Imgur Pro Registration Page (Photo : Imgur)
Imgur has announced via a blog post and as an email to subscribers that as a gift to users for its sixth birthday, its subscription-based service will be going away. Now, all users will experience Imgur Pro service for free.
All Imgur users will now get to store an unlimited number of images in their accounts. Free accounts used to have a limit of 225 image uploads.
All users will now also receive multiple thumbnail options on all uploads and access complete image analytics and referrer data. The analytics feature will let users see total image views over time, graphs of image views by data range and who their top traffic referral sources are.
Image hosting is now set at 5 MB file size limit, while for animated GIF, the cap is 200 MB. Imgur Pro users used to be able to upload images of up to 10 MB in size.
There's a catch to the Imgur Pro features becoming free though. All these free features will come at the price of "one small display ad per page."
Those with remaining time left in their original subscription will have their albums ad-free until such time elapses. After that, the ads will appear.
Those who bought an Imgur Pro account within the past 30 days will automatically get a refund either through Paypal or Google Wallet. No one will be able to make any new subscription as the upgrade page has already disappeared.
According to Tim Hwang, Imgur's head of Special Initiatives, the company is looking for business models that are based less on monetizing image hosting.
"I think there's an interesting business side to the story as we decide to transition," Hwang is quoted by Fast Company saying. "We're very confident to focus more on content and ads in the future."
Imgur Pro was introduced when the American online image hosting service turned one in 2010. The upgrade used to cost $3 per month or discounted at $24 per year.
