As veterans in this industry, we’ve adapted to be suspicious whenever an agency uses the word “exciting” somewhere in their communication as it usually means anything but for contributors.

Top 5 Agency “Exciting News” Announcements

Despite waking up to two-decently priced sales at Pond5 which I’ll report at the end of the month, I was less than excited to receive this news from Pond5 yesterday on the new pricing structure leaving me with considerably more questions than answers. In this blog post I’ll go through what the changes are and whether we, as contributors, may benefit from the changes. Let’s get started!

The Pond5 communication in full

Dear Artists,

After recent price tests on video clips, we’re excited to share some promising results! The Pond5 marketplace has always been unique in offering “variable prices,” meaning artists set their prices. While this approach allows for flexibility, it results in over 1,000 price points across the marketplace.

Competitive and data analysis shows that offering too many prices causes customer confusion and friction. Furthermore, Pond5 customers prefer licensing individual assets over subscriptions because their work is project-based.

To understand how customers would respond to a simpler pricing model, we ran a test for US customers in which all video clips were split into two price tiers, Standard and Premium. The results have been encouraging! The test significantly beat expectations for critical metrics, including increased buyer engagement and driving more revenue.

The new video price tiers will be implemented across all currencies on Pond5, and the Contributor Agreement will be updated effective August 22, 2024. A copy of the new Contributor Agreement can be found here.

We appreciate your ongoing partnership and adaptability as we work to optimize the uploader to account for the new price tiers. For now, please set prices for any new content as you always have, and our tools will place it in the appropriate tier.

Enhancing our offering to drive the most value for you and the Pond5 community is our top priority. By continuously analyzing customer purchasing behavior, we gather valuable insights to guide future testing on Pond5’s prices and tiers. Rest assured, we’ll inform you of any significant changes that could impact your experience with Pond5.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our Support team at support@pond5.com.

Best,

Your Friends at Pond5

What has changed exactly?

As a trained lawyer I dove straight into the new contributor agreement. I asked Chat GPT to compare the new contributor agreement with the previous:

As you can see above, little else has changed. Most crucially they have kept the revenue share at 60% for exclusives and 40% for non-exclusives. There would be revolt if they reduced those.

Digging deeper on the new content pricing structure

I do agree with Pond5 that the previous pricing structure wasn’t working. Acting as a customer, let’s say that I’m looking for a 4K video of a red London double-decker bus passing in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Ignoring the irrelevant clips, I can see that similar clips are priced completely differently. For instance, if you click on the link above at the higher-end it shows me these prices. Note that I’m in Portugal and pricing points are different where you’re based (could be interesting to check using a VPN):

And at the lowest-end of the pricing point:

It can indeed be confusing for a customer to see similar clips (let’s not get too technical on the differences) are priced from EUR53-262. That’s a massive range!

Within my own portfolio I’ve tried pricing my clips consistently at EUR100 for HD and EUR200 for 4K for my aerials, although not sure this made any difference as their previous pricing structure was confusing and inconsistent.

In all honesty, I think it’s a mistake for a contributor to set their own prices as prices would never be objective…for instance, some of my favourite clips have little commercial value and some clips that I absolutely have no love for sell like ice cream during a heat wave.

My historical earnings at Pond5

To be frank, as always, relative to the size of my growing Pond5 port, sales have dropped in volumes. Average prices has always dropped considerably since the 2021 peak, although not too far off the historical average of $25 net/download. See the table below.

I’m in full support of the new pricing structure if they can find a way to increase at least volumes and keep prices steady at around $20/net. Below are my historical earnings at Pond5 since 2019 (I started in 2018 but had few sales).

For the record, as this is a brutally honest blog and all, this is my historical best-seller at Pond5.

My worry and I’m sure it’s that of many, following on from the Shutterstock acquisition in 2022, the management at Pond5 are being forced to match Shutterstock’s pricing points and (close to an) all-you-can-eat subscription models. Although at this stage there isn’t much appetite for subscriptions at Pond5 as they have clearly stated, “Pond5 customers prefer licensing individual assets over subscriptions because their work is project-based.” But who knows the situation may change with pressure from Shutterstock.

Dare I predict a 2025 where average prices will be $10/download and some as low as $1/download?

Two pricing points – Standard and Premium – more questions than answers

Pond5 have not gone into detail what these two pricing points entail. Some questions that I hope Pond5 will be able to answer in the coming weeks include:

• How will my existing content be categorised into the Standard and Premium price tiers – is it by resolution, past sales, my own previous pricing points?
• What influence does being an exclusive contributor mean whether a clip will be placed in the Standard of Premium category?
• Can I influence or request a specific tier for my content, or is this decision solely up to Pond5? Is it possible to opt out?
• What are the price ranges for the Standard and Premium tiers, and how do they compare to current pricing?
• How often will the criteria for tier placement be reviewed or updated?
• How will these pricing tiers affect the visibility and search ranking of my content on Pond5?
• Will there be any reporting or analytics provided to help me understand the performance of my content under the new pricing model?

Discussion at the MSG Forum

Join the lively discussion on the topic at the MSG Forum.

Best,

Your friend at the Brutally Honest Blog