iStockPhoto to announce Subscriptions

iStockPhoto has announced in their forums they're going to offer subscritpion plans. After StockXpert and Dreamstime, iStock will enter the subscription game and offer plans starting at 96$ a month.

Here's a link to the announcement on their forum.

96$/month means about 3$ a day. This will most likely correspond to 5 to 10 downloads a day (even though at this time, this is pure speculation). This corresponds to a value per download of 30 to 60 cents. Being an independent (i.e. non-exclusive) you get a 20% comission, which means 6 to 12 cents a download. Fortunately, you can opt-out of subscription sales (even on a "per image" base).

UPDATE: Actually, iStock's solution seems to be rather interesting, as they seem to guarantee a minimum comission value equal to the "pay as you go" sales. iStock is implementing a "subscription for credits" comission table, where a subscriber is intitled to a certain number of credits (instead of a certain number of images) and different image sizes will be purchased for a different number of credits.

Unlike other subscription plans, iStock will actually reward submitters depending on the size of image purchased. I defend this kind of approach for a long time and it's good to know someone finally decided to put it to work. Kudos for that!

Also, if a buyer spends a partial number of his credits with a single user, iStock will credit the comission of the full number of credits to the user. Example: if a buyer is intitled to 20 credits a day and in one day spends only 5 credits with one of your images, you'll get comission for those 20 credits. Sounds good!

IS seems to be willing to take Shutterstock. For agencies, this is a win-win solution. For us, contributors, not so much...

I'll update this thread with more info as it becomes available.