Flickr's revived Pro tier gives you ad-free photos and better stats
When Flickr rolled out its big redesign a couple of years ago, it also did away with Pro accounts. Unless you were a legacy user, your only real paid options for the photo service were to kill ads or up the storage -- not so hot if you were a serious shutterbug. However, you'll be glad to hear that Flickr just brought Pro back. The new tier is more expensive than before (the same $50 per year as the ad-free version, or $6 per month), but promises to one-up some of the features you've seen in all of Flickr's previous premium offerings. It removes ads for your own browsing as well as for anyone who visits your images, and there are improved stats that help you understand which photos are drawing eyeballs. If you pay for a yearly membership, you also get a 20 percent first-year discount on Adobe's Creative Cloud Photography subscription (no small amount if you regularly edit pictures) and lower-cost shipping for Flickr merchandise like Wall Art.
There's one thing you won't get if you sign up for a fresh Pro account, though: unlimited storage. You'll still have unrestricted uploads if you hold on to the older Pro service, but you're otherwise facing the same 1TB ceiling as free users. That won't usually pose a problem, but it could create headaches if you're uploading 50-megapixel photos every day. Even so, this is good news if you treat Flickr as more of a work portfolio than a haven for your Instagram shots.
