Dreamstime rant

Traditional stock photo companies have a marketing problem. Faced with near ubiquitous competition from companies like Unsplash and Stocksy, which have vastly different business models, it's becoming harder than ever for them to make a profit.

Interestingly, instead of embracing a new model: low-cost monthly subscriptions or high-cost payments for premium services, for example, many organizations in this space continue to promote mediocre products coupled with dismal packages.

Consider the case of Dreamstime, which offers a monthly allotment of downloads based on a fixed monthly plan. For $25, you can download 5 images. For 50, it’s $71.

Which brings us to their first problem: Most people who actually find an image on their site (as opposed to finding a free image elsewhere) likely don’t want to pay subscription. They would gladly pay $5.00 to download one image rather than pay 5 times the amount for an addition four.

But wait! Dreamstime offers a free one week trial. 5 images for free! Not exactly. Only after I:

a) created a profile

b) entered my card information

c) downloaded my ‘free’ image

d) discovered I was charged for $25

e) requested a refund

…did I receive this automated message (as if they already knew why I was refunding my order):

Side note: "refund for your free trial upgrade"(?)…I don’t even know how copywriters can get away with this.

I don’t have a problem with paying for stock photography. But I do have a problem with being scammed into thinking I’m going to get something for free, only to be told after the fact that I was wrong. It’s antics like this that make resorting to free services not only enticing, but inevitable.

Dreamstime has a marketing problem because there’s a mismatch between how they offer their products and what their customers are willing to pay for. Of course, scamming them into submission (as opposed to fixing what’s broken) isn’t a solution, it’s a trap.