I’ve been using Flickr Pro for a couple of years now and I’ve always been really happy with it. With the newly added changes I think it has become more appealing for many people so I decided to dedicate this blog post to it. I hope it is useful to you.

What is the Flickr photo sharing service

Flickr is a photo sharing service that allows you to store, sort, search and share your photos and short video clips online. You can keep your photos private, share them just with friends and/or family or share them publicly. The service is accessible through the website, but also using apps for all platforms.

Flickr can also be considered a social photo platform because there are a lot of photographers sharing their photos and forming communities by taking part in groups and discussing and giving feedback on photos.

Last week’s changes to the Flickr service

Last week Flickr.com announced some major changes to its online photo service. The biggest changes are that:

1. The service and website have been redesigned.
2. Flickr Free accounts get 1 Terabyte of free storage, but ads are shown and there are no detailed statistics.
3. Flickr Ad Free accounts cost 50$ a year. This gets you 1 Terabyte of storage, but no ads are shown and you get detailed statistics.
4. Flickr Pro accounts will not be offered anymore. Existing pro accounts can renew or switch to free and get a refund.

For more information including pictures, take a look at their blog and their website:
http://blog.flickr.net/en/2013/05/20/a-better-brighter-flickr/
http://www.flickr.com/new/
http://www.flickr.com/pro/

Why you might want to use Flickr

Some of the reasons for using Flickr include:

1. Easily viewing, uploading, searching and sharing photos and short video clips with all kinds of devices.
2. Having an online backup of your photos.
3. Participating in the community.

In the past I’ve seen many people who lost precious photos from PCs, smartphones, photo cameras and storage devices. Now with the free Terabyte of storage and app integration on all platforms (including WiFi photo cameras) losing photos due to broken/lost/stolen devices should be very minimal.

Keep in mind though that it is a best practice to keep multiple backups. Also you have to know that there is always a chance that photos will become visible if Flickr gets hacked or if they have a bug in their website even though you configured them as private. So if you are really concerned about this, don’t upload these kind of sensitive photos.

If you have a lot of other data to backup (non photos), you might want to take a look at other backup services like by example CrashPlan.

Comparison of account types

Flickr free account

• Free.
• 1 Terabyte (1000 Gigabyte) of storage.
  • An additional Terabyte of storage costs 500$ a year (doublr).
• Shows ads
• No stats

Flickr Ad Free account

• 50$ a year.
• 1 Terabyte (1000 Gigabyte) of storage.
  • An additional Terabyte of storage costs 500$ a year (doublr).
• Ad free.
• Detailed stats.

Flickr Pro account (no longer available for purchase)

• 25$ a year or 48$ for 2 years.
• Unlimited storage.
• Ad free.
• Detailed stats.

Since the Flickr Pro account is no longer available for purchase. People who had a Pro account before before May 20th 2013 can:

• Convert their old Flickr Pro account to a Flickr free account and get a refund.
• Keep paying the old subscription fee of 25$.
  • To keep your Flickr Pro account, you have to configure a recurring Pro subscription. See the FAQ for more info:
    http://www.flickr.com/help/faq/