‘Uber for photographers’ goes live in Singapore and Bangkok

We last profiled Pinpic in February when the young company had just embarked upon its Kickstarter campaign.

The startup, which aggregates professional photographers in an Uber-esque manner, wasn’t able to reach its crowdfunding goal. But this didn’t deter the budding entrepreneurs from forging ahead with their plans.

“We’ve been monitoring adoption rates in cities around the world since we launched alpha in February. Singapore and Bangkok demonstrated healthy growth from the get-go,” explains Urooj Qureshi, co-founder of Pinpic.

The on-demand marketplace is now live in Singapore and Bangkok. Tourists visiting the cities can search for photographers through the app, filter results based on price and ratings, and select the one that best suits their needs. All payments are done online.

It was already running in London, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Cancun.

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Urooj says the team is trying to position Pinpic as the main business management platform for freelance photographers. They’re charging photographers zero fees, with the startup also waiving the 3 percent credit card processing fee on their behalf, in order to encourage greater interest and help ramp up supply – but those terms may change later.

Photographers can also avail a custom URL that allows clients to land directly at their homepage.

Prices in Singapore start at US$50

There are a total of 14 photographers online in Singapore and Bangkok with another 16 in the pipeline. Urooj says they’re taking steps to ensure quality of supply so that people requesting photoshoots are satisfied with the experience.

In Singapore, prices for a vacation shoot session start at US$50. They’re a bit pricier in Bangkok, at US$100. However, photographers are free to set their own price points, and it is likely that there will be greater variations in pricing as the marketplace grows.

“Unlike photo agencies that dominate this market, which are unreasonably expensive -starting at $250 for 30 minutes, typically – and take a 40 percent cut from the photographer, Pinpic lets photographers choose and adjust their pricing strategy and take home the entire sum,” explains Urooj.

The founder admits the concept is still fairly new and that people are still “wrapping their heads around it.” Nonetheless, he remains very confident that it has the potential to scale.