On March 10, 2014 Getty Images plans to close down
Photos.com and move virtually all the content and operations to
Thinkstock. Thinkstock currently offers more than 14 million images. Added to Photo.com’s 5.5 million image that will put Thinkstock in the 20 million image range.
For users that have active Photos.com image packs or subscriptions the balance of each will be transferred to Thinkstock. At this point these users will have access to all the current Thinkstock images plus the images that are available on Photos.com. Their purchase history and lightboxes, will also be available on Thinkstock.
The interesting thing to watch will be how Getty merges the pricing of the two brands. Photos.com offers Image Packs for Web (503 x 240px) and Web Plus (720 x 486px) file sizes in addition to Print (2202 x 1573px) file sizes. With Thinkstock customers can download different file sizes depending on what they need but the price stays the same and is much more expensive than the Photos.com web pricing.
| |
Photos.com |
Photos.com |
Photos.com |
|
Thinkstock |
Shutterstock |
| |
Web |
Web Plus |
Print |
|
|
|
| 1 image |
$1.99 |
$4.99 |
$7.99 |
|
|
|
| 2 images |
|
|
|
|
|
$29.00 |
| 5 images |
$7.99 |
$12.99 |
$14.99 |
|
$49.00 |
$49.00 |
| 10 images |
$14.99 |
$24.99 |
$34.99 |
|
|
|
| 25 images |
$24.99 |
$49.99 |
$80.00 |
|
$229.00 |
$229.00 |
| 50 images |
$44.99 |
$89.99 |
$134.99 |
|
|
|
| 100 images |
|
|
|
|
$799.00 |
|
| 250 images |
|
|
|
|
$1,499.00 |
|
Will Getty offer the lower Photos.com prices (particularly for the 72dpi web uses) for all the images in the Thinkstock collection? If they do, Thinkstock contributors can expect to see even lower royalties than they are already receiving. If they don’t, then many Photos.com customers who have become accustomed to these low prices will look elsewhere for the images they need. Will Getty try to somehow segment the collection so some images are available at lower prices and others at a higher price point? No other subscription site has tried that up to now.
Depending on what Getty does, will
Shutterstock be forced to lower some of its Image On Demand prices in order to compete? It appears that Getty has been able to grow its Thinkstock downloads and revenue significantly in the last 6 months, but based on Shutterstock’s recent
Q4 2013 report it doesn’t seem to have had any significant impact on Shutterstock’s revenue growth.
Subscription
The subscription pricing also raises some interesting questions. On Photos.com Getty offers downloads of 100 images per week for $299 for 3 months or $999 for 1-year. On Thinkstock there is a 50 download per month plan for $1,668, or 25 images per day for $2,496. Will Getty bring the 100 images per week model to Thinkstock and how much is that likely to reduce the revenue from Thinkstock subscriptions?
Shutterstock offers 1 month, 3 month and 1-year subscriptions at $249, $709 and $2,559. Will Shutterstock find it necessary to add some variations to its offering and how is that likely to affect their gross revenue?