Microstock report for January
Last year I started selling pictures on different microstock agencies. When I started, I didn’t really figure that the money would amount to much, but over time it has grown rather significant and now is the primary source of funds for new lenses. For those interested in also selling pictures – or those who belong to different sites, I decided to compare how each site did this month. The following is a chart on how each of the five sites I post to did.
The following are more detailed result from this month and my opinions of the different sites.
IStockPhoto (47.5%) – I had my best month ever at IStockPhoto in January and my pictures are really beginning to take off. Perhaps in the future I may go exclusive with them but right now I would only make about 20% more going exclusive and given the fact that IStockPhoto is still less than 50% of my sales this doesn’t make sense. This was the first month that IStockPhoto was my top producer. Of all the different stock sites this one is probably my favorite as they are the most cordial and consistent with their reviews. It can be difficult to get pictures accepted, but when I look at the rejected pictures based on their reviews the rejections tend to make sense.
Shutterstock (36.1%) – Shutterstock had a decent month for me in January, though it was not a record month. However, this was the first month that Shutterstock did not take first place. They were the first microstock that I started submitting to and I have by far more pictures there than elsewhere. Although my sales are decent there I’m not particularly fond of them. Whenever I’ve had to deal with them directly they have been very rude and they do not seem to care about their photographers. Also, their reviewers are wildly inconsistent. Whenever I submit a large number of pictures I will pray for a decent reviewer. Some reviewers are very accepting while others reject everything – even those that were accepted at much tougher sites like IStockPhoto – with the rejections not making sense.
Fotolia (8.0%) – Fotolia still seems to be recovering from a massive blunder several months ago when they upgraded to a new version of their software. My sales have been slowly picking up there though and at the beginning of the month I wondered whether they would beat Shutterstock. Fotolia has become much tougher with their picture selections – however they have the fastest review turnarounds. Their reviews seem for the most part to be fair. They are now a bit tougher in acceptances than Shutterstock, but not as tough as IStockPhoto.
Dreamstime (7.2%) – Dreamstime is one of the newer sites I have applied to and it was only this month that I submitted most of my photos. This is a nice start and I suspect that Dreamstime will be a stable, though not top, earner. Of all the sites they have some of the most helpful blogs on their main page and they have very interesting photo contests, though I don’t take part because the images tend to sell better on IStockPhoto and Shutterstock (their contests require the images to be exclusive to them).
StockXPert (1.1%) – I am currently quite disappointed in this site, even though I just joined. They seem to be paranoid about taking any shot that has the tiniest potential for copyright – so they reject pretty much any building. A number of other photos that have done fine on other sites and which even IStockPhoto didn’t have a problem with were rejected. Still, I have a large enough number of pictures there that the sales should be higher. I will likely submit some more this month and fix up the image groups to see if I get more downloads. If I don’t, then I’ll probably stop bothering with this site.
Related posts:
- Microstock Report for February I had thought due to the fact that February is shorter, I would have a more difficult time getting good numbers. This turned out to be far from the truth, as a I had a new best month ever. My previous goal was to make $250 this month, and I...
- Microstock results for March This month was quiet on the submissions side - most of the month was spent with either myself or one of my kids sick. Also the weather at the end of the month reduced the amount of time I was able to shoot. Nevertheless, I still had a record month...
- Microstock results for April Well, to be honest, this month sucked! My sales fell considerably with approximately a 24% decrease. Right now, I’m not currently sure what the reason for the falloff is, but I suspect that it is seasonal. Last year between March and April at Shutterstock I had a 24% drop in...
- Introduction to Microstock Photography - Other Sites In this post we will discuss the other microstock sites that are available. The two primary sites we will focus on are Fotolia and Dreamstime. However, there are also other sites. Fotolia and Dreamstime are the third and fourth largest microstock sites available today - though not necessarily in that...
- Slowing down with IStockPhoto As many of you know, I spend some time submitting my pictures to various microstock sites. I currently submit to five agencies - Shutterstock, IStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, and StockXPert. Lately I have been extremely busy and have little time to submit pictures. As I slowly started submitting a few, I...
Tags: dreamstime, fotolia, IStockphoto, microstock, photography, shutterstock, stock, StockXPert
Very nice post. I’ve been working on my Istock photo application and uploading photos there has been quite a learning process. How can we find your images on these sites?
Tom
I would have to believe there is a reason you didn’t post the dollar amount but for sure IStock looks like the place to sell to! Thanks for sharing!
Hello there
Glad to see that someone is posting detailed stats it is always useful. I have a similar blog about microstock you can have a look here:
http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/
L
I’ve been with iStock since 2002 and exclusive since they had the option. I have no regrets about it, I don’t want to deal with uploading the same images over and over and re-keywording them over and over, but that’s just me.
I’ve also written several articles starting with Make money selling digital photos part I on my experiences selling over the last 6 years.
Keep shooting!
@Tom - I will be adding a page to my blog sometime soon with links to the different sites
@Monarch - Since you’re interested, my last month’s total was $280. I’m still relatively small compared to many submitters. Interestingly, this month IStock isn’t doing too well for me.
@Laurent - interesting blog and I may take a look at some of the other sites you mention
@Mike - I can definitely see your point. It can get exhausting submitting everywhere. However I have noticed sites to be fickle and it’s nice that I make money elsewhere when one doesn’t do too well.
Not to belittle microstock, or your informative post about your experiences, but I feel that many photographers (especially those with specialized subjects) drastically undervalue their work by participating in microstock.
I made my webpage (hosting cost, $90/year) and license rights-managed images directly to clients. Essentially, it was not very hard to become my own stock agency. No middlemen. A single image licenses for $40-$500, depending on the use, and some of my images still get licensed multiple times, only for a lot more money each time. Granted, I have to deal with contracts and invoicing and all that stuff, but it’s worth it.