Subscription Comparison?

J-Mac

Hello all.

My first post here. I am not yet a Smugmug subscriber, but I am considering subscribing - I am most likely going to do so in the next few days. I am presently a less-than-happy subscriber to both Flickr and Club Photo.

Is there a comaprison chart available that shows all of the differences among the Smugmug subscriptions? On the main pricing page there are three boxes that show what is basically a summary of each plan. But I would really like to view a side-by-side, feature-by-feature comparison of the three plans.

I will be probably subscribing to the power user plan, but I don't want to find out immediately after subscribing that each feature I try to use requires a pro subscription - I always hate when that happens!

The price jump from power user to pro is quite a bit, so I want to know what is added in the pro plan, beyond what the summary mentions in the pricing page boxes.

I'm not a professional photographer and I don't expect to be selling any prints - I'm not that good! I mostly want to use the service as I do the other plans I have - to upload my photos (family pics) and have them available for family members and friends to view. I need the password-protection feature, as I was disappointed with what some perv's at Flickr do with kids' photos. But Flickr makes privacy a very difficult concept.

So I think I'll be uploading here shortly - but I would love a good comparison sheet to review first.

Thanks!

Andy

J-Mac wrote:

Hello all.

My first post here. I am not yet a Smugmug subscriber, but I am considering subscribing - I am most likely going to do so in the next few days. I am presently a less-than-happy subscriber to both Flickr and Club Photo.

Is there a comaprison chart available that shows all of the differences among the Smugmug subscriptions? On the main pricing page there are three boxes that show what is basically a summary of each plan. But I would really like to view a side-by-side, feature-by-feature comparison of the three plans.

I will be probably subscribing to the power user plan, but I don't want to find out immediately after subscribing that each feature I try to use requires a pro subscription - I always hate when that happens!

The price jump from power user to pro is quite a bit, so I want to know what is added in the pro plan, beyond what the summary mentions in the pricing page boxes.

I'm not a professional photographer and I don't expect to be selling any prints - I'm not that good! I mostly want to use the service as I do the other plans I have - to upload my photos (family pics) and have them available for family members and friends to view. I need the password-protection feature, as I was disappointed with what some perv's at Flickr do with kids' photos. But Flickr makes privacy a very difficult concept.

So I think I'll be uploading here shortly - but I would love a good comparison sheet to review first.

Thanks!

and welcome to Dgrin!

I'll start you with this and be back shortly with more:

http://www.smugmug.com/price/

DavidTO

You can use my coupon code to save $5!

CLGbTHzpo7yxc

Andy

J-Mac wrote:

Hello all.

My first post here. I am not yet a Smugmug subscriber, but I am considering subscribing - I am most likely going to do so in the next few days. I am presently a less-than-happy subscriber to both Flickr and Club Photo.

Is there a comaprison chart available that shows all of the differences among the Smugmug subscriptions? On the main pricing page there are three boxes that show what is basically a summary of each plan. But I would really like to view a side-by-side, feature-by-feature comparison of the three plans.

I will be probably subscribing to the power user plan, but I don't want to find out immediately after subscribing that each feature I try to use requires a pro subscription - I always hate when that happens!

The price jump from power user to pro is quite a bit, so I want to know what is added in the pro plan, beyond what the summary mentions in the pricing page boxes.

I'm not a professional photographer and I don't expect to be selling any prints - I'm not that good! I mostly want to use the service as I do the other plans I have - to upload my photos (family pics) and have them available for family members and friends to view. I need the password-protection feature, as I was disappointed with what some perv's at Flickr do with kids' photos. But Flickr makes privacy a very difficult concept.

So I think I'll be uploading here shortly - but I would love a good comparison sheet to review first.

Thanks!

OK so I re-read your requirements, and I don't think that there's a need for you to have a pro account - as you don't want to sell photos at a profit.

When you want to customize your site, like some of these:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=27713

Holler for use in the customization forum!

Many thanks for considering SmugMug, and if I can answer any of your questions, just holler right here.

All the best,

Andy

DavidTO wrote:

You can use my coupon code to save $5!

CLGbTHzpo7yxc

You can go here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=33657

And get a FREE one year subscription (standard account) as my birthday celebration gift, and then just pay the upgrade from standard to Power account


HOW GOOD IS THAT? Better hurry though, only the first dozen get the freebie

DavidTO

J-Mac wrote:

I need the password-protection feature, as I was disappointed with what some perv's at Flickr do with kids' photos.

I would be interested to hear more about this, by PM, if you feel that is more appropriate. I struggled for a long time with this issue, but decided that I wanted keyword searches more than privacy (you have to choose one or the other here). What I want to know is: how worried should I be?

J-Mac

Thanks for all the replies here. And thanks in particular to Andy for his birthday offer - very generous indeed! Don't know if I caught it in time, but either way it's a great offer!

Much appreciated!

J-Mac

DavidTO wrote:

I would be interested to hear more about this, by PM, if you feel that is more appropriate. I struggled for a long time with this issue, but decided that I wanted keyword searches more than privacy (you have to choose one or the other here). What I want to know is: how worried should I be?

No need for a PM David, unless the moderators would prefer that this type of issue not be discussed here. If so, Moderator - please move or delete my post.

