Flickr hikes Pro subscription fee a month after pleading for more sign-ups

By Trevor Mogg January 22, 2020

Flickr raised its subscription prices on Wednesday, January 22. The move comes a month after the company that owns Flickr pleaded for more users to skip the free version of the photo site and fork out for a subscription instead, as the business costs so much to run.

The new price for an annual subscription, for example, costs the equivalent of $6 a month if you pay annually (up from $5), or $8 payable monthly (up from $7).

If you currently have a Flickr Pro account, you can extend your subscription at a discounted rate by hitting this link. Monthly subscribers are invited to lock in a one- or two-year term at the 2019 rate, while annual subscribers with a renewal date prior to July 1 can add two years now. All others are invited to add a one- or two-year term.

If you’re wondering what happens to the remainder of your current subscription, Flickr says it will extend the term of your current Pro subscription. “For example, if your current subscription expires in July 2020 and you choose to renew now, we will add an additional year to your subscription at the 2019 price, extending your subscription end date to July 2021,” Flickr explained in a message posted online this week.

Pro perks

Pro members get unlimited, full-quality storage for their images, and ad-free browsing for themselves and visitors to their page. An array of stats on the performance of your Flickr page are also available.

The company said it had been prompted to increase its prices because “Flickr is a huge and extremely costly service to run,” adding, “We intend to keep investing in making it even better, but it cannot continue to operate at a loss.”

Flickr was acquired by photo-sharing and image-hosting site SmugMug in 2018. In December 2020, SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill said that when it took over the company, Flickr was losing “tens of millions of dollars a year.” He explained that although his team has been working hard to get the accounts back in order, it really needs more people to sign up for a Pro membership “if we want to keep the Flickr dream alive.”

We’ve reached out to Flickr to ask how its recruitment drive went and we will update this article if we hear back.

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