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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 wound up with $321, breaking the $300 barrier for the first time.  I have decided, however, to not set my goal in March to $350, but instead to set it at repeating $300.  The following is how each microstock site did for me.

Shutterstock (44.8%) - Last month, IStockPhoto took the lead for the first time.  I was curious if this trend would continue but this month but the answer was a resounding “no”.  IStockPhoto did regain a lot of ground at the end of the month, but Shutterstock easily came out ahead and came close to getting half of my total sales.  What is even more interesting is I did not submit any new shots until the very end of the month, which suggests that my sales increase was due to new buyers and not necessarily new shots.  In even better news, the forums on Shutterstock mention there may be a raise in May - so it seems likely that my earnings will continue to increase here.  The simple reality is, though they are not pleasant to deal with, this site does bring in the most money.

IStockPhoto (37.16%) IStockPhoto had a month similar to last month, but this month came behind Shutterstock in sales.  Based on these sales I suspect going exclusive with them in the future would be a very poor choice.  I must admit though it is a pain submitting images here, as they now check that the keywords match the image exactly and their opinions often differ from mine.  Still, their reviews were quite fair this month and several good images - including two for which I just sold large prints - were accepted by IStockPhoto but rejected by Shutterstock for not being of commercial value.

Fotolia (8.73%) This month was slightly better than my previous month.  Reviews here seem to be getting very unpredictable.  On one hand, images are reviewed very quickly - usually within 24 hours of submitting.  On the other hand, image rejection sometimes seems to be random.  A recent batch of shots there was massacred, though Shutterstock and IStockPhoto accepted most of them.  After working with other sites, Fotolia seems to be poorly managed.  They have gone through a number of bumps, including a disastrous upgrade early last year, and my sales have never fully recovered.  Still, it is currently third in my earnings and worthwhile to submit shots to.

Dreamstime (7.12%) This was a rather quiet month for Dreamstime.  I submitted a large batch of photos at the end of the month but they have yet to be reviewed.  Sales are not very common here, but the commissions tend to be larger than sites like Fotolia.  Then again, my portfolio on this site is much younger and smaller than Fotolia’s.

StockXPert (2.20%) A slight gain from last month has me not ready to ditch this site yet.  I currently do not have my best selling Dubai pictures on here, so I will add them and see what happens.  I suspect that eventually sales here will be similar to Fotolia and Dreamstime.  This is also the easiest site for which to submit images.

In March I hope to take more shots.  I already have a number of insect and spider shots awaiting, though admittedly they tend not to do very well.  All sites, except Fotolia, generally accept them.  Usually for each shot I get a handful of downloads over time.  Very often when one image gets downloaded, all of my other shots of the same insect also get downloaded.  So for instance I’ll either get no woodlouse downloads (most days), or every woodlouse image will be downloaded.  On IStockPhoto, sales are much slower, though some of my better ones like the ladybug eating an aphid have received a number of downloads.

I’m also thinking of submitting to other agencies.  LuckyOliver is mentioned often, though I have seen vastly different reports of sales.  I will probably do some investigation to see if there are other sites worth submitting to.  All in all I was very pleased with my sales this month and that will definitely have an impact on future equipment purchases.

Related posts:

1. 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...
2. 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...
3. 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...
4. 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...
5. 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...

Tags: dreamstime, fotolia, IStockphoto, microstock, photography, sales, shutterstock, stock, StockXPert