Greetings Friends,

Photo buyers have been able to purchase Royalty Free images for about a decade. During that period, many new photo researchers have entered the industry and have jumped right into online searching and purchasing without the benefit of establishing personal relationships with stock agencies.

Why pick up the phone to talk to someone at a stock agency when millions of images are available simply by clicking? I’ll tell you why.

Technically sophisticated young researchers, ever diligent about keeping usage rates within their projects’ budgets, may use Royalty Free sites exclusively because their managers expect RF images to cost less than Rights Managed images. This is a mistake!

Researchers who haven never worked over the phone with stock agencies don’t realize that many RM agencies – including ours – are happy to negotiate usage fees based on a client’s specific needs. In many cases, we can offer RM images at rates that keep within your project’s budget. All you have to do is pick up the phone and talk to us!

Further, we’ve found that the main reason many people go to RF sites – lower cost – often turns out to be illusory.

Most clients rarely use their RF images more than once or twice, which eliminates the prime selling point of RF agencies.

Many newer researchers and their supervisors don’t realize that the average cost of a RF image has increased dramatically from a decade ago. The days are long past when RF images could be bought for $50 to $75. Today, the average cost of a single 50 MB high-res file is $300 to $420. RF rates now are based on the digital file size that’s downloaded. The sliding scale ranges from about $200 for a 10 MB file up to $420 for a 50 MB file.

We also find that many clients who buy RF images soon revert to RM images when they see “their” image appear in multiple publications – including their competitors’. That doesn’t happen with RM images!

Although we don’t offer RF at present, we do our best to accommodate your budget and make it a win-win for everyone, including our hard-working photographers who traverse the globe in search of great images. We realize every client has a different budget and we are willing to negotiate.

So . . . rather than price something out through the Shopping Cart feature on our website, pick up the phone or send us a quick email. The Shopping Cart feature was set up for researchers who need images fast and can pay with a credit card. Putting the pricing together for the Shopping Cart was a huge effort, but nothing is set in stone. We can quickly upgrade your permissions on our web site to allow you to download images directly to your desktop – bypassing the payment screens entirely – and we can either bill you or do a credit card transaction manually.

The bottom line is that we are happy to work with you and will do our best to accommodate your budget.

We look forward to personally speaking with you sometime soon!

Best wishes,