Quote from: lanabyko on March 03, 2016, 11:01

Quote from: wordplanet on March 03, 2016, 10:34

Alamy was my best agency this month, followed by DT, then SS, then FT. Next month, who knows? But Alamy has been one of my top two for the past few months. FT has been steady but it hasn't caught up to my better agencies yet. (DT nearly always beats the forum average for me, but it's usually in third place). The fact that Alamy has been beating SS to me is more significant. My sales there are a mix of RF and RM - my best price this month there was an RF for $99.99, netting me $49.48, better than I'd get for an EL, though it would cost the buyer the same if it had been available on the micros.

Good to hear that! How long have you been contributing to Alamy? Just curious as it is now a common knowledge that Alamy takes time and patience

Thanks. I started with Alamy in 2009, before I joined any of the micros. It took a good part of the first year before I made my first sale, versus making daily sales on SS with just a handful of images, so it's very different and does require patience. I've been getting fairly steady sales, though the amounts this past year range from $6.38 to $400, with many in the $35-75 range. I have a small portfolio - under 1000 images - with a mix of editorial, travel and some concept images. Most of what I have on Alamy is not on the micros. I license both RM and RF images there and have seen prices come down from when I started, when sales in the $150-200 range were more common, but volume seems to be increasing and there are still some nice prices.

I think they treat contributors fairly and they are very nice to deal with. When I first started with Live News they even called me from London to get captions when a batch didn't upload properly. I like that personal touch. Some years ago they invited a bunch of us to their office in Brooklyn when they first came to the states - and I wasn't a big producer for them but they treat everyone well.

Great insight, thank you for sharing!

I can confirm this personal approach. While on other agencies i feel to talk to something automated Alamy is a person to me. Even the Cfo James himself is not afraid to ask for our oppinions on the forum. They have 40.000 contributors. Great job Alamy.

I am glad Alamy is doing good for you guys. How is it roughly compared to SS in terms of overall earnings?

Also, do they still have that antiquated and extremely non-contributor friendly indexing system with a lot of clicking and keyword separation?

One or two good sales on Alamy can change everything, but they are as rare as hen's teeth.
For me, Alamy is well behind FT and DT - even on a good month. And I haven't had one of those for...well...months!

I make more than FT and DT with Alamy now.  One month last year, one Alamy sale made more for me than a month with SS.  So I'm not so surprised by the poll but Alamy will probably go up and down, because those big sales make a huge difference.

Why do people doubt the accuracy of the poll? Sales with Alamy can vary significantly month to month because the possibility of large sales and even a few smaller ones grossing $100 each can quickly add up. As others have said, if you check out the Alamy forum, you'll see that sales are up recently for a lot of people. It's not like the number is so huge as to be unbelievable. Does everything have to be doom and gloom here?

If you had $180 of sales gross, you'd net $90, which would mean you'd tick $100 on the poll, a third of that is $33 which is roughly what the poll is showing. Many people earn more than $180 there in a month, if a few people made those $1,000+ gross sales, even if it was just one, that $500 net would quickly move Alamy up here. It will be interesting to see where they are next month, hopefully still in the top tier.

There is some time that I don't look the poll.
This thread has drawn my attention, but what have surprised me more is to see Dreamstime in sixth position!

Also i noticed Envato climbing up. Soon passing dreamstime.

2nd place now

Haven't considered Envato for my work yet.. wondering if they could really be on their way up as poll suggests?

They are not for me. Very low in sales....$30-$50 a month with about 3800 images.  No way in hell I will upload my video there, either.

Quote from: sharpshot on March 04, 2016, 04:23

Quote from: Pixart on March 03, 2016, 22:21

It's fascinating to watch that poll these days.  More fascinating still is the spectacular drop from 3rd to 6th place for DT in less than a year.  How does this happen?

DT have been working hard to lose contributors and buyers for years with their unfathomable similars rejections.  They had a good opportunity to be bigger than istock for non-exclusives but they ignored that.

so true... isn't it? serbian was c*cky too ,,,
that plus that "this is not the type of image we want" or something like that  to LCV.
looking at it today, they rejected almost 70% of it due to similars,
and the rest due to LCV.... taking only the HCV according to their curation
which came to almost one dl per month, if you're lucky

so, no, not the least surprising they are in 6th. wait for it, they will drop even below
into low earners like bigstock

He's not Serbian, man. He's Romanian. He's name is Serban, Serbian is a person from Serbia.

Quote from: lanabyko on March 06, 2016, 13:11

2nd place now

Haven't considered Envato for my work yet.. wondering if they could really be on their way up as poll suggests?

I didn't like the low prices and low commission with Envato.  Then they said they weren't an agency and we were selling direct through them.  That makes the tax situation more complicated for a lot of us and doesn't seem right, because however hard they try to deny it, they are just like all the other sites.  The last thing I want is a more complicated tax situation, there's a big difference between selling direct and through an agency.  They left me with no choice but to deactivate my images.

Do you know if this complicated tax situation is applied to only US residents or to everyone? Coz I normally don't pay taxes in US my other micros revenues..

personal opinion: nonsense

not even close to fotolia, istock, 123rf or dreamstime

Alamy never did anything for me. RF vectors don't seem to be very popular there, or is it just me?

Quote from: authenticcreations on March 06, 2016, 12:25

Also i noticed Envato climbing up. Soon passing dreamstime.

That's probably partly due to me. I filled in the poll for the first time last week, for Feb, and I make a decent chunk of my earnings from Envato.

Thanks for pointing. That sounds like these poll results are not so homogeneous and consistent. If a single big seller participates in poll, it can change the results to any direction.