Digital Download Pricing

JMWiehl

New to this site and forum so nice to meet you guys. This is my first time posting a question, hopefully I'm in the right spot and someone can give me some guidance. I'm in the process of adding content to my Smugmug site, figuring out what I want to offer and deciding on pricing so it's not live yet.

My smugmug site URL is: www.jmwiehl.com
Access code to view it is: showmethephotos30

My question is, can anyone give me a benchmark or minimum price for selling a single non-exclusive commercial digital download(original size(4000x6000))? Up until now I've been selling photos through a stock photo site which takes a big cut out of my sales. I've done some research trying to figure out how much other sites are selling them for at full price but it's very confusing because many offer bulk pricing.

I am aware that pricing is difficult to give because it depends on several factors. I just don't want to overshoot my prices or undercut myself. I realize that eventually the market will tell me either way but I'd still like to have a general idea of what the market rates are.

Any advice or references would greatly be appreciated! Thank you. -Jessica

Shinrya

I price my full size commercial downloads at $329. Used to be $349 but sometimes I like to fluctuate the price.

I still consider this to be cheap even for royalty free, especially considering that Smugmug's usage terms are pretty liberal. I based my price off of several stock sites that have loose terms for commercial licensing e.g 500px (between $149 and $650) Alamy.com ($315) and Getty ($500)

I say ignore the other sites like shutterstock, 123rf.com, Adobe Stock. Those guys value your images in terms of pennies!

Shinrya

I had a quick look at your website btw. I can tell you now, you're gonna have a tough time trying to sell stock photos through Smugmug!

Unless you have some amazing SEO, almost no-one is going to buy stock photos through a custom website. The type of audience your images cater for are those who already have accounts with the large stock sites (e.g. marketers, designers etc). So if they're looking for your style of images...they're looking on Getty, Alamy, Adobe etc. There's just no way your smugmug site is going to rank high enough in Google search unless people are searching for something really really specific.

Not knocking your photography in any way, it's not to do with that. Personally, I would just say that investing a lot of time and energy into trying to sell stock yourself is not going to reap any rewards.

Cygnus Studios

Attempting to sell photos on your own website is a daunting task in and of itself, attempting to license images on your website is only going to lead to frustration. If you want to go towards licensing, work with firms that specialize in that. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. There are other options outside of the cheap internet sites like getty and alamy although getting into them is harder.

Generic run of the mill images are by far and away the hardest to license as the perception is that anyone can do it. So if you going to go down that particular road and you want to be successful, I would recommend narrowing your focus into areas that are not over saturated with photographers and camera owners.

Go outside of that box, do it well, do it consistently and show potential buyers that you have a niche that can fill different areas that they aren't getting elsewhere.

Second thing, if you're going to be known for "stock" images, hide those art shots. If it isn't about licensing, it should not be seen by anyone on your website. Show that stuff on forums or your personal facebook or whatever. Whenever someone visits your site, it should be 100% clear what you do and why you do it.

JMWiehl

Thank you guys for all of your input! I really appreciate the responses. It's going to be a long road ahead.

Cygnus Studios

@JMWiehl said:
Thank you guys for all of your input! I really appreciate the responses. It's going to be a long road ahead.

Always remind yourself that if this were easy, everyone would be doing it.