As part of the plans for our new approach to photos announced last month, we mentioned Author driven pricing on PhotoDune would be coming in December.
I’m pleased to let you know we have completed the work and this is now live. Authors will now be able to update the price of photos in their portfolio.
Why are we doing this?
Our vision is for an Envato Market that empowers authors to make decisions about their own business. Giving Authors the functionality to set their own prices and granting them more control is a key piece of this vision.
Information for Authors about setting the price of their Photos
Authors will now be able to change the price for the available license types of their photos. This can be done via the edit item page. We are working on a way for Authors to set a price for all new photos and will update you when we are closer to completing this work.
As with other Author driven price categories, price recommendations will be displayed alongside the item price field as a guide only. It’s important to remember that author driven pricing categories feature a fixed buyer fee. Once edits have been submitted, the price change will immediately take effect.
IMPORTANT Information About Pricing Discussions
There are strict laws governing pricing conduct. In particular, it’s strictly prohibited to have an agreement, arrangement or understanding between competing businesses (such as two authors) about what price point to sell at. How to price your work is a commercial decision you will need to make for yourself. Read more about this in our help center.
Feedback
As always, discussion is welcome in this space although please be mindful of discussing pricing as per the information above. If you have questions about the specifics of the pricing functionality, the Help team will be able to assist.
I don’t think it’s possible. I just went through and manually changed all mine. Not too bad as I only have 48 items… but I can imagine it being very time consuming for anyone that has 500, 1000, 10,000+ items. Hopefully they have something in the pipeline to address this.
So if your portfolio is still live, and you have the ability to go in and change the prices of your items… does it mean you’re still in the running to becoming America’s nex… wait, erm… does it mean you’re still in the gang and have survived ‘The Great Photodune Cull of 2016’.
It looks so. I can’t upload now, guess nobody can at the moment. But my portfolio is still alive and I can change prices. I have just about 500 photos and want to increase price to all of them.
I didn’t say you wouldn’t! It’s nothing to do with whether you’ll be able to sell here at a certain price or whether you won’t… it’s just that the first rule of Author Driven Pricing Club is that you do not talk about Author Driven Pricing Club.
In that, it’s against the rules to discuss, agree on, or influence people’s decisions when it comes to pricing their items. You, however, are more than welcome to set your prices at whatever price you see fit. Whether that be $5, $15 or $150.
Please please please pretty please give us a bulk edit option for pricing. Don’t let us sit here as monkeys over Christmas editing images one by one. I have 2000 images. Others have 10000. Please. Bulk edit options.
Once all PhotoDune contents are available on Elements at $29/month for UNLIMITED downloads, sales on PhotoDune will disappear, no matter what price you set. Envato is the home of low budget buyers. This is the president that was set since the inception of the Envato marketplaces (e.g. see the pricing on VideoHive compared to the average on all other agencies). This is where Envato has found its place in the market and also the reason why PhotoDune without a subscription option did not do well for them. Elements will basically offer a subscription service for images that was missing, but in common with Envato’s policy of catering for the low budget buyers the low entry cost and allowance for unlimited downloads will add a new dimension to undercutting the competition.
I can see a clear purpose for PhotoDune: enticing photographers to upload quality contents to PhotoDune thinking that they will sell for decent prices, while in the meantime PhotoDune will be nothing more than a gateway to Elements. Images are primarily destined for Elements where they will be sold for pennies. Since there will be no more reviewing of images the overhead costs to Envato of acquiring new images will be very low to zero (not paying reviewers). This will enable Envato to increase their earnings from images by selling a low cost product in volume at a very low price. Unfortunately for us photographers this will just contribute to a further decline in our earnings.
We are free to accept this or leave. Just don’t fool yourself in thinking that you will get many sales for your images on PhotoDune. Buyers willing to pay “fair” prices for images are not buying here.
A: As others said, we definitely need a bulk edit option. Fast, please.
B: About Elements: We need an opt out. I will not sell my photos on an unlimited subscription, therefore undercutting all other markets.
@Envato: please clarify these two points. When will a bulk edit function be available (including setting default pricing for new uploads)?
Will there be an opt-out for Elements or are all existing (plus newly uploaded) photos forced into Elements? If so, please do close my account, delete all photos and pay out the outstanding balance.
Thanks for the discussion around this. There have been a few points raised around the need for a means of adjusting the prices of your photos in bulk and rest assured, we read you loud and clear
Those familiar with the way Envato works will know that we tend to do things in stages, this is simply the first in a series of changes towards better item management tools for photos.
In the new year you’ll see more in this space, so stay tuned.
