realize their revenue no longer justifies the ridiculous commission structure.
The bottom line for Veer to realize is that contributors really don't need them. They are a borderline low tier / mid tier earner with a history of painfully slow reviews, and previously failed agencies (Snapvillage). Nobody is going to accept a terrible deal from a company which earns them between 1% and 6% of their monthly sales. Either you treat contributors with respect, or you can expect to disappear from relevance rather quickly.
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Your reputation is on the line here, you will get a lot of respect if you make changes, I think we're all getting tired of sites that make bad decisions and don't have the flexibility to change them.
Exactly. A stock photo agency need not look beyond Fotolia for an example of a company which lost a significant amount of contributors after attempting to low ball them. Once considered the heir apparent to iStock, they are now teetering on mid tier status. And once they reach mid tier, they will lose even more contributors who realize their revenue no longer justifies the ridiculous commission structure.
The bottom line for Veer to realize is that contributors really don't need them. They are a borderline low tier / mid tier earner with a history of painfully slow reviews, and previously failed agencies (Snapvillage). Nobody is going to accept a terrible deal from a company which earns them between 1% and 6% of their monthly sales. Either you treat contributors with respect, or you can expect to disappear from relevance rather quickly.
+1
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To Veer:
Have you considered starting the standard royalty at .30 and going up to 3.00 under the same model? Most people here would be comfortable with .30 as a base and very happy at 3.00 sub download days.
The EL prices in the model right now, are very hard to accept. From a seller's point of view, you're asking us to give out EL licenses for less than we make on a single sub download on most sites. It feels like you're saying the right to use our work in an unlimited fashion, is all but valueless.
I've currently opted out, but would absolutely reconsider, under better terms.
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I'm more or less where I was previously. I can live with the subs model on the basis that I can withdraw if it's not working for me. Although a 30 to 40 cent fixed price would be FAR preferable.
But there is no way on earth I'm going to take that sort of cut for an EL. Not a chance.
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"Fotolia’s royalty-free license allows you to use images in your projects without limitations on time, the number of copies printed, or geographical location of use."
http://us.fotolia.com/Info/SizesAndUses (http://us.fotolia.com/Info/SizesAndUses)
At Fotolia all pictures are sold with the Extended License of Unlimited Production for the price of a royalty-free license, also for 0,25$ subscription (white ranking).
There exist only an Extended License for Products for Resale.
Is this new or not ?
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Veer appreciates your feedback and we are listening. We are working through some new scenarios for our subscription model and will announce an adjustment within the next day or so. Stay tuned. And meantime, keep the ideas flowing.
Aaron
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"Fotolia’s royalty-free license allows you to use images in your projects without limitations on time, the number of copies printed, or geographical location of use."
[url]http://us.fotolia.com/Info/SizesAndUses[/url] ([url]http://us.fotolia.com/Info/SizesAndUses[/url])
At Fotolia all pictures are sold with the Extended License of Unlimited Production for the price of a royalty-free license, also for 0,25$ subscription (white ranking).
There exist only an Extended License for Products for Resale.
Is this new or not ?
No, not new, it has always been this way.
No reason to follow their example though.
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Veer appreciates your feedback and we are listening. We are working through some new scenarios for our subscription model and will announce an adjustment within the next day or so. Stay tuned. And meantime, keep the ideas flowing.
Aaron
That sounds good. Changes needed from my point of view:
- don't offer ELs as subscription at all. If somebody needs an EL, he needs to pay the full price.
- introduce a competitive minimum amount per download (around the competition: DT $0,35, SS $0,38, 123RF $0,36). If you can top that, much better.
- don't undercut other (better paying) sites with your pricing. If you offer the top commission (why not do something like $0,50), than fine, let's drag customers over.
- finally: if you do these changes, allow those of us who already opted out back in again ;D
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Can you please restrict the sizes. Subscribers just don't deserve more than Large for pennies.
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Veer appreciates your feedback and we are listening. We are working through some new scenarios for our subscription model and will announce an adjustment within the next day or so. Stay tuned. And meantime, keep the ideas flowing.
Aaron
That sounds good. Changes needed from my point of view:
- don't offer ELs as subscription at all. If somebody needs an EL, he needs to pay the full price.
- introduce a competitive minimum amount per download (around the competition: DT $0,35, SS $0,38, 123RF $0,36). If you can top that, much better.
- don't undercut other (better paying) sites with your pricing. If you offer the top commission (why not do something like $0,50), than fine, let's drag customers over.
