This price increase by Pond5 is hurting my sales

I noticed that I haven't made any sales this month on Pond5, whereas I typically sell between 5-10 clips monthly. Upon investigation, I discovered that Pond5 had increased all my clip prices to $149, even though I usually price them between $49-$89. Why are we asked to set our own prices if they aren’t going to honor our requests? The ability to set my own prices was the main reason I chose to be exclusive to Pond5.

I had concerns about Pond5's direction when Shutterstock acquired it. This unexpected price hike is affecting my sales significantly. Can anyone recommend other platforms for selling stock footage? I previously left iStock and Shutterstock due to their low payouts, which don’t fairly compensate for my efforts. I’m really frustrated with this situation.

Following with interest. I've priced higher than standard for years, and no pricing test I did with lower prices increased my sales to the point where I made the same or more money than the solid sales I had with higher pricing. Also, there is some hearsay that indicates that sales reports are delayed since the inception of the new Pond5 pricing test. I don't know about that, but if so, maybe you'll be surprised?

Keep us posted.

Higher prices is a good thing. The race to the gutter has been terrible. If they raised your HD to $149 then that is probably too high but a little low for 4K. Never known in the last five or six years of P5 raising prices. They have reduced and then give additional discounts. Give it time. Sales have dropped here at P5 significantly the last month. It's not due to high price.

@Mizamook, I'm planning to wait until August 15th. If I still haven't made any sales by then, I'll switch from being 'Exclusive' on P5, since non-exclusive contributors can price their footage lower than $149. In the meantime, I'll also be exploring other websites to sell my footage.

@Rekindlephoto, both my HD and 4K footage are priced at $149. This price increase is really frustrating. Shutterstock has messed up P5. I removed all my footage from Shutterstock because it was terrible, and now they're coming over to ruin P5 too.
Do you guys recommend any other websites?

I have had a couple of sales this week. Maybe things are looking up?

Sales are tanking. Making 1/3 of normal sales. I understand it's a pricing experiment, but ouch! When is this going to revert to self inflicted pricing? Anyone know?

First off, as a contributor who has been with Pond5 since 2012 or 2013, I am not happy with this increase in pricing to $149 for exclusive content. I think that 4 sales at $59 beats zero sales at $149, every time. They are pricing the non-exclusive sales at $39, a far better price-point for the little guys who need a video and can't get it shot themselves with an iPhone and room lighting. At the $149 price-point, he or she will definitely try to shoot it themselves!

Almost everybody has a smart phone, and can shoot HD videos, some can shoot 4K. Since there is no price differential for 4K or HD for contributors, why would I want to shoot 4K? It takes up a lot more room for storage, on my end, and requires more rendering time and processing power.

I see it as getting punished for having exclusive content. They should have given each of us the ability to opt out. Not every contributor can go out and get remarkable footage with releases that everyone wants to buy. I have seen one of my videos used on a TV show, but the bulk of what I do has probably been bought by little mom-and-pop reseller businesses, who just need a decent video.

I used to price my HD videos around $40, and had one that sold over 50 times. I raised my prices several years ago, to almost $60.00 and now don't make as much per month as I did when they were at $40 (I had less videos then)! And I hardly sell that formerly high-selling video these days.

I can see Pond5 putting a minimum price point up for HD and 4K, but to lock us into $149 seems like it will be lean times for a lot of exclusive contributors! Pond5 may benefit overall, and I'll bet the non-exclusive sales will double, as they will be less expensive, when competing with exclusive videos at $149.

@fgoose - "This unexpected price hike is affecting my sales significantly."

P5 sent contributors an email heads-up notice that a pricing test was coming.

Whether the pricing test is a price hike or reduction for a contributor really seems to make little if any difference. Your prices went up and mine went down due to the price test - and in both cases sales are in the crapper. I've seen no reported indication from contributors of any generally positive results.

I've been with P5 and SS before either one had a total of a thousand clips. I do not believe you will sell 4 $59 clips before selling 4K at $149.

It's about time (if they really did it) to put 4K at a minimum of $149. Buyers are looking for subject and few are really price hunting. The cheap YT'ers are all trying to make money off their YT channels and videos so why should we bend to their demands. If they need it they will shoot it themself but instead benefit from our working for them. The new artists over the last 5-6 years are what drove the prices down. They are mostly from 3rd world countries where $5 a day is a living, hobbyists trying to get a sales count and profit means nothing. Yes Artists filled the cloud of all agencies with tens of millions of clips, they really don't need very many new ones. As individuals the stock world is about bust, for agencies a dollar a clip is millions. The entire industry has fallen with the chase to the bottom. Stock market prices are showing the fall.

Don't devalue your work. Remember that your exclusive here at P5 is distributed to dozens of agencies around the world. Buyers do not have to come to P5 to buy the clips. Price increases or decreases do not make this amount of change to sales. It's the industry.

@RekindlePhoto "The entire industry has fallen with the chase to the bottom. Stock market prices are showing the fall."

Economic recession is here and the stock media industry is not immune. It suffers ripple effects from further up the creative stream.

We gripe and complain about lack of sales - IMO the bigger problem is fundamentally a lack of buyers at all price points.

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