Premium + Video Subscription

Customer demand for stock video had increased, but the à la carte model was cost-prohibitive for most. Users were going to competitors for affordable video, and iStock had no subscription path to meet them. Our team was tasked with finding a way to offer video at a lower cost, compete in the market, and establish video as a core part of the iStock offering.

I love iStock for images, but I always go somewhere else for video. The prices just don't make sense.

Customer interview

A subscription or offering that included video could let iStock:

• Keep video buyers on iStock instead of losing them to competitors
• Offer video at a lower price through a familiar subscription model or new video bundle
• Make video a core part of iStock, alongside images and illustrations

From early concepts through launch and beyond, I worked closely with research, product, and engineering.

• Researching customer needs. Using Continuous Discovery Habits, my team and I facilitated customer interviews to understand how customers were buying video and where iStock fell short.
• Understanding the market. I led competitive analysis and reviewed the findings with Product, Technology, Analytics, and Marketing so everyone was working from the same picture.
• Structuring ideation. As part of our continuous discovery practice, the team ran brainwriting and dot voting. I then led a story mapping session to surface desirability, usability, and feasibility assumptions, which we sorted by risk.
• Testing four subscription models. With our UX researcher, I helped plan the research and built four concept prototypes. We ran 20 moderated sessions, which led us to the multi-asset subscription and a second round of studies that settled on the name Premium + Video.
• Designing new flows. I mapped flows for new customers, image subscribers, and video buyers, and identified opportunities for upsells and upgrade states that didn't exist yet. I designed that new pattern with engineering, and worked through the design and copy with the UX writer.
• Documenting for handoff. I created detailed handoff specs covering every key page, behaviour change, and responsive breakpoint. This was a new practice for the team, and it improved both development and QA.
• Ensuring quality of the launch. With the product owner, I checked the build against the designs across regions, pricing configurations, and device sizes before launch.

The launch was structured in phases: growth and mid-markets first, then major markets two months later, with price testing layered across all markets to validate whether the product was priced appropriately.

• 7,000+ orders in the first five months
• 72% of orders came from new or reactivated customers
• 49% of existing customers who purchased had no previous video history
• When music was added post-launch, that week saw a 12% order lift and a 25% revenue increase, the plan's highest weekly revenue

• Define MVP scope before design, not after. We reached development without a clear launch scope, so the release grew too large and had to be split into phases partway through. Defining the MVP earlier would have focused the design work and made handoff smoother.
• Build the QA plan in parallel with the design. QA was mostly handled by me and the product owner. Starting the test plan during design exploration would have made the manual pass across regions and pricing faster and less stressful.