If you have ever signed up for a stock-photo subscription and then spent two weeks trying to cancel it, you already understand the problem we were trying to avoid.
The basics of the credit system
Every purchase on Picster is made with credits. One credit costs €0.15 — that is the base price, because Picster runs on euros. If you are buying from Australia, the United States, or anywhere else, your local currency is converted from euros at the live exchange rate at the time you top up. There is no markup on the conversion; the rate you see is the rate we use.
You buy credits in a single top-up — whatever amount you want, whenever you want. There is no monthly plan, no annual commitment, and nothing that auto-renews in the background. When your credits are gone, they are gone. When you want more, you come back and buy more. That is the whole model.
Why one-time top-ups instead of a subscription
Subscriptions work well for platforms that want predictable revenue and are willing to trade that for some amount of buyer resentment. We decided the trade was not worth it.
The honest case for top-ups:
- You only pay for what you actually use. A subscription charges you whether you downloaded three images this month or thirty.
- There is no cancellation process. You simply stop topping up.
- It keeps us honest. If the work on Picster is not useful to you, we do not quietly collect a fee while you forget we exist.
The one real downside is that heavy, consistent buyers do not get a volume discount baked in automatically. We are aware of that and may add optional bundles later, but we will not do it by wrapping them in a subscription.
How artists get paid
When a buyer spends credits on your work, 50% of the credit value goes to your Picster wallet. That is a flat rate — it does not change based on your sales volume or how long you have been on the platform. There is no tiered system where new artists earn less.
Payouts are requested directly inside the app from your wallet. We do not push payments out on an arbitrary schedule; you request when you are ready. The mechanics of transfer timing depend on the payment method, but the request itself is in your hands.
Separately, there is a human-curated featured queue. Being featured is not something you buy with credits or win through an algorithm measuring engagement. A person looks at the work and decides whether it belongs in the queue. This matters for artists because featured placement is one of the main ways new buyers find work they did not know to search for. It also means the queue reflects actual editorial judgment rather than whoever spent the most on promotion.
The short version
Credits are priced in euros at €0.15 each, converted to your currency at the live rate. You top up when you want to, with no subscription attached. Artists earn 50% of every sale, flat, and request their own payouts from their wallet. Featured spots are curated by a person, not purchased.
That is the system. If something about it is unclear, the best place to ask is through the support link in the app — we read those.
