iStock goes for subscription service

A new feture to the microstock landscape - istock , the biggest agency has decided to offer a subscription service. While I dont think it is a good as the subscription service offered by shutterstock I am sure it will be a great success because they already have such a big slice of the market, this can only increase it.

FAQ for Contributors on Subscription
kkthompson Apr 04/08, 11:54
Is there a minimum payout? Yes. We'll guarantee the same minimum payout as we do today on the Pay-as-you-go side. … more Is there a minimum payout?
Yes. We'll guarantee the same minimum payout as we do today on the Pay-as-you-go side. So right now, the lowest priced (non-sale) credit is 96¢. You receive 20 to 40% of that. Clear canisters will receive a minimum 19¢ and Diamonds will receive a minimum 38¢. And yes, this means that sometimes iStock will be paying out more than we take in per credit.

What's the maximum payout available?
Contributors stand to make more per file than they've ever made before from iStock. Here are two examples of what a non-exclusive can make off subscriptions:
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 480 uses only 10 credits that day, all on one of your files, you'd earn 480 × 20% × $130*. That means a payout of about $26 for your single file.
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 30 uses only 10 credits that day, including 5 credits on your image, you'd earn (30/2) × 20% × $10*. A payout of about $1.

* These values are 'Credit Package Value per Day', and have not been set yet. They are for illustrative purposes only.

Who gets the money when no credits are used on a day?
iStock does. This will offset the times where iStock will be paying out more in royalties than was paid for the credit, because of the guaranteed minimum on these days.

Why are you doing it this way?
This way we share in the risk and reward with the contributors, and still guarantee no less than what's currently paid out.

Will there be cannibalization of Pay-as-you-go?
Some clients will migrate to the new model, but we think we'll have lots of new customers that couldn't use our services before. Remember, this was one of the most requested features by people who wanted to become customers.

How often will stats be udpated?
Because Subscription credits expire daily, we'll update them once per day after everything has been tallied (i.e. after midnight for the day before).

Is this royalty structure set in stone?
We've modeled the subscription plan on a number of assumptions. If after we have a few months data, we find we were off on our assumptions, we'll revisit the royalty structure.

Istock sales expected to double by 2012

Interesting article about Getties results and how they expect the microstock market to expand and traditional stock houses to shrink. Click the link below for the full article.

Getty: iStockphoto Sales Could Total $262M In 2012

March 28, 2008

By Daryl Lang

Getty Images projects that its iStockphoto division will more than double in size by 2012, reaching $262 million in annual sales.

At the same time, traditional royalty-free and rights-managed stock licensing is expected to shrink by a quarter, down from more than half of Getty's revenues to just 29 percent in 2012.

IStockphoto earned $22 million in 2006 and $72 million in 2007, according to figures in a document dated February 7.

A November 2007 report projected that iStockphoto will earn $122 million this year and $262 in 2012.

If counted separately from Getty Images, iStockphoto would probably be the world's third-largest stock agency this year. (The top two agencies, Getty and Corbis, each generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues. Jupiterimages, generally regarded as third place, reported $108 in annual revenues for 2007.)

Link