SmugMug Price Increase

My site is run on zenfolio, I've always been happy with it, I have their premium acct which gives you all that smug offers at a fraction of the cost. Ridiculous move on their part.

Lore wrote in post #14934789
My site is run on zenfolio, I've always been happy with it, I have their premium acct which gives you all that smug offers at a fraction of the cost. Ridiculous move on their part.

Looking at Zenfolio, yeah its $120 a year to set your own prices ect, but if you want to use their pro lab for prints its $250 a year? or is it that you dont get hit for 12% for using the pro lab if you pay 250?

If thats the case, then it certainly sounds like a much better idea. Minus the fact of moving so many galleries over would be a giant headache.

Smugmug is run by incompentant clowns - I say this as a nine year member.

True story - I uploaded a video of my father in 2004. I assumed it would still be there a long as paid for the service. A few years later I went to retreave it and it was 'lost in the transition' to their new video sharing system.

Be very careful when dealing with them.

Im 4 days ahead of the rate increase. I guess I have a year to decide what I will be doing. Though I was not very excited when I read the email last night. Its a jump for sure, and I big one. Like already stated, if I got an email that said your subscription rate will be going up 20-40 bucks, I'd be okay with that. But 100, I'll be looking for Oct 2013

shiftonephoto wrote in post #14934581
I know I can buy 3terrabyte external drives for 130 bucks I only have 90gigs stored on smugmug.

Can your 130 dollar external drive stay up 24x7 while serving your pictures to the web? If so, I doubt you'd have the smugmug account.

I am not trying to justify any price increases, but the storage arguments in this thread are hurting my brain. I manage a datacenter and most people have no idea what is involved. The internet bill alone is likely pushing 10k a month. Then there is power, cooling, high salaries of IT pros, server, storage.

Now none of that matters if you can't compete, but again, it's not like buying mac mini and a usb drive and plugging into DSL.

Maybe Smugmug's business model is not sustainable. Maybe they should look into cloud based services instead of managing their own datacenter. If they have 100 employees, then I would think a RIF might be inevitable if costs are getting out of hand.

shiftonephoto wrote in post #14934581
I know I can buy 3terrabyte external drives for 130 bucks I only have 90gigs stored on smugmug.

You can buy a 3TB external drive for $130 because it's a low-performance, bottom of the line drive with poor seek times, low RPM, low cache, aggressive head parking, no cooling features whatsoever, and overall reliability that would be unacceptable in an enterprise environment.

$130 is about how much a 1TB enterprise drive goes for, and you need many of them to maintain redundancy of that single terabyte.

tkbslc wrote in post #14935259
Can your 130 dollar external drive stay up 24x7 while serving your pictures to the web? If so, I doubt you'd have the smugmug account.

I am not trying to justify any price increases, but the storage arguments in this thread are hurting my brain. I manage a datacenter and most people have no idea what is involved. The internet bill alone is likely pushing 10k a month. Then there is power, cooling, high salaries of IT pros, server, storage.

Now none of that matters if you can't compete, but again, it's not like buying mac mini and a usb drive and plugging into DSL.

Maybe Smugmug's business model is not sustainable. Maybe they should look into cloud based services instead of managing their own datacenter. If they have 100 employees, then I would think a RIF might be inevitable if costs are getting out of hand.

Im not saying my external drive is going to act as a server, nor do I know anything about managing a datacenter. I'm aware they dont have 100's of mybooks laying around on the floor....

I was just pointing out I barely use any space personally. I'm sure people have well over a terabyte stored on there. I just think that if you want more space: pay more, if you manage your space you shouldn't be charged more. Unless this extra 100bucks a year is going to make me more money somehow. They just said they hired people to make the site better, not stating how its going to be better.

Mike Deep wrote in post #14935421
You can buy a 3TB external drive for $130 because it's a low-performance, bottom of the line drive with poor seek times, low RPM, low cache, aggressive head parking, no cooling features whatsoever, and overall reliability that would be unacceptable in an enterprise environment.

$130 is about how much a 1TB enterprise drive goes for, and you need many of them to maintain redundancy of that single terabyte.

Yes Im sure a external HD cant run a server, that is not what I was trying to suggest. I was simply saying I dont use alot of space on their server, and apparently used a bad analogy to get my point across.

As an amateur just starting to get into photography as a hobby I have been looking the last couple of weeks and trying to decide between SmugMug and Zenfolio and then was told about this place via a FB photography group that I am part of. This seems to offer as much or more then a pro account then the 2 aforementioned sites, I was not worried or even thinking about selling any of my photos but I get that option automatically if I sign up even for a FREE account here, even though it is obviously limited compared to their $30 a year ($2.50 a month) account. Have a look and see if it is worth it for you or not, and good luck!

http://fineartamerica.​com/index.html

Cheers,
Brian

I'm sure the competitors that don't make the same mistakes in their storage strategies will continue to undercut smugmug.

Am I the only one who read the email, and just didn't really care? I have the buisness account, so an extra 10 bucks a month. I'll just cut out a trip to Taco Time for dinner once a month (I go there too much) and call it good. Storage is costing more? understandable. SmugMug remains good in my book because they continue offer so many features and their customer support is some of the best I've ever had.

And also, with my event coverage, moving that amount of photos elsewhere would be a ridiculous task.

I was not happy with this, but after taking a bit to really look at it... I don't really make any money off print sales. And if you do, does this extra $100-$150 really take a huge hit on you enough to switch?

Of course, there's the principle of the matter as well. I'm torn on it, but have leaned toward staying for now because they have helped me out and gave me a break early on before. And frankly, if I down to a power user, seems like a good deal still for pure storage of my photos.

I've been thinking about changing up what I focus my shooting on and was unsure what to do with my current Smugmug site. This certainly pushes me to look at other alternatives for the expansion. Thanks Smugmug. It's been nice know'n 'ya!

ZacW wrote in post #14934401
Thanks for all your feedback so far, we really appreciate it. Feel free to email our help desk if you have any questions or concerns about the price increase. Not to worry, SmugMug is not in trouble financially and your photos are safe and sound as always.

Trust me Zac, I do not think anyone is worrying about your side of the coin here.

Ive been a member for 3 years and have never sold a print...I just liked the storage.
But with this increase, Im not renewing.