So last week, Scott Kelby announced on his blog that the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (a/k/a NAPP) and Kelby Training would be merging into a new entity called Kelby One. Since the announcement, I’ve spent several hours gorging myself on the classes that Kelby Training has to offer. This is the coolest thing to happen to photography training in a long while–at least from my perspective.
But then again, my perspective isn’t the only one out there…
How Kelby One Works
Well, the best place to learn about that is over on Scott Kelby’s website (here’s the link), but for those readers that aren’t familiar with Kelby Media, here’s a quick synopsis.
Up until last week, Kelby Media had 2 separate subscription packages: The first was NAPP, and the second was Kelby Training. A one year NAPP subscription included 10 copies of the Photoshop User magazine–which is the only photography magazine whose back issues I save, a slew of discounts and the resources on the NAPP website. Shortly after I made the switch from Photoshop Elements to Photoshop CS a few years ago, I got a NAPP subscription, which runs $99/year. I’ve since renewed it and I’ve never regretted joining.
A Kelby Training subscription, on the other hand, features a veritable buffet of thousands of professionally-done, in-depth online classes about everything and anything photography related (from camera settings to gear to lighting to portraiture to post-processing) taught by professionals like Joe McNally, Moose Peterson, and others that are at the top of their game. While I thought it’d be nice to subscribe to Kelby Training back when I subscribed to NAPP, an annual subscription costed $199, which simply wasn’t in the budget at the time.
Then, last week, Scott Kelby made the announcement about Kelby One. What the merger means is that all NAPP members also became Kelby Training subscribers (with access to all the training videos) and all Kelby Training subscribers also became NAPP members (with copies of Photoshop User and access to the discounts), and for both groups, all the extra content is grandfathered into their existing subscription price. For double subscribers, they’ll end up paying the ongoing rate of the service they subscribed to first when they renew. For non-subscribers, a new subscription will cost $249/year, which is $50 less than both NAPP and Kelby Training used to cost together. So they also get a little bit of a price cut.
Predictably, people on the Interwebz went nuts about the pricing, and not necessarily in a good way.
The Issue with the Pricing
Because existing NAPP and Kelby Training subscribers are grandfathered in at their current subscription price, there’s a $100 difference between what each group is paying.
See, NAPP members will continue paying $99/year for Kelby One, while Kelby Training members will continue paying $199/year for the same thing. Furthermore, there’s no longer any either/or choice for non-subscribers. If you want to get the equivalent of a NAPP membership as a non-subscriber, admission now runs $250/year (though it will include access to all of the training videos). So if you were thinking about a NAPP membership but hadn’t pulled the trigger yet, well, your cost just went up by $150/year. Sorry.
Unfortunately, when it comes to pricing this new paradigm, it’s tough to see how Kelby Media could have done it in a way that would: A.) Keep all of their subscribers happy and B.) Prevent a huge hit to their income that would have (probably) occurred if they’d simply dropped the price for everyone down to the $99 NAPP subscription point.
And therein lies the problem.
The Dirty Little Secret about Prices
When it comes to pricing, most businesses charge certain customers more or less than others. The reason for that is straight out of an economics 101 textbook: Companies want to sell their products for as much as they can get, customers want to buy the product for the lowest price they can, so each transaction ends up with its own equilibrium point. Getting bids on a home improvement project or scouring the net for a hotel room discount or haggling over the price of a car are everyday examples of this in action. With my recent car purchase, for example, I probably ended up paying more for the one I bought than someone else did. At the same time (considering all the research and bid requesting I did beforehand), I’m also willing to bet that someone else paid more than I did. The difference is that the pricing on these kinds of transactions are usually either not disclosed or not comparable. Because I don’t know what anyone else paid, I’m satisfied with the price that I paid.
I feel I got my money’s worth.
When Scott Kelby announced the new arrangement and said everyone would keep their subscriber price, however, the pricing was suddenly front and center for everyone to see. For NAPP members like me, it means that, well, we really have no excuse to complain since we’re getting the best possible rate. Kelby Training subscribers or double subscribers, on the other hand, found value in paying $199/year or more for access under the old system, but then they found out that someone else would be getting the exact same thing and more for a lot less. When you factor in how they’ve been the ones that have been paying for premium content, it’s not surprising that some of them weren’t happy about the change. On the plus side: Many of them are gaining content (in the form of a NAPP subscription) from the new arrangement without a commensurate increase in price. However, it’s never fun learning that someone’s getting a better deal than you, so I understand their frustration.
Who I Do Feel Bad For
The people that I truly do feel bad for, though, are the non-subscribers that are just starting out in Photoshop, because there’s no longer a lower priced entry point for them into the Kelby system any longer.
See, I’ve gotten a lot out of NAPP these last few years. In addition to the learning tons of Photoshop awesomeness from the magazine and the website, I went to RC Concepcion’s training seminar last year, and I’ve used the NAPP member discounts to save almost as much as the cost of the subscription. Heck, if it hadn’t been for a book that was produced by Kelby Media (and written–and subsequently autographed–by the aforementioned RC), there probably wouldn’t be a Trapping Light website. And while I’ve never been to Photoshop World, it’s certainly on the bucket list.
Unfortunately, if I had been faced with a $250/year subscription fee for the service back when I first subscribed, that would have been difficult to swallow (and by “swallow” I actually mean “justify to my wife”). Heck, $250 would buy a nifty fifty prime lens at the local camera store with a fondue dinner at The Melting Pot on the way home as a treat to my wife for letting my buy the prime lens. Anyway, I probably wouldn’t have subscribed to NAPP at that price and that’s what’s got me bothered. I would have missed out on a lot.
And I’m willing to be there’s some people today that are where I was a few years ago.
I’m not sure what the right way for Kelby Media to deal with that conundrum is, or if there even is a right way. Considering there’s another big announcement coming February 1st, maybe they’ve already thought of one. Part of me thinks that it would be helpful if they offered a basic Photoshop User subscription—no discounts, no frills, just the magazine—for a price comfortably below $249/year. I think that’d be an excellent way to ease people into the Kelby ecosystem, and give them a stepping stone into Kelby One, because based on what I’ve been seeing over the last week and a half, there’s a lot there to love.
But again, as the title clearly states, this is only one guy’s perspective.
