Author Topic: How many images do I need to have to make say at least $100 a month (Read 11782 times)

Ed · « **Reply #50 on:** July 25, 2014, 14:24 »

Quote from: charged on July 25, 2014, 14:09

My back of the hand calculation of my portfolio and knowledge about my friend's portfolio is that we both average about $0.50 per image per month. Thus 200 images might be the number your looking for. The 20/80 rule definitely holds. Most don't sell, but a few sell well.

Wait....are you and your friend really making $6 per image per year? (.50 per image per month x 12 months)

So based on that info, my 5,000 image portfolio should be making $30,000 per year? I don't think there are many folks out there that can say that.

cthoman · « **Reply #51 on:** July 25, 2014, 15:19 »

Quote from: Ed on July 25, 2014, 14:24

Quote from: charged on July 25, 2014, 14:09
My back of the hand calculation of my portfolio and knowledge about my friend's portfolio is that we both average about $0.50 per image per month. Thus 200 images might be the number your looking for. The 20/80 rule definitely holds. Most don't sell, but a few sell well.

Wait....are you and your friend really making $6 per image per year? (.50 per image per month x 12 months)

So based on that info, my 5,000 image portfolio should be making $30,000 per year? I don't think there are many folks out there that can say that.

Those numbers don't seem unreasonable, although the per image value does tend to decrease as you create more images. Unless, you are fairly meticulous about making high value images. I know I'm not. I like the scattershot approach better.

Ed · « **Reply #52 on:** July 25, 2014, 15:26 »

Not talking vectors, they seem very unreasonable to me.

The old standard has always been $1 per image per year. In the example I gave above, having my images spread across 20+ agencies, I was at .78 cents per image per year...bringing in $100 every couple of months from different agencies during the "heyday". In 2011-2012 that average was closer to .63 cents per image per year.

at .50 cents per image per month, Jeff Greenberg at Alamy would be making $618,000 per year on his 103,000 image portfolio...he's stated in the past that he's closer to that $1 per image per year (and he's at multiple agencies)....and keep in mind, that's gross (not taking account for business expenses).

.50 per image per year is much more believable these days.

ShadySue · « **Reply #53 on:** July 25, 2014, 15:46 »

All it goes to show is that it all depends on your port and where you're selling.
It's also hard to work out amount per image per year, as usually your port keeps growing through the year, so just dividing your year earnings by the number of files in your port doesn't work.
What I can see is that my annual RPI is much lower now than it was in 2008, despite (or because of?) the huge increase in prices since then.
But I have comparatively very few expenses. RPI doesn't matter, it's profit which will pay for your coffee.

pancaketom · « **Reply #54 on:** July 25, 2014, 15:57 »

I had 90 images at the end of the first month I made over 100$ (and ~45 at the start of that month). I have made over 100$ every month since then - although my RPI has fallen drastically over the years. 2012 was my best year despite increasing my port since then. I think search placement is a huge factor in your sales and although picture subjects and quality does effect this, the site algorithms and whims of timing and chance play a huge factor. My best selling image sold well for years, 'til one day it got pushed down a few pages on SS. I tried a few more similar images - I think some might have sold a few times, but they never got close to the first page - in fact I don't think I ever found any of them in search going back about 20 pages.

charged · « **Reply #55 on:** July 25, 2014, 16:15 »

Regardless if you think $.50 per image per month is reasonable, well that is up to you. I've shared what is true for me as well as my friend. As both of us have established professional backgrounds as graphic designers, there is natural understanding of what graphic designers look for in stock. We spend our production time wisely, concentrating on imagery that we have a confidence that will have some sort of buyer appeal, which can be done by looking in current trends in advertising, etc. In particular, my friend concentrates on composites that display a concept/idea. We both focus on execution. We definitely don't just walk down the street and take photos of random buildings and objects and upload that as stock. While that stuff is sellable (and I've shot them too in the past), it won't necessarily sell in the quantity as an image that has been thought out and given good execution.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #56 on:** July 25, 2014, 18:48 »

as i mentioned in another thread, i have a handful and legful of images that earn 70% of my income. so really, it can be 20 images that get you a minimum of 100 bucks monthly, or it can be 1000 images , or even 10,000 images. it all depends.
a long time ago, i read in IStock, one of our regular commentors here (Paulie Walnuts) that he made more in IS with very little images in his initial portfolio. from there, i learnt that it has nothing to do with flooding the market or cannibalizing your portfolio .

dbvirago · « **Reply #57 on:** July 25, 2014, 19:16 »

Quote from: bgbs on July 25, 2014, 14:13

Quote from: JodieJohnson on July 25, 2014, 02:57
I also have about 150 images on SS and earn over $200 a month (sometimes $300 with ELs) at SS alone. It all depends on your port. Some of mine sell every day, some sell twice a year. Take note of what sells and keep producing that type/category. I'm sure I get multiple sales from the same buyer when someone finds one of my images then has a look at my port and then buys a few more similar ones eg: interiors

yes that's the kind of predictability I'm talking about. Once you realize what sells, you start producing more of what sells. Sounds logical to me. So it is not all a gamble, like some people seem to say. You lose some on some images, and you win on others, but you always strive to increase your winning chances by building on successful stock.

