When we rebuilt EntryThingy, we made two decisions that, ultimately, reduce our revenue in the short term. However, the more we thought them through, the more obvious it became that they are better for our customers in the long run.
We Stopped Selling Access to our Calls List — Now, We Curate the Calls List Ourselves
We no longer ask third parties to pay for their calls to appear on our website. Instead, we took a top-down approach: we add calls voluntarily... for free. That includes calls from our competing platforms, smaller niche opportunities, independent providers, local aggregators, and everything in between.
What we gave up: The old version of our calls list had two sources: EntryThingy-hosted calls, and paid slots. We used to charge for what was essentially an ad slot — revenue for us when third parties wanted to be featured on our calls list. That line item is now zero.
What we gained: We go out and find calls ourselves. We control quality, vet legitimacy, and filter out scam calls. Artists get a curated list they can trust, not a pay-to-play directory. Additionally, our call list is now populated with a majority of calls hosted somewhere else besides EntryThingy — meaning we don't get paid when artists apply.
Why do this? Why does this benefit our artists? Transparently, we found that most of the calls that folks tried to submit in the old version of the calls list were low-quality, scammy, or even a little bit predatory for artists. In the new version of EntryThingy, we actually have a list of low-quality providers that we do not allow on our calls list.
This new approach (where we take the initiative to add quality third-party calls to our list), means a much more expansive calls list with a lot more opportunities!
Even though it may seem counterintuitive to be redirecting artists (who are already on our website) somewhere else, it became clear to us that the best way to serve artists is to give them a one-stop shop for finding calls on the internet. If that means redirecting them to another platform or call provider to find the call they need - so be it.
Of course, you can always filter our calls list for calls only hosted on EntryThingy, if you would like. This is something we find our Artwork Management subscribers often do, so they can use work that has already been uploaded to apply to a call.
We Stopped Charging for Old Calls — and Let Galleries Keep Their History For Free
We no longer charge galleries for calls over one year old. The original EntryThingy charged tokens for old calls, and we justified it because it helped offset our storage costs (as you can imagine, we pay a lot for image storage!). But, it really never made sense to incentivize our customers to delete their data.
What we gave up: Tokens from galleries who wanted to keep their call history visible past one year.
What we gained: Galleries can create an account on EntryThingy knowing they won't be penalized for leaving old calls up. We want them to be excited about having years and years of consistent call data — a real archive of their exhibition history, not a tax on their past! We are confident this decision will help us build continued trust and confidence with our gallery partners.