iStock Exchange

I’m a massive fan of iStockphoto, the site has got me out of some design dilemas over the last few years and still continues to help and inspire today - I’ve even had a couple of my own photos approved.

Recently they’ve started to offer their credits - the site works on a micropayment system where you buy credits that are used against photos, vectors or videos - in pound sterling to their British users.

This is great and is calcuated are, more or less, the same exchange rate Paypal uses when working out what to charge British users when buying something from an American site.

The problem is, that’s where things start to fall down.

If I went into my bank and changed up £1 into dollars they’d probably tell me to get lost - but after a bit of an argument I’d walk out with $2.02 - the current exchange rate.

The problem is - at the moment paypal and iStockphoto are calculating their conversion at $1.97 - so my same £1 is worth 5c less on iStock than it is in a shop in the USA.

This doesn’t sound like a lot and to be honest it really isn’t unless you’re spending large sums of money - which is what some people will be doing with iStockPhoto.

If I was American this is what the credits would cost me - depending on how many I brought.

10 $12.00
26 $30.00
55 $60.00
115 $120.00
300 $300.00
625 $600.00

As I’m British this is what they actually cost me from iStockPhoto.

10 £6.50
26 £16.26
55 £32.51
115 £65.02
300 £162.56
625 £325.12

However, if iStockPhoto used the actual* exchange rate this is what I WOULD be paying.

10 £5.93
26 £14.84
55 £29.69
115 £59.38
300 £148.45
625 £296.90

At the lower levels - when buying 10 credits this isn’t a lot of money but if I wanted to purchase 300 credits then I’d be losing £17 because of the exchange rate difference and at 625 credits the loss would be around £28.

You can scoff but £17 would be enough to buy another 26 credits (this could be enough to buy the photos and vectors needed for two web builds) and £28 is just about enough to get £55 credits!

Alright so I’m not really that bothered by this - I rarely ever get more than 10 credits at a time and a few pence doesn’t make a massive difference BUT there is a principle at stake.

Then again - at least iStockphoto aren’t trying to charge us £12 for 10 credits and £30 for 26 like some major manufacturers try to do - mentioning no names…

*Exchange rate was £1 = $2.02 at time of writing this blog post.

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