If you haven’t used CreationSwap to find images, logos, or other well-designed media for your church, then you’ve either had your head under or rock or are already one of the greatest designers in the world and have no need for design help.
Personally, I’m neither of those things, and I have been using CreationSwap even before it was CreationSwap, back when it was CreativeMYK. (Wow. I’m like a design hipster…without being a designer!)
CreationSwap has helped get tons of images and designs for my church, and in fact, one of book covers was a CreationSwap design (with permission from the designer).
But now all of that is changing.
CreationSwap’s New Business Model
The pricing plan above lays is out pretty well. From now on, free accounts can only download three free images a month, but can pay for as many images as they’d like. For $16 per month (with a yearly commitment), you can have unlimited free photo downloads, 10% off of purchases, and the ability to “save files for later,” which I don’t really see the benefit of. For three more dollars a month, you can have complete unlimited access to photos, video, and audio, presumably with the 10% off of any purchases.
While this isn’t the worst news ever, I’m still a little bit upset. I guess CS has to do what they have to do, but this does feel like the “good times,” by which I mean “sweet free media,” are coming to an end.
Eric J says
I was super bummed when this was announced because as i commented on their facebook announcement that i thought we were SWAPing files. It feels like we went from a community to a buisness. I’ll paste their response below.
Phil Schneider says
I figured that this was their reasoning. I get that bandwidth and hosting are a big deal, and I don’t begrudge them trying to recoup costs. I’m simply hating change because I know that my church won’t get a paid account.
Of course, a part of that is because we don’t need a ton of artwork, so maybe CS has a point here. If you need more than three images a month, it’s worth paying for.
Bevan Kay says
I’m not to happy with the changes that have been made. I understand thst hosting these sorts of websites costs money, but when I uploaded files for distribution to the website I did so with the knowledge that people would have unlimited access to them. I am still considering whether I leave them there or request to have them removed.
Phil Schneider says
Bevan, I was wondering about that. As a creator, I’m sure that you want as many people as possible to be able to use the material that you’re sharing. If you take your work down from CS, how will you distribute it? Or will you?
Bevan Kay says
To be honest I uploaded the items quite a while ago and I would consider them to be of a subpar standard in hindsight – which adds to the thought of taking them down. If people are using one of their 3 free items to download the item I would prefer them to download something of a higher quality.
Because the quality isn’t there I would most likely remove them and not upload them elsewhere. However, if I was to create more freebies in future I would be seeking an alternative to CreationSwap if possible – simply because I would want more people to have access to the files.
I find it sad that CreationSwap has had to come to this place (from someone who has used the service since the CreativeMYK days) and I will continue to support them as much as I can – but in the church situations I have been in we haven’t had the funding to be purchasing graphic resources to use in our designs. Which in turn leaves no choice but to just about stop using the service all together.
Phil Schneider says
I getcha. Makes sense to me. Thanks for the comments, Bevan, and I’m in a similar church situation where we want to do professional-looking media and print projects but don’t have the money to invest in such a system.
Eric Dye says
In an ‘everything is free’ Internet culture AND ‘everything should be free for the church’ church culture, it gets harder and harder to find ways to build sustainable, quality services like CreationSwap. I feel for these guys, as they have been faced with a very difficult task. :-/
Phil Schneider says
Very sound answer, boss. I don’t like the change, but I totally understand.
Jeremy Reger says
they need to talk to unsplash.com, they seem to be killing it.. I know they are totally different projects.. but still
Phil Schneider says
I would *LOVE* a “churchy” unsplash, with free images of BIbles and church-centric images. Unsplash is awesome, but I don’t get to use a lot of their images because the don’t really fit the “geography” of my church—they’re aren’t a lot of mountain landscapes in Illinois.
Eric Dye says
Will check it out… 🙂
Phil Schneider says
?????
Eric Dye says
Wait…I know this. LOL
Elcodigodebarras says
It´s fine CS is now charging for their work, but why such radical change in their policy?.
From all to zero?
By the way from here I want to share my links to discover websites that offer very useful resources for churches too, totally free some times and other under a creative commons license:
Photo:
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Graphics
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Video
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…And I have a lot of them
I know they have no specific christian criteria like CS but…
Regards
Elcodigodebarras
Phil Schneider says
“From all to zero”—it’s technically not zero. There are three free downloads a month, but I do agree that it’s a swift and sudden change. How would you have made it more gradual?
Daniel Flucke says
I understand the need to pay their bills and make money, and I’m sure it’s an expensive service to run. That doesn’t change that I’m disappointed to see them move away from the free model. I thought of CreationSwap as a place for churches to share resources, not a store.
Phil Schneider says
I think that’s a common sentiment, but at the same time, they seem very adamant that it was either this or shut down.
Matt Gruber says
A truly difficult decision for us. It’s hard to read such comments like:
really @CreationSwap? you went from a file sharing site for free church media to a pay site? Way to monetize the Gospel… #jesuswept
or
Sad to see you starting to charge all but 3 photos a month. Ministry is not made of money. Advent Blessings!
To help clear the air, we have posted about our decision here: http://www.creationswap.com/article/7167
We are grateful to all our contributors who choose to share and continue to share on our site.
We would love to keep everything free if we could but this is the choice we have made based on our reasonable circumstances. We had no idea how people would respond to this decision. To our surprise, our new subscription model grew 7 times what we estimated for one month in just 6 days. Totally rad to see such support and loyalty from our fans. We plan to go above and beyond to make each subscriber feel that having a Premium pass is a great decision. For example, we plan to make Christmas happen every month.
Read about it here: http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=2f65d7d790453dcd22ec8b5c2&id=c2a3667ccd&e=%5BUNIQID
We are group of designers, developers and idea guys that love Jesus. Thank you for all your support and understanding. CreationSwap loves you.
Phil Schneider says
Hey, Matt. Thanks for commenting; it does offer a lot of clarity. I completely understand the need to shift pricing models as scope and scale out-pace the original plan. I hope this conversation didn’t come off as critical, just wishful that the simplicity of the “good old days” could continue.
Eric Dye says
Keep being awesome. 🙂
Aaron Landon says
I understand that hosting is expensive but I feel there could have been better solutions or at least a little notice that changes needed to be made, given the option I would have gladly donated some of my works so that the money paid would go towards keeping the unlimited free content available. I provided work to the community so it could be used by others with less resources and I’m a little upset that my contribution is now being used as a free sample to sell their product.
Phil Schneider says
I completely understand, Aaron. I think they could have received a lot more “buy in,” so to speak, if they’d brought the issues of scale and cost to the community before making a decision.
Thanks for the comment.