- finally: if you do these changes, allow those of us who already opted out back in again ;D
That sums it up pretty much for me too!
Especially the 2nd point. Getting anything below a certain amount feels like an insult....(for me thats anything below $0.30-0.35)
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Veer appreciates your feedback and we are listening. We are working through some new scenarios for our subscription model and will announce an adjustment within the next day or so. Stay tuned. And meantime, keep the ideas flowing.
Aaron
I'm really pleased, I just wish sites would consult some of us before bringing in big changes like this. There's been lots of times when sites have to make changes after announcing something that's unacceptable. It feels like it's a deliberate ploy, offer a really bad deal, make it slightly better and everyone's happy that there's been some compromise. If you really want respect, get it right the first time.
You will never please all of us all of the time but it should be easy to learn from the mistakes other sites have made in the past and not just follow in their footsteps.
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Regarding the extended license royalty, we aligned our extended license rate to what we found in our market research of daily download subscriptions.
Aaron
*. You are starting to sound like Istock trying to explain how an 80% cut of the royalties was driving them to bankruptcy.
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Thanks for listening Aaron. For me, the two main issues are minimum payment for subscription downloads, and a reasonable royalty for extended licenses. I would opt in if the floor for subs was .30, and if the floor for ELs was the $28 that SS gives us.
Alternatively, you might consider some sort of ranking system like the subscription leader has. It would be okay to start at .25 if we could raise up to .38 or better once we achieved certain(attainable) sales targets.
The .10 and the pitiful EL are total deal breakers. The only site that offers comparably low ELs is Photodune, and I'm opted out of those on their site.
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We appreciate the points raised here and in Lee's article. Thanks for your patience in hearing our reply.
First on the $3.00 - $0.10 per download:
When designing our subscription royalty model we did not want to follow the approach of other subscription sites that pay a fixed royalty per download, because of the imbalance of what the company earns versus what the contributor earns. Let's say a subscription site pays $0.25 per download, their customers pay $250 for a 31 day subscription, amounting to a daily spend of $8.06. An estimated average of nine downloads per day means $2.25 royalty is paid to contributors (who's images were downloaded by a customer) and $5.81 is kept by the site. For four downloads, the site pays $1.00 in royalties and keeps $7.06. One download per day, the site pays $0.25 in royalty and keeps $7.81 - that's a 3% royalty to the contributor.
So we decided to do things differently and create a more balanced royalty model for Veer subscription. Unlike other sites, Veer offers a guaranteed "royalty pool" of $3.00 per day, per image-downloading customer. Whether a customer downloads thirty images or just one image per day, we pay out the full $3.00 to contributors. Compared to the previous example, if a Veer customer downloads one image, the contributor gets $3.00 (the other site would pay only $0.25). Four downloads, Veer pays $0.75 per image. Nine downloads, $0.33 per image royalty. I won't give away our pricing yet but I can say it's less than $250 per month.
As Lee points out, most customers don't use their full quotas, and so $0.10 per image is an outlier. With a typical range of five to fifteen downloads per day, the typical Veer subscription royalty per image is between $0.20 to $0.60, which is consistent - and in many cases better - than other subscription sites.
Veer's subscription model is different than other sites by paying out the full share of $3.00 per image-downloading customer per day regardless of the number of downloads. In a few cases, we acknowledge that Veer contributors will earn less per download than other sites but in many cases, contributors will earn much more per image than other sites. We believe the law of averages is on side with contributors in Veer's subscription royalty model.
Regarding the extended license royalty, we aligned our extended license rate to what we found in our market research of daily download subscriptions. Veer needs to be on par with the playing field and so we've designed our extended license royalties to be, in our view, a standard price for this type of subscription (to be presented at launch). We're by no means trying to insult our contributors and we appreciate everyone's concern. As always, Veer is committed to openness and transparency with our community.
As part of this commitment we have given our existing contributors the option to opt-out, but that said, we believe our offer is competitive with the current market and we are glad to offer this new subscription revenue stream to our contributors. We hope you join us.
Aaron
Fail. This is what subscription should do: increase downloads becasue of the package bargain, so buyers will go around downloading even pictures they just 'might' use. This works if the site has large traffic.... Veer doesn't. Fail. Disadvantage for the contributor: lower paying downloads... but two things make up for it: volume, and the fix-price protetcion from flimsy few cent downloads of small sizes. Big fail again, instead of that, this implements nano royalties.
