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Posts
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Discussion open to Symzio contributors only –
As we progress with the beta, we’ve continued to analyze the pricing structure we have in comparison to other agencies. Though Canva does provide $1 licenses for images, the fact that you have to use their infrastructure and you cannot alter media created through their template, there is an opportunity cost that goes along with it. Therefore, trying to compete at that level may not be correct.
We still want to avoid having three different sizes and are thinking of the following change:
$1.99 – 800×800 small size, one time use
$5.99 – full size, one time use
This would be from the current which is:
$0.99 – 600×600 small size, one time use
$4.99 – full size, one time use
Again, remember that our licensing is significantly different than that of most of the large agencies because they offer royalty free licenses – this means customers can keep and use that same image indefinitely. Our one time use is very restrictive in that it specifies one end product for one purpose only.
Our RF Unlimited license is $24.99. Additionally, if you have other thoughts or suggestions regarding this pricing, let us know here and we’ll discuss it.
We will probably implement this change in the next few days depending on where we get in the discussion. We are doing this also because we are going to start advertising and ramping up our marketing efforts, and want a standard pricing that will remain stable.
One other benefit of this pricing is it gives contributors a bit more room on their independent sites if they also want to offer one time use licenses.
Finally, keep in mind that our motive behind the pricing and licensing system we have is to specifically attract and create a new niche market for the millions of blogs out there that need digital sized, one time use media.
Offering low cost one time use license for small and other sizes of images is a good idea for me but I think we should not apply it in full size image and vectors. It was based on my experience as a graphic designer that we use small size images for blogs and web based promotions but full size images or vector files are always used for big projects.
My other reason is to prevent those bad guys to easily access our full size files. Lately I removed my vectors and closed my portfolio account in 3 of mid-tier microstock agencies because those bad guys downloaded my vectors (for low cost) from them and distributed it on their free download websites and it’s hard to crack them down even shutterstock have difficulties to deal with them.
That’s only my opinion.
Very good point – so regardless of the license available, the reality is that people can download the full size image and pirate it, and that is an ongoing issue. However, with other agencies that have subscriptions, the cost for this is quite low – they can get your images for about 25 cents. Don’t you think such endeavors would be significantly reduced if these guys had to pay $6 an image?
I mean, if you have 600 vectors, that would translate to a $3600 investment that they would probably never see even close to the same return on.
I think that at $5.99 for the full size, it would make it nearly impossible for free sites to realistically get their hands on a large number of your images for that reason. What do you think?
You have a good point and you make it clear. You make me realized that the subscription plans of those microstock agencies have a big part of their contributor’s problem. I hope more contributors will join us. I don’t have a problem with our new pricing changes anyway.
I think the subscription plans are precisely where all the problems arise, because they force customers to pay more and blur the amount of money contributors receive. Thanks for your feedback – much appreciated.
I might have said it before but here I go again. I do think trying to compete with microstock agencies on pricing is the wrong way to grow the network. It’s not going to happen because contributors are fed up with micro pricing and often with the microstock system in general. I also think the fact that different images have different prices will not contribute to confusion of potential customers. Everybody understands these days that an image is not just an amount of pixels with price 0.00000xxx per pixel. Nobody expects to buy a painting prized by its size only.
What this network needs to go through the roof are happy contributors. Creatives that have an interest to promote the network.
How do you get them on board? With a fair commission and the freedom to price their own stuff.I have my images on all sort of sites from the subscription microstock to Corbis and find that people pay widely different amounts for the same image. However, I’m sure that is because they are corporate buyers and have an account that they “must use”. What we are looking for initially is the opportunistic buyer who doesn’t have an account with a different agency, has found our site and is almost deciding between buying one “legally” and maybe just finding a free one they can use. The vector people could well be different and I have little feel for pricing of illustrations (and perhaps you have a different pricing structure), but for photos there are so many alternatives out there that you will not get people paying very much through a “pay as you go” site.
I’m happy with the suggested pricing – simplicity is important, affordable pricing that people don’t think twice about is important and I also think consistency is important. I understand the desire to price a certain image higher for scarcity value (I have some Equatorial Guinea images that are pretty scarce, but I should really remove those from Symzio, price them at some higher price and have the only competing agencies be the macro ones).
Steve
Happy contributors are very important, and our ultimate goal. Contributors will be happy when they get sales. They will also be happy, as you suggested, if they are able to have more control over pricing.
Realistically – what percentage of contributors do you feel would go out of their way to promote Symzio if we integrated more control over pricing?
And secondly, do you believe that positive effect would result in more sales for contributors versus the marketing hook we have with low cost, one time use licenses?
After considering and answering those questions, also consider this – we are a very small team with limited resources and will continue to be this way based on the very small amount of revenue we will be netting out of Symzio sales. If we don’t have competitive pricing, we will basically be nearly completely reliant on the community to assist in promoting Symzio.
Do you think that this would be a safe reliance? Are contributors ready to embrace something new and invest passion towards its success?
What would you do different if Symzio integrated variable pricing?
I think that marketing a site with pricing that varies by image and with no obvious reason to the buyer is very confusing. You come along, see the images that match your keyword and click on the one you are first interested in. You see that it is $25, say. That could cause you to leave immediately, but lets say you go to your second choice and see it is $5.99. You now think – why is this one cheaper? Is my third choice cheaper still? How do I find out – do I have to click on each one or can I sort them by price and buy the cheapest one that “sort of” meets my needs?
I think you need the quick process of see the image you want, buy it as a reasonable price, get it immediately and bookmark the site because it was so easy and you got a high quality image at a price you were willing to pay.