I only want an online photo storage account for two main reasons:

1. As a repository for my digital photos - kind of a backup of last resort. And...
2. For family and friends to be able to view and/or download my family photos.

On Flickr, I had no sooner uploaded 1,500 or 2,000 photos when I noticed that users can select your photos as "Favorites", and the photos will then appear on their home page, along with other photos they have designated as their favorites.

I was surprised that some folks would have viewed and marked so many of my pics as Favorites so soon after uploading them. After all, my photos are purely family snaps - nothing worthy of such attention. So I looked at their Favorites pages and was more than a little shocked at what I found: a few had selected photos of my granddaughters and included them with favorites that consisted of adults in various suggestive "leather and chains" type outfits, and photos of children that I imagine they found suggestive. While I thought they were pretty innocent poses, they only had photos of children in, say, the bathtub, or sitting down with a skirt on in what my Mom would have called a, "not very lady-like position". IOW, with legs partly spread. I'm talking about pics of one-year old girls.

No photos on these pages were explicitly pornographic, but I was pretty disgusted nonetheless. And if my daughters saw their daughters' photos there they would have killed me! I found that I could block those users and my photos would no longer show on their pages, but as soon as I did that, more users had already similarly selected kiddie pics as "Favorites". And at that time, Flickr did not make it easy to designate photos as Private. I would have had to do it individually for each photo. I had to delete everything and re-upload them after changing my settings to make them all private. And then the nasty emails from the perv users started pouring in. Who was I to block them? Free speech and expression, blah, blah, blah. Imagine that...

I had started with a free limited account, and after not seeing anything untowardly, I paid for a two year subscription. Imagine my disappointment with what I saw after that! Plus, family members and friends now had to create Flickr accounts to view any photos I uploaded. I don't like that requirement at all - some of my not-so-tech-oriented elder aunts and uncles will not sign up for such an account, even if free. So I cannot reach all family members with Flickr.

Flickr is fine, I guess, for people who want an open community, and to share their photos for all to see. Or for photogs who want to display their work - it does have a relatively large audience there. But for folks like me who just want to share photos with family and friends, it's not very friendly at all.

Plus, anyone who complains about some of the open pornography at Flickr in their forum gets shouted down by so-called "free speech" advocates - possibly the same free-speech lovers who grab the pics of children as Favorites.

Smugmug looks to be a much friendlier vehicle for users like me. I know that there are others who might disagree with me, but I'm going to give it a try - it can't be any worse here!

As I said earlier, if a Mod feels this post is not appropriate in this thread, please move or remove it - OK with me.

Thanks!

DavidTO

J-Mac,

Your post's not going anywhere. I only mentioned PM because I thought it might include specifics that you didn't want to post publicly.

Your post is really interesting and disgusting. People are so misguided, lost and downright vile at times. Oy.

I hope you get what you need on smugmug. The privacy thing is pretty well locked up, and works great. You do give up some things (like I said, that's why I made my galleries public), like keywords, timeline, etc. But the support and response time from smugmug is great.

J-Mac

DavidTO wrote:

J-Mac,

Your post's not going anywhere. I only mentioned PM because I thought it might include specifics that you didn't want to post publicly.

Your post is really interesting and disgusting. People are so misguided, lost and downright vile at times. Oy.

I hope you get what you need on smugmug. The privacy thing is pretty well locked up, and works great. You do give up some things (like I said, that's why I made my galleries public), like keywords, timeline, etc. But the support and response time from smugmug is great.

Hi David,

I'm really not trying to just blast Flickr here; they're not at fault for the actions of those members. But by trying to run a very "open" community, that's the kind of thing that will always be common there, I fear.

I just don't want to have to deal with it with my family photos....

So I won't! :

BTW, I am now a subscriber, thanks to Andy's extremely generous birthday offer a few posts up from this one. I signed up for the Standard plan that was gifted, and immediately upgraded to Power User. I cannot thank Andy enough for that! But I'll keep trying:

Thanks Andy!

I changed my nickname to my real name on the account - Jim McGowan, but I haven't gotten any galleries uploaded yet, as I'm still familiarizing myself with all the features available.

Glad to ne here, folks. Hope to be around for a while - maybe I'll even learn something about photography!

J-Mac

BTW, David:

Not all of my galleries will be private, but most of the kids' galleries will be, unless or until I feel comfortable that such behavior as I mentioned previously doesn't exist here.

It doesn't seem like it will, but you never know!

I have a much better feeling about this place, though.

Andy

J-Mac wrote:

Hi David,

I'm really not trying to just blast Flickr here; they're not at fault for the actions of those members. But by trying to run a very "open" community, that's the kind of thing that will always be common there, I fear.

I just don't want to have to deal with it with my family photos....

So I won't! :

BTW, I am now a subscriber, thanks to Andy's extremely generous birthday offer a few posts up from this one. I signed up for the Standard plan that was gifted, and immediately upgraded to Power User. I cannot thank Andy enough for that! But I'll keep trying:

Thanks Andy!

I changed my nickname to my real name on the account - Jim McGowan, but I haven't gotten any galleries uploaded yet, as I'm still familiarizing myself with all the features available.

Glad to ne here, folks. Hope to be around for a while - maybe I'll even learn something about photography!

You're welcome! Happy to have you aboard, and thanks for upgrading, too