Over the years, 500px has become one of the premium photo sharing sites. While other services might have more users and images online, 500px focused on professional photographers wanting to share high quality and artistic images.
5oopx New Marketplace “Prime” Image Licensing Model
Last week, 500px has announced to start their marketplace for image licensing, Prime. The service is currently in beta testing and expected to launch soon. Some of the most important details are however known already:
Licensing Options
- Simple licensing: There will be no sizes, Extended Licenses or usage limitations
- Curated collection: high quality and artistic perception of all images in Prime
- Mostly exclusive imagery: 500px claims 75% never been offered for licensing before
- Flat price of $250 for the image use
5oopx Pricing VS Popular Stock Photography Sites
While the price might sound steep from a today's microstock-driven online photo market, in comparison with traditional agencies offering high quality imagery, the $250 is among the lower to average license fees asked. Compared to recently started market places, it compares well with Shutterstock's high-end outlet Offset.com which offers images for $250 for a smaller or $500 at the largest resolution. While images at Stocksy United are starting at $10 for small resolutions, the 500px Prime license offers a wider use that would require Extended Licenses for several hundred dollars at Stocksy.
Community Driven
Finally, Prime buyers do not have to make the final decision which image works best by themselves: They can use the community's feedback on how each image is being received by the community. This might help in becoming a deciding factor to use or not use a specific image.
High Payout Ratio
As an additional benefit (less for the buyers but for photographers) is the high payout ratio of 70%. This would be the highest percentage of payouts to contributors in today's market.
Thanks for the awesome review Amos! I work for 500px, and we’re very excited about this. Cheers!
You are very welcome – i love your platform and i think you are going the right way with the contributor shares. Good luck and hope to hear more soon about the prime marketplace.
And what about exclusivity? Do photographers have to remove images from other fair pricing sites like Alamy ($50-$1.500), Stocksy ($10-$800) etc. or other self hosted? It’s obvious that artists shouldn’t sell the same images in microstock sites for $1… I guess?
Hi Arletta! If you choose to license your photos exclusively with 500px, they can’t have been sold commercially anywhere else, and can’t currently be for sale commercially anywhere else. But if you prefer to have your photos on multiple markets, you can choose non-exclusive! If you have more questions, let us know at help@500px.com. Thanks!
Hi Arletta, thank you very much for your comment. I think they should have some kind of exclusivity but i don’t know about the details. Maybe someone from 500px can answer that.