Good plugin, but free version almost useless

  • Plugin works fine and would deserve 5 stars, but the free version is very limited with 50 server requests per hour. This is NOT the same as 50 pics per hour, as you may think. Searching for a decent stock photo is time consuming, and even searching for only 1 decent photo will exceed the free 50 server requests limit very soon. So in fact this is not a very usable plugin for professionals in my opinion, but merely a trial version that leads to a costly and still quite limited paid subscription.

    • This topic was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by argosmedia.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by argosmedia.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by argosmedia.
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Contributor ionut.calara

    (@ionutcalara)

    Hi @argosmedia, thank you for the honest review.

    I agree that searching for a decent photo might take you more than browsing through 2000 photos. However, the limit is currently based on our server cost. We didn’t adjust it yet as the usage is 99.9%+ done by free users and the ratio between search requests and download requests is 6:1 (https://share.getcloudapp.com/v1uYgmbo).
    To do the math there, it means that the average users are able to download 8 images per hour using the free version.
    As I said above, I do really think that selecting the right images might take a lot more requests, and that’s why we also have premium plans for users where they need high quality. This is in line with other services like image optimization plugins, where’s there’s also a limit on the number of images that can be optimized for free when there’s an external server being used.

    I do not think going into the discussion of development and cost would change your mind here, so I am not going to do that, but please do keep in mind that this plugin needs a server that we are paying for even for those free requests. We can’t eliminate that cost even if we would offer the code we wrote for free because that is needed to properly respect the terms of services of the providers.

    So I just wanted to put things into perspective, you provided an opinion based on the costs and how usable the service is in the free version, so I wanted to share data so you can better understand what is the actual usage, and our costs.

    Thank you,
    Ionut

    Thread Starter argosmedia

    (@argosmedia)

    Hi Ionut,

    thank you for your kind and elaborate reply, I appreciate that. I didn’t and don’t quite understand fully the extend of the server load involved. I guess I didn’t really thought about any server involvement at all. I saw this plugin “just” as a search engine for several stock photo sites. I guess it involves a lot more that that. Sorry about the misconception of this plugin. I do really like it as it is, although I could come up with some improvements. Some of them are already mentioned in the comments.

    However, I fail to see how even the premium license of USD 19 with a limit of 500 requests an hour would be enough for real use. Maybe I’m picky but I typically look at some 500 photo’s before I (hopefully) find a suitable one. So only 500 server requests per hour would come not even close to what I would regards as sufficient for a typical professional content editor. So I guess I’ll have to deactivate the plugin, and just keep using the stock photo sites themselves directly.

    Again: I appreciate the plugin but I don’t think it’s usable for people who must browse through many hundreds and even thousands of pics an hour looking for the right one. I do notice the option for agencies on your picing page, but I guess the costst would be way too high for me as an individual webdesigner. Also I would need a credits based license, not a month/year based one, as sometimes months go by without the need for stock photo’s. Nor the free option, nor the current paid options will fit my needs.

    I will rate a star more, for your professional reply and attitude. And in hindsight a 2 stars rating was unfair.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by argosmedia.
    Plugin Contributor ionut.calara

    (@ionutcalara)

    Hi @argosmedia, I was on vacation, sorry for the late reply. I do agree that the pricing is not great as is, and it doesn’t satisfy everyone’s needs. I think the credit option is something we are definitely considering, but the plugin is still small for now, so changes like that are going to take time to be released as we’re not able to invest a lot of time into adding new things until the plugin grows a little more. Just note that if you create an account you have 50 hourly requests, and that means around 2000 photos you can look at. I think at this time your understanding is that there’s one request per image, but the request is per page of images, which typically is 40 images.

    Please reach out via the contact form on stockpack.co/contact, so we can discuss the situation and see if we would be able to get to a middle ground.

    Thank you,
    Ionut

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • The topic ‘Good plugin, but free version almost useless’ is closed to new replies.