Flickr mucked around with the pricing on their Pro accounts today. The one year option stays the same price at $ 24.95. They reduced the 2 year option by $ 1.50 per year from $ 47.95 to $ 44.95 and they raised the price of a year of Pro $ 2.85 per year for those wanting to pay quarterly to $ 6.95 per quarter ($ 27.80 per year).
They also announced said that going forward your account would be set up on auto-renewal.
I did think the blog post on the pricing change was a little misleading where it says “We’re also dropping the price of a 2 year subscription to $ 44.95 (a savings of $ 10.95 off the 3 months at a time price).” This makes it sound like Flickr reduced their 2 year account by $ 11 when in fact they really reduced it by $ 3 from their previous pricing but now compare it with the more expensive quarterly payment option — but I guess that’s marketingspeak for you.
As far as the cost of a Pro account, it is still a screaming good deal for a photographer like me. Where else could I store 67,000+ full high res photos online for $ 22.48/year (I do the 2 year option)? Plus I’m participating in the Flickr/Getty stock photography deal that paid me over $ 500 last month so really it’s like Flickr is paying me, not like I’m paying them.
For many photographers though I think Flickr Pro is looking like a worse and worse deal. Google+ will host an unlimited number of photos for you for free now. Flickr’s free account only will let you access your 200 most recent photos and even worse if you don’t reup for a Pro account they hold the rest of your photos hostage on their site until you do renew.
I don’t think today’s pricing really is much of an announcement at all — and I think you’ll continue to see causal photographers letting their Pro accounts at Flickr lapse while they move to other cheaper alternatives like Google+. I also think that the higher end of the photography market is also increasingly moving away to sites like Smugmug (disclosure, they are a sponsor for our Photo Talk Plus show) which are more geared as high end galleries to actually sell your photos. Flickr doesn’t allow you to sell your photos on the site yourself.
Are you on Flickr? And if so will you renew your Pro account when it comes due? And if you do what option would you choose as far as paying for it?
Thomas Hawk Digital Connection