Things are picking up again after the slow summer. September was my best month ever on both iStockphoto and Dreamstime. I even had a sale or two on some of the smaller sites. Here’s my breakdown of each site:
iStockphoto: I started this month with a portfolio of 142 images. These photos generated $31.50 in 23 downloads. My best day ever was 24 September, with $9.50 on this site. This is the kind of numbers that actually make it worthwhile to upload. The bigger your portfolio, the higher earnings. I have started uploading again now and have 6 new images online, 6 in the queue and a ton in the pipeline. iStock is still my favourite site and this is where I recommend beginners to start out. Just submit your best three photos (not too similar ones) and you’re good to go. If you get rejected, you can try again after a while. They’re quite picky, but that is a good thing in the long run. Rather than rejecting all new images, they are sensible enough to root out some of their old weed from slacker days. My approval ratio is 61 % on this site.
Dreamstime: This is another very good site. They are not very picky here, so it might be a good place to get started in the microstock “business”. My approval ratio is 88 %, but this is mostly with material that had already been approved at iStock. Since April, my total earnings are $62.80 (from 70 downloads). I had 133 images online at the beginning of September. I uploaded 18 new files in that month. Only two were rejected, and that was because they were too similar to the ones that were accepted. September was my best month ever by far, with a fair $25.28 in earnings. This site is starting to rival iStockphoto. October looks very good so far. Another good thing about Dreamstime is that the earnings increase as an image gets more downloads. I now have two Level 2-files and will increase the upload rate to this site.
123rf: I have 48 files here now and 4 downloads in September, generating an income of $2.94. Maybe I should put in more of an effort here.
Fotolia: This site stands out with a very very low acceptance rate. I’ve read about this phenomenon elsewhere on the web as well. It is obvious that they have too many images online, but they have chosen the worst way to deal with that. They leave old, outdated, bad, probably non-selling material from their startup days online and reject new contributions. This is sure to provoke anger amongst contributors (it does, read other forums and blogs), and that is surely not a good thing if you’re hoping to stay competitive. I have one sale here now (at $0.99), which is not bad with a portfolio of 5 images.
SnapVillage: Owned by Corbis, I find it very strange how little effort they put into this site. Their site doesn’t even work with Safari! I have around 30 images online to test the waters, and so far I have one download at $3. The positive thing about this site is that, despite the lack of bulk FTP upload, uploading and keywording is quick. You’re also allowed to set your own price for each image.
PantherMedia: This is a German, fairly professional-looking site with slightly higher prices than typical microstock companies. The approval process is rather confusing, but I have now uploaded 29 images, of which 20 were approved. I have one download at €2.97, so it might be worth the effort to upload some more.
PhotoShelter: The less said about this site, the better.
Shutterstock: This is where many new microstockers get started. However, after a while I found their payout of $0.25 per download almost insulting and removed all my images. SS was my best earner; I made around $100 on just 100 images in a few months. If you can live with their royalty scheme, this is a very professional site.
Hey Erik, good to see you getting a high sales to portfolio ratio going here. Nice work.
I find it interesting that you find the 25 cent royalty at Shutterstock insulting while you’re happy with iStockphoto who pay 19 cents for blog resolution sales. See if this perspective provides any new openings:
- you’re loaning your portfolio to the agency for a month, and at the end of the month the more money they send back, the better they did their job -
Commission-per-sale is low across all microstock agencies. Your average at Fotolia was just 73 cents. Is that such a low way from 25 cents?
Plus, stick with Shutterstock for five months (at your stated earning rate) and your commission will rise to 33 cents.
Many photographers get attached to what they see they’re giving away for the money, and that’s fine. We each deal with these numbers in our own way. Perhaps consider Alamy as an alternative to microstock. A single sale each month there would eclipse your entire current monthly microstock earnings.
Either way, good luck, and keep having fun.
-Lee
Hi Lee and thanks for your comment. You have a point with Shutterstock; you get more downloads and this adds up to healthy earnings. If you make your living in the microstock market, you probably can’t afford staying off Shutterstock.
I’m mostly in this for the fun of it, though. After a while, I found that I was less comfortable with their business model than with those of other sites. An additional, important factor (to their low royalties) is that images get buried very quickly underneath the mountain of new uploads. On some other sites, you have a chance to “build the reputation” of an image. It seems to me that iStockphoto have a healthier search algorithm, with a more or less sensible weighting between freshness and popularity.
At Shutterstock, you have to keep uploading at a tremendous pace to keep your head above the water. I could never do that; there simply isn’t time. I don’t want to do it either, I want the work I put in each image to have a bit more staying power than it has at Shutterstock.
By the way, Lee, thanks for sharing your info with the rest of us on your excellent site!
All the best, Erik
Hi Erik,
Great post and thanks for sharing you experiences. I’d love to get your feedback on an earnings tracking service we have been working on. Please drop me a line if you get a chance.
Sincerely,
Rahul