Oh boy...I really hope this is good news.

Contributor Subscription Information | iStockphoto.com

It sounds like they will be doing something similar to what we've been asking other sites to do...sell photos under a subscription in credit tiers instead of just a one-price-fits-all-sizes scheme. If so...that would be awesome, because we wouldn't be earning only 25 or 30 cents for our original size photos. It would be 25 or 30 cents multiplied by the credits used for a particular size.

Can't wait to see what the pricing calculator has to show. The whole thing sounds rather complicated...but it also sounds like it could very well be the best subscription plan in the business.

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Photography by Karin Lau | SmugMug Pro Account | Shutterstock | Mostphotos | StockXPert | Dreamstime | iStock | 123RF | BigStock

Still looks as if they are paying 20c a picture - spend five credits on you = $1 ?

That makes it about the smallest payment around - doesn't it ?

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Yep, on an Xsmall download iStock actually pays less than Shutterstock and it's probably the worst percentage deal in the business at 20%.

But hey they are still my second biggest earner so who's counting.

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JK

www.microstockphotography.info

20 cents is the minimum they will pay. If I'm understanding the methodology, it should increase depending on the subscription package and how many credits the buyer spends out of their daily allotment. I could be way off though.

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Photography by Karin Lau | SmugMug Pro Account | Shutterstock | Mostphotos | StockXPert | Dreamstime | iStock | 123RF | BigStock

I also like that IS allows the opt-out of individual images.

I'm so confused about this. Will this only be a good thing if new customers sign up? Won't the old customers decide to do this instead to get the photos at a lesser cost? Won't the contributors get a lot less for their larger files? I was pretty excited about canceling all my subscription based microstocks and going exclusive with IS...I only have 97 days left with dt. I don't know what all this means maybe someone out there can explain.

p.s. I have opted-out but I don't know if it is a good or bad thing.

I think it's only a bad new for other sites that sell suscription and that can see some customers fleeing to IS. As explained in the istock forums, contributors won't get less for credit (even if credit costs 0.25 or 0.40, watever they decide, instead of 1.30) for each sale, and, in some cases, even can get more, if customer doesn't spent all his day-credits. However, in my opinion, best benefit for contributors will be an increase in sales.
IS, often target of critics by contributors, does again the rigth thing, something that nobody else does: selling suspcriptions by credits, thus valuing the differetnt sizes, that's to say, not selling any size for the same base price.

It's too early to be down on this model, May is not here yet. What I read are larger Volume Customers are requesting this type of feature and may start buying more images or be attracted as new Customers.

The pay as always is cannister level weighted, so me as Gold will get more than lower levels, which I think is fair, Diamond levels will be even more.

For me the positive is that I'm not giving away a native resolution of my 12MP camera for 20 cents, the bigger the file download the higher the $.

My hope is that iStock makes this work and their competition start to copy the graduated pay more for bigger files on subscription downloads. If the iStock scheme turns out to be bad for us they have given an opt out clause.

If most people here are really concerned about low pay for downloads, maybe cutting back submissions to the BIG 6 or is it 7 only and drop the sites that under perform, would free up some precious time so you could create more content.

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