30 Jun 2015 Dreamstime Next with Monthly Subscription Limits

Dreamstime issued a press release today announcing the lifting of the daily download limits on their subscription plans.

This follows Shutterstock doing the same thing at the end of March this year, and iStock doing it in April of last year when they introduced their first ‘real’ subscription (not a subscription-of-credits).  PantherMedia was actually the innovator of this model, introducing it way back in 2009.

The new limit will, like all the others, be a monthly one, allowing buyers easier access to their download allocation.  If you’ve ever tried to max out a microstock subscription with a daily limit, you know it’s not easy to download 25 every single day.

Dreamstime’s move is simply a response to competitive pressure, and it likely won’t be long before all microstock agencies – and traditional ones – are free of daily download limits.

What’s still yet to be known outside the large agencies who’ve already implemented this, is how much impact it has on profitability for the agency.  Monthly limits means more downloads, which means more royalties owed for the same revenue.