How to Correctly Set Prices - One Method

@Gene: I just discovered the gapminder, I noticed that it graphs sale volume in regard to the prices in your portfolio but I do not know more than that. Maybe someone from P5 staff could make a tutorial on that.

@natebowman: Thank you for the very precise and informative post.

Hi Natebowman,
Thank you for your comments - it's always good to hear something from a buyer's perspective.
Could I ask you to comment on frame rate?

Are you bothered what frame rate the clip is?
Do you easily/happily convert?
Does it affect your choice of clip?

I am sure many people here would be interested in any comments you have.

Thank you NateBowman for stating what some of us know, and what others would greatly benefit from learning! I do wish we could frame your paragraph and post it somewhere prominent.

To the low-ballers, you will never sell enough volume to even pay for your equipment at a few bucks a clip, so a little conformity would be beneficial for you, and the rest of us as well. Just my two cents.

@Videostock50: I'm in the US, so our preferred frame rate is 29.97fps or 23.98fps, but most of the time frame rate doesn't really matter. If the content of the clip fits what we're looking for we buy it regardless of frame rate. Most of the clips we purchased have had one of those two frame rates. Of the very few that had say, 25fps, we just converted them to whatever we needed.

Before everyone starts raising their prices to $400, my experience (as a freelance editor/producer/shooter) buying clips for projects, and working with producers/AP's who were tasked with finding and buying clips, has been a bit different than Natebowman's. For the the non-broadcast, non-network productions I've been involved with, price often does matter.

If we need a shot of "urban traffic US," and there are 10 that would work in the show, then the lowest priced clip gets bought. When there has been only one decent version of what we needed, and the price was reasonable, it got bought. But if the price seemed "out of line," i.e., $150 when similar ones were $60, then 2nd best got purchased, or none at all, and we'd "find something else to fill the hole." Again, I'm speaking from the non-broadcast world, where often the stock b-roll may be covered with text or part of an effect or only up for a few seconds. And where every $100 is $100 less the production company makes.

The other thing I've noticed is "producer's fatigue" when searching for clips, which works to some of our advantage at the expense of others: When faced with never ending pages of clips after a search the producer will pick the first clip that "works," rather than take the time to see what else is out there. This is the opposite of what an editor would probably do, although I just did a search for "urban traffic Untied States" and there are over 2,200 clips, so, hmmm.

p.s. - I also sell clips.
-Bob

So it's best to find that medium ground where you don't short sell yourself to the broadcast buyers who have big budgets but you can still attract the independent buyers who are on a low budget.

I agree with @bakdc in regards to not raising your prices to $400. I do work in the broadcast industry and most of the stock shots we purchase are for TV commercials, not independent productions. So budgets are a bit bigger. The average price we pay for a clip is around $150, give or take. We of course have spent a lot more for clips but we've also spent less.

I also can attest to the "producer's fatigue" that @bakdc talks about. Sometimes we're under the gun to get a project complete, so we'll purchase the first shot that will work for our needs. We don't have time to sort through 2,200 clips to find the perfect shot with the perfect price. So we buy what is easy and will work.

All of this is just my experience though. I'm sure other producers and editors have different needs for stock video. One interesting thing I should point out is I actually decided to start shooting my own stock after seeing some of the crazy stuff we were buying. Much like a lot of you, I thought, "I can do that!" My success as a stock seller has been limited but I think that is because it takes time to build up a portfolio and produce clips that could be used by someone, somewhere, for something. From what I can tell there is no magic formula for producing stock that will sell. Just look at the number one downloaded stock video on this site:



Do you think that guy thought his clip would sell 299 times at $55/download? I doubt it. He just produced something he thought looked good, priced it reasonably, and voila, sales.

I'm a newcomer to Pond5 and had my first sale two weeks ago. I was surprised to see what who-ever bought. I am planning costly shoots with a crane and green screen, and they bought a simple clip of a gas burner which cost me the time in my own home at no extra cost. I'm in South Africa where we drive on the left side of the road like the UK and I'm not sure if other than wild animals and ethnic people is what is wanted by the US market. We have lots more to offer like every other country. As a newcomer is there any way of making buyers aware of what kind and quality of clips one has to offer?

I priced my clips keeping in mind the degree of effort, creativity and cost it took to get the shot.