Less than a year ago, iStockphoto did a big shakeup on their collection structure and pricing, details of which can be found in this article : Half the Price Forever, Really? Well, it’s been almost a year, and in the last few days, they’ve raised the pricing of the Main collection of images.
The main collection of images took the pricing structure of the old dollar bin when the shake-up happened. Images were $1-2-3-4-5-6-7 based on size. Here’s a graphic from last year to show the pricing.
Apparently, a year was long enough as the pricing levels have recently increased, as seen below.
Want to not lock yourself into credits? Look at the premium you’ll pay for wanting to use cash:
Need an XS image? You’re out of luck – those went away some time over the last year. Need a small image? You’ll pay the equivalent of $3 a credit for that image – 2 x $3 = $6. Amazingly, as the size and price goes up, you get an even worse deal. That XXXL image will cost you $3.875 an image! 8 x $3.875 = $31 .
Contributors have been telling of ever dropping income in the last months. Is this a move to try and bolster royalty payments with the “boats rise the tide” theory? Or is it an attempt to push existing customer towards the new iStockphoto subscription plan? Time will tell what the result is, but it likely won’t be good news for contributors.
Hopefully, as a buyer, you have some elasticity in your budget to accommodate these changes.
