I'm a hobbyist photographer and sell photos on microstock since 2009.
I have about 400 images in my portfolio and I used to work with 5 popular agencies: SS, iStock, Fotolia, Dreamstime, DepositPhotos, and 123Rf.
Microstock for me is a motivation to improve quality of my photography and an ability to buy some accessories for my hobby.
After analyzing total income from different agencies I started to think that some of them not worth spending time for uploading in my case.
Shutterstock and iStock made me more than $1000 each from 2009, but others:
- Fotolia - $70
- Depositphotos - $35
- Dreamstime - $170
- 123Rf - $100
So I started to consider to leave some of this agencies.
1. iStock - took a lot of time for keywording and upload when it was iStock, but I didn't try to work with Getty contributor interface. Is it still bad?
2. AdobeStock (Fotolia) - didn't earn as much as I expected but easy and quick to upload/categorize and looks perspective because it is Adobe.
3. Depositphotos - the worst, but it is Ukrainian and I worked with them only because of that (I am from Ukraine).
4. Dreamstime - the worst after iStock in terms of upload/categorization, takes a lot of time.
5. 123rf - didn't sell well.
It is also a problem for me to manage/organize portfolio on different agencies: to track on what photos were accepted on what agencies, to synchronize keywords, etc.
So I think, maybe it will be more effective for me to work with 1-2 agencies? Definitely with Shutterstock and maybe iStock+AdobeStock.
What will you advise?