Steve
I have my images on all sort of sites from the subscription microstock to Corbis and find that people pay widely different amounts for the same image. However, I’m sure that is because they are corporate buyers and have an account that they “must use”. What we are looking for initially is the opportunistic buyer who doesn’t have an account with a different agency, has found our site and is almost deciding between buying one “legally” and maybe just finding a free one they can use. The vector people could well be different and I have little feel for pricing of illustrations (and perhaps you have a different pricing structure), but for photos there are so many alternatives out there that you will not get people paying very much through a “pay as you go” site.
I’m happy with the suggested pricing – simplicity is important, affordable pricing that people don’t think twice about is important and I also think consistency is important. I understand the desire to price a certain image higher for scarcity value (I have some Equatorial Guinea images that are pretty scarce, but I should really remove those from Symzio, price them at some higher price and have the only competing agencies be the macro ones).
Steve
I have to disagree for 2 reasons.
1. If the main goal is to please only the customer (by offering lowest pricing) then why not give the images away for free? You won’t find a lot of serious contributors to join this model.
2. I’m not so much talking about individual Symbiostock websites. I agree that people who find these rather small sites are rather opportunistic buyers that stumbled upon an image they might need. The main focus however should remain on Symzio.com which could be a cooperative agency of thousands of contributors offering Millions of images. This site COULD attract bloggers, web designers, small companies, corporate buyer – basically anybody with image needs. However to get this momentum it will need lots of contributors and lots of images. But you won’t get them if you keep up with the microstock agency model every contributor keeps complaining about.Happy contributors are very important, and our ultimate goal. Contributors will be happy when they get sales. They will also be happy, as you suggested, if they are able to have more control over pricing.
Realistically – what percentage of contributors do you feel would go out of their way to promote Symzio if we integrated more control over pricing?
And secondly, do you believe that positive effect would result in more sales for contributors versus the marketing hook we have with low cost, one time use licenses?
After considering and answering those questions, also consider this – we are a very small team with limited resources and will continue to be this way based on the very small amount of revenue we will be netting out of Symzio sales. If we don’t have competitive pricing, we will basically be nearly completely reliant on the community to assist in promoting Symzio.
Do you think that this would be a safe reliance? Are contributors ready to embrace something new and invest passion towards its success?
What would you do different if Symzio integrated variable pricing?
I actually believe EVERY (or nearly 100%) Symzio contributor would promote Symzio if they have control over pricing and receive an 80% commission. Stock photographers promote their portfolios on Fotolia, Shutterstock, Alamy or in my case Corbis, AGE, … all the time.
When they all of a sudden have chance to get 80% instead of 25 or whatever, why wouldn’t you want to promote this more than any other agency cooperation?As for developing sales, in my opinion sales will only come if you have a huge variety of images (hundreds of thousands or even millions) and a broad network of supporters delivering the SEO juice you’ll need.
What would I do? I’d join Symzio and then promote it. I’d list it at all online profiles, mention it at all social media channels, link my websites to it etc etc.
I think that marketing a site with pricing that varies by image and with no obvious reason to the buyer is very confusing. You come along, see the images that match your keyword and click on the one you are first interested in. You see that it is $25, say. That could cause you to leave immediately, but lets say you go to your second choice and see it is $5.99. You now think – why is this one cheaper? Is my third choice cheaper still? How do I find out – do I have to click on each one or can I sort them by price and buy the cheapest one that “sort of” meets my needs?
That’s only a technicality. You could place a visible price tag (or from 1 to 3 stars or coins) into one corner of the image when listing them. Or sort images by pricing etc. I think that’s very doable.
Steve – your points are extremely valid, and we were internally discussing the possibility of providing contributors three tiers to choose from for their pricing. We could figure out what those tiers should be together, and then organize the pricing on Symzio accordingly to minimize customer confusion.
But I believe you are correct about the ‘confusion’ arising out of wondering why one image is priced higher than another – it is part of the opportunity cost I am talking about when I say there are obvious detractors to offering variable pricing. But if contributors are promoting Symzio like crazy, it may offset this to some extent.
Redneck is correct that we can minimize confusion by trying to organize the media in ways so that customers know that contributors have set the prices differently, and even allow them to filter media by price. However, this will not eliminate the confusion you mentioned and will possibly make us lose some sales and/or customers.
Redneck – I believe you when you say you would promote Symzio, but can you explain why Picfair has not succeeded? Why didn’t contributors link to their portfolios on that site? What would make Symzio different to the average contributor? Would it be the communal push towards it? Or are the licenses and revenue share in and of itself sufficient drive to make the average contributor feel very positive towards it?
I’m on Picfair with 6000 images and have not had one sale and no noticeable views on any of my images. When I complain about their search system (which is pretty poor), I get the response to link to my images in social media.
But – I have very few buyers that follow me on twitter or my blog. I’m not sure how much of a difference I can make to buyers becoming aware of Picfair and choosing to buy my images there. So I have basically ignored the site – no more uploads from me unless there is some movement. Canva however, is picking up nicely and those $1 usage fees add up. Am I losing a higher price sale elsewhere – I haven’t a clue. I tend to think about the overall income each month rather than where it comes from.
Getting Symzio off the ground without the massive investment that Picfair has had is going to be really tough. Contributors may come along, but unless those images are only available on this site (very unlikely), the attraction to buyers will be the price. We can wish it was different but we have no bargaining power to change current realities.
Steve
Pond5 is similar in that you can set your own price for photos. As you hover over the thumbnail the prices appear. I’ve had most of mine set to $20, but have few sales. I’ve just tried an experiment where I changed the price of about half of them to $10 max. If there are any more sales, I’ll feed it back, but I doubt things will change quickly…
Steve
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