500px launches $19.95 image hosting plan to compete with Flickr Pro

Image hosting service 500px has announced a new mid-tier plan that now makes it cheaper than its biggest competitor, Flickr. Previously the service offered a $49.95 annual membership (entitled Awesome) but today has introduced a Plus plan that will run users $19.95 annually — a few dollars less than Flickr Pro’s $24.95 price tag. The two plans offer many of the same features — including unlimited uploads, storage, file access, and collections — but 500px is attempting to sweeten the deal by providing more in-depth statistics than Flickr on how your photos are being viewed, as well as the option to sell prints and photos through the company’s marketplace.

The 500px Pro plan also compares pretty favorably to the more expensive Awesome plan, offering largely the same line-up of features but without the personalized portfolio option. To go along with the announcement 500px has also released a free image uploader for Mac users that lets you drag JPEGs to the menu bar to automatically upload them to your account. Given the similarities between pricing and features 500px is clearly going after Flickr with this latest announcement — though Flickr hasn’t exactly been sitting still, recently making improvements like a new design and updated editing tools.