Here's a thought. Just pick the answers you like and go with that. The rest of us are idiots. But thanks, this thread gives me an idea on how to increase my sales per image. I'll just delete the ones that haven't sold. It won't make me a nickel more and it will take a lot of time, but hey, my stats will be purty.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #58 on:** July 25, 2014, 19:30 »

Quote from: dbvirago on July 25, 2014, 19:16

I'll just delete the ones that haven't sold. It won't make me a nickel more and it will take a lot of time, but hey, my stats will be purty.

it does not sound as far-fetched as it appears, really. i did just that a long time ago with my portfolio on one site, and i got, "wow, this much with only so little!". i am not sure if it boosted the saleability of your portfolio. it really depends if the site weighs port size vs income size. if so, it certainly would affect your search placement. i don't think SS and IS do that...maybe Dt, Ft,etc..

robhainer · « **Reply #59 on:** July 25, 2014, 21:20 »

Quote from: charged on July 25, 2014, 14:09

My back of the hand calculation of my portfolio and knowledge about my friend's portfolio is that we both average about $0.50 per image per month. Thus 200 images might be the number your looking for. The 20/80 rule definitely holds. Most don't sell, but a few sell well.

That's about the same with me on just Shutterstock, 50 cents per image online, maybe a tad more. It depends on the month. It'd be hard to get regular payouts with so few images on other sites.

Ed · « **Reply #60 on:** July 25, 2014, 21:46 »

Quote from: robhainer on July 25, 2014, 21:20

Quote from: charged on July 25, 2014, 14:09
My back of the hand calculation of my portfolio and knowledge about my friend's portfolio is that we both average about $0.50 per image per month. Thus 200 images might be the number your looking for. The 20/80 rule definitely holds. Most don't sell, but a few sell well.

That's about the same with me on just Shutterstock, 50 cents per image online, maybe a tad more. It depends on the month. It'd be hard to get regular payouts with so few images on other sites.

Wow! These stats are amazing to me. I must be seriously missing something. I'm really trying to understand this because my experience is just WAY completely different than everyone else.

Rob, you're earning .50 per image per month on your 2,117 image portfolio or $12,702 per year from Shutterstock alone? $6 per image per year?

I'm looking at the link to your Dreamstime portfolio....your Dreamstime portfolio indicates you've licensed 1,523 images on your 1,415 image portfolio over the past 2 years. Help me through the math because I'm really feeling lost....

1,415 image portfolio * .50 per month on average = $16,980
$16,980 divided by 1,523 images licensed (based on your landing page on Dreamstime) = $11.15 per licensed image at Dreamstime?

So between Dreamstime and Shutterstock, your gross earnings over the past year has been $21,192? Good for you! That's just shocking to me.

kaboom · « **Reply #61 on:** July 26, 2014, 04:16 »

Quote from: Ed on July 25, 2014, 21:46

Help me through the math because I'm really feeling lost....

You should help yourself to some common sense. Shutterstock ToS do not allow contributors to publish their exact earnings. It is forbidden, even worse if you do that to another contributor. I suggest you delete your post and stop throwing other person earnings in the air.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #62 on:** July 26, 2014, 08:28 »

Quote from: Ed on July 25, 2014, 21:46

Quote from: robhainer on July 25, 2014, 21:20
Quote from: charged on July 25, 2014, 14:09
My back of the hand calculation of my portfolio and knowledge about my friend's portfolio is that we both average about $0.50 per image per month. Thus 200 images might be the number your looking for. The 20/80 rule definitely holds. Most don't sell, but a few sell well.

That's about the same with me on just Shutterstock, 50 cents per image online, maybe a tad more. It depends on the month. It'd be hard to get regular payouts with so few images on other sites.

Wow! These stats are amazing to me. I must be seriously missing something. I'm really trying to understand this because my experience is just WAY completely different than everyone else.

Rob, you're earning .50 per image per month on your 2,117 image portfolio or $12,702 per year from Shutterstock alone? $6 per image per year?

I'm looking at the link to your Dreamstime portfolio....your Dreamstime portfolio indicates you've licensed 1,523 images on your 1,415 image portfolio over the past 2 years. Help me through the math because I'm really feeling lost....

1,415 image portfolio * .50 per month on average = $16,980
$16,980 divided by 1,523 images licensed (based on your landing page on Dreamstime) = $11.15 per licensed image at Dreamstime?

So between Dreamstime and Shutterstock, your gross earnings over the past year has been $21,192? Good for you! That's just shocking to me.

Yes those calculations are accurate but today I'd say very few people are at 50 cents PIPM and those people are probably good illustrators not photographers. I'd guess the average photographer is probably between 10-20 cents PIPM with only top photographers at higher levels. On the pole from a couple years ago there was someone at over $5 per image per month. They probably had an amazing portfolio, tightly edited, and in higher cost collections.

People on Alamy say $1 per image per year iscommon. But have you seen people's Alamy portfolios? A lot of people seem to post 20 barely different variations of one photo. So for someone that has a 2,000 image portfolio they may really only have 100-200 unique images. There's a lot of that in micro too but micro sites seem to discourage similars.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #63 on:** July 26, 2014, 08:40 »

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on July 25, 2014, 18:48

as i mentioned in another thread, i have a handful and legful of images that earn 70% of my income. so really, it can be 20 images that get you a minimum of 100 bucks monthly, or it can be 1000 images , or even 10,000 images. it all depends.
a long time ago, i read in IStock, one of our regular commentors here (Paulie Walnuts) that he made more in IS with very little images in his initial portfolio. from there, i learnt that it has nothing to do with flooding the market or cannibalizing your portfolio .

When I first started in 2007 I was very picky with what I submitted for the first few months and did very well. When I saw the earnings potential I started submitting as much as I could. A lot of it was pretty bad. Embarrassing even. And my income didn't really go up.

So yes, you can have 1000 good images that earn $500 per month or 10,000 bad images that earn $10 per month.

Ed · « **Reply #64 on:** July 26, 2014, 08:49 »

Quote from: kaboom on July 26, 2014, 04:16

Quote from: Ed on July 25, 2014, 21:46
Help me through the math because I'm really feeling lost....

You should help yourself to some common sense. Shutterstock ToS do not allow contributors to publish their exact earnings. It is forbidden, even worse if you do that to another contributor. