In 2009, Alan Schaaf launched Imgur from his dorm at Ohio University as a way to share images online without limits. Now more than 60 billion images are viewed on Imgur per month and it is one of the top 50 largest websites in the world. Imgur has been generating revenue primarily through ads and Pro accounts. However, Imgur recently announced that its Pro features are now available for free.
Imgur’s Pro tools used to cost $3 per month with a discount at $24 per year. Imgur users upgraded to Imgur Pro to have ads removed, to access advanced analytics and to have less file size limitations for sharing images. Even though Imgur Pro is available for everyone, the ads will remain in place.
What features do all Imgur users have now? Imgur used to cap free users at 225 image uploads, but now you can store an unlimited number of images in your account. Users will receive multiple thumbnail options on all uploads. After uploading an image, users will be able to track the total image views over time, graph image views by data range, see the top traffic referral sources and get detailed traffic referral paths within each top referral source. Imgur’s Pro users were able to host images up to 10MB size, whereas free users were capped at 5MB. Now every Imgur user is capped at 5MB, unless you are uploading an animated GIF at up to 200MB.
Imgur decided to make Imgur Pro free as a way to celebrate its sixth birthday. If you bought an Imgur Pro account in the past month, then you will automatically receive a refund. The refunds will be sent automatically through PayPal or
Last month, Imgur also launched a Video to GIF tool that can generate GIFs from hundreds of popular video websites. The size limit of the videos is 1GB. This feature works by adjusting the clip in the timeline after copying and pasting the URL in the input field. Imgur’s Video to GIF feature is available at imgur.com/vidgif.
Andreessen Horowitz and Reddit invested $40 million in Imgur’s Series A round of funding last April, reported FORBES colleague Alex Konrad. The investment from Reddit was strategic because a large portion of Imgur’s traffic comes from the link-sharing website. And Imgur was actually developed originally to serve the Reddit community.
“What began as a simple image uploading service has transformed into a community of the Internet’s most dynamic visual storytellers,” said Imgur in a blog post. “Imgur has become the best place to explore, share, and discuss the Internet’s images–and we couldn’t have done it without your support and loyalty. We’re looking forward to many more years of uniting the universe through images with you.”
What are your thoughts about Imgur making its Pro services available for free? Let us know in the comments section below!