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I just got a confirmation email to my opt-out.. here it is:
Dear Contributor,
We'd like to confirm receipt of your email indicating your wish to opt out of the Veer subscription program that will be offered later this year.
Since announcing the subscription plan and related royalties last week, we've received a lot of thoughtful feedback and suggestions for ways to make the plan more attractive to contributors. We want to let you know we've been listening, and as a result of that feedback, we plan to release an adjusted plan within the next few days.
We will be offering an opportunity to opt back in to the revised plan, and invite you to respond to this email with any further suggestions you have that will help us provide you with a more desirable subscription plan.
Sincerely,
The Veer Contributor Team
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I just got the same email and have nothing more to add than what's already been said here so I'm not sure how to respond to it.
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We need to stop the race to the bottom mentality and keep payouts to contributors at a decent and fair level without all the gimics and twisted payout math that always favors the stock sites and never the contributor. Set a concrete minimum and a fair EL price that's in line with the industry norm then you might have a workable plan that your contributors and buyers will like.
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I got my confirmation back for the opt out. I also decided to take the opportunity to give Veer some free advice. They are welcome to do whatever they want with it, but here it is:
I appreciate the concern for contributors' opinions and that there was an opt out. I've never been a big fan of subscription plans, so I'm not too interested in opting into another one. I'd be more interested in eliminating the ones I already have. ;)
I think Veer could work a lot harder to separate itself from the other agencies by being more contributor friendly. I was excited when Veer first opened the doors, but a lot of that excitement has died down after multiple policy changes. I was unhappy when raster versions were offered for vectors. I was unhappy when larger higher resolution raster files were required for upload. Now, I'm disappointed to see a subs program implemented. I'm not leaving, but I don't see much of a future with Veer.
My perfect agency would be one that offered around 50% royalties, no subscription plans, and allows me set my own prices. I submit to a few agencies that do this, and these are the ones that get my new work.
I hope that helps.
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Veer appreciates your feedback and we are listening. We are working through some new scenarios for our subscription model and will announce an adjustment within the next day or so. Stay tuned. And meantime, keep the ideas flowing.
Aaron
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Regardless of how your revised model turns out, I really appreciate Veer's willingness to hear our feedback. I agree with what others have said about the importance of a price floor closer to the industry average and better EL compensation.
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The .10 and the pitiful EL are total deal breakers.
Agreed - I just opted out.
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I'd like to add my appreciation to Veer for showing that they're stlll listening to contributors. That is much appreciated (and a great relief). Thank you.
I'm just hoping that the outcome is something I can happily opt in to, because I DO want to support Veer. I just need Veer to make it possible for me to continue to do that.
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Perhaps the most fair way to pay contributors for subs would be to match the pay per download percentage? Add up all the money buyers have paid at the end of the month and distribute a fixed percentage to contributors. We really don't know what percentage the other sites pay us but the impression is that it's often less than we get for pay per download.
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It's really important that Veer change this, because new contributors are going to find themselves automatically enrolled. In time, it will acquire a substantial collection regardless of initial opt-outs and unless stuff like the EL pricing is changed it will give added impetus to the famed "race to the bottom". I don't believe that is in Veer's interests any more than it is in ours.
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Opted out, but willing to listen if Veer comes back to us with a more fair offer
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Perhaps the most fair way to pay contributors for subs would be to match the pay per download percentage? Add up all the money buyers have paid at the end of the month and distribute a fixed percentage to contributors. We really don't know what percentage the other sites pay us but the impression is that it's often less than we get for pay per download.
That's an interesting idea!
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"Fotolia’s royalty-free license allows you to use images in your projects without limitations on time, the number of copies printed, or geographical location of use."
[url]http://us.fotolia.com/Info/SizesAndUses[/url] ([url]http://us.fotolia.com/Info/SizesAndUses[/url])
At Fotolia all pictures are sold with the Extended License of Unlimited Production for the price of a royalty-free license, also for 0,25$ subscription (white ranking).
There exist only an Extended License for Products for Resale.
Is this new or not ?
No it's not. Which is one of the many reasons a lot of us deleted our portfolios at Fotolia.
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Just thought I'd add it to this thread, Veer updated their pricing / payout schedule for royalties. I'll lock this thread now, further discussion can be done in the new thread.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/veer-marketplace/veer-subscription-royalties-update/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/veer-marketplace/veer-subscription-royalties-update/)