Flickr has announced that it is bringing back its Flickr Pro subscription plan, offering users a slew of new features, including access to better analysis tools, discounts on software and an ad-free Flickr experience.
The return of Flickr Pro comes after Yahoo changed its pricing plans for Flickr in 2013, offering "ad-free" and "doublr" tiers and dropping Flickr Pro. At the time, Flickr said that its Pro subscription had not performed very well, so removing it wouldn't affect many people.
"Over the years, the need for uploading, organizing, editing and sharing photos has evolved with the rise of digital photography and social media, and we've offered different types of membership to provide our community with what they need to make Flickr the digital home for their photos," said Flickr in a blog post.
After Flickr Pro was removed as an option, existing users of Pro were allowed to continue renewing their subscriptions, while new users could not sign up for it. With increased competition from other services, however, Yahoo seems to be attempting to lure back professional photographers to the service.
Interestingly enough, Flickr will be offering discounts on professional photography software for those with a Pro subscription. For example, users with a yearly Pro subscription will get a 20 percent discount on Adobe's Creative Cloud Photography Plan. They will also get free shipping on merchandise from Flickr and a 50 percent discount on international shipping, with a $20 purchase minimum.
Users can subscribe to Flickr Pro for either $49.99 per year or $5.99 per month. Those who already had Pro subscriptions will still receive the benefits that they had with their old subscription, including unlimited storage space, and will also get access to the new benefits. Those who paid for the "ad-free" tier will automatically be grandfathered over to the Pro subscription with no change in price.
Of course, some will be a little frustrated that the $50 per year subscription only comes with 1 TB of storage. However, Flickr reportedly found that unlimited storage was not a top requested feature.
"In fact, fewer than 100 members in the history of Flickr have exceeded the one free terabyte of storage we provide. It's more important to our users that we store their photos in full resolution," said Rajiv Vaidyanathan, product director for Flickr, in an email with Wired.
It is unknown exactly how many users will be interested in the Pro subscription, but the features included certainly do seem like an attractive option.
Images: Shaun Forouzandeh | Flickr
