Received this exciting (no, really) email:

Our goal is to help you grow your business on Pond5. One of the trends we�ve seen recently is that some creative assets are being under-priced and can command a price greater than what they are currently listed for. We want to address that.

Starting on October 6, 2016 we will be raising the minimum price for all video assets on the site to the following:
4K / 4K+
$50 Minimum

HD / 2K
$25 Minimum

SD / WEB
$15 Minimum

Good news! Even though the minimum prices are still far from what I would ask, it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully it also teaches some contributors the value of video footage.

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I got the email too. I made some of my videos $10 so they probably want more profit ... Not sure if it will hurt my sales though...

Why do you set clip prices so low? I think by setting too low might hurt your sales more than raising prices.

Can we see those 10$ clips

I've never figured out why 4K has to be four times more than HD. Sure, there's four times more pixels, but does it cost four times more to produce? Yes, you'll get people saying about render times, storage space, the cost of cameras for example. But take storage... if you get $75 more for a 4K clip then you only need to sell one and you've got a 1TB hard drive right there.

The shooting takes the same time, the editing as well, maye not rhe rendering... yes, you need better equipment, but I still think that 4K is overpriced. What's going to happen when 8K is on the up in five to ten years? Will that be $800 a clip? Will 16K be $3200?

If stock is anything like the technology used to create it, then 4K should reduce over time, and the 8K should be sold at the price that 4K did originally. I appreciate there's more to stock than technology, but if you ask somebody why their 4K stuff is so expensive, that's usually all they'll talk about.

I guess we will have to see how it goes in due time ...

I got the email too. I made some of my videos $10 so they probably want more profit ... Not sure if it will hurt my sales though...

$10 per video is an absolute joke. Did you forget to take the lens cap off? You're shooting yourself and everyone else in the foot.

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pond5 doesn't allow you to buy a small web size version for a lower price. Many other agencies do, so you can buy a websize for 10 dollars or less.

So the flat higher price for hd or 4k at other agencies is balanced against the option to buy a small resolution file.

And of course other agencies give very high discounts, so the 200 dollar 4k price might just be window dressing.

I like real price models, I am sure they had a look at the whole market and chose their prices close to what customers are actually paying elsewhere.

And then there is membership...high quality files for 8 dollars...will be interesting to see how many customers will switch to membership now. And of course those customers are lost to all of us who don't have files in the membership program.

Quote from: cobalt on October 04, 2016, 11:31

And of course other agencies give very high discounts, so the 200 dollar 4k price might just be window dressing.

Exactly, the good people at Shutterstock do it all the time. I believe the average price can be somewhere closer to $59 rather than $79... That's 75%.

Are you talking about commission or sales price? Subs (packs) or cart sales?

4K cart sales are priced at $199, we get $59.70. I have not seen discounts from that. 4K packs are priced from $185.80 to $170.36, netting us around $51-$56. I also have not seen anything lower than that. Not that I've had that many 4K sales -- probably only about a dozen over the last few years. So maybe you've seen some discounts I haven't.

I was talking HD clips Don't see many 4k sales (even though almost all my clips have a 4k version) so that's not a reality right now.

Oh! Sorry, since the last several posts were all about 4K, I assumed that's what you had meant.

You're right, HD clips are supposed to be priced at $79 for cart sales, giving us $23.70, but sometimes (often) are priced less. Same goes for sub sales -- they're supposed to range around $68-74, giving us $20-$22, but those are frequently showing up at < $20. 

I get a lot of $11.55 sales, so maybe that's a discount on a standard def version?

Yeah, I get a lot of sales like that (that don't fit in the price range they are supposed to). I assume like you that it's a discount on the next higher bracket. So a $16 sub sale is most likely an HD, and a $8 or $10 sub sale is likely an SD. ($11.55 is close to the normal range, according to my notes.) It's a bit annoying they don't identify them as such, but it's always been that way. It happens with cart sales, too, but less often.

Received this exciting (no, really) email:

Quote

Our goal is to help you grow your business on Pond5. One of the trends we�ve seen recently is that some creative assets are being under-priced and can command a price greater than what they are currently listed for. We want to address that.

Starting on October 6, 2016 we will be raising the minimum price for all video assets on the site to the following:
4K / 4K+
$50 Minimum

HD / 2K
$25 Minimum

SD / WEB
$15 Minimum

Good news! Even though the minimum prices are still far from what I would ask, it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully it also teaches some contributors the value of video footage.

Progress! I didn't get the email, but I found out why on the P5 forums:

Hi all. We are testing higher minimum pricing levels starting with video later this week. This email went out only to artists who had clips which fell below our new minimum pricing levels. If you did not receive the email, there is nothing to worry about, your clip prices already comply. If you did receive the email please check your clips priced below the minimum and adjust accordingly. As many of you know and appreciate, we remain the only major player in the industry which allows artists to set their own prices. Please let us know if you have any questions.

So only people who had files below the new minimum got the mail. Apparently recently uploaded and unedited files which are at 1$ also trigger the mail.

Using reason, mathematics and common sense didn't work. Finally, Pond5 had to force you bottom feeders to raise your prices to (or closer to) a respectable level, and reduce contributing to the cheapening of our collected product. Thank you Pond5!

Now let's see if you stubborn $10 (now $25) clip sellers will be honest and report back when your monthly dollar amounts increase in the coming months and admit that those of us begging you to raise your prices were correct and trying to steer you the right way all along.

Then maybe even after that, you'll realize we were also right about dumping bottom feeding sites like Envato and artist-hating, commission stealing pieces of garbage like iStock/Getty. Time to start letting those companies adapt or die, and time to only support the fair(er) ones.

We all know you won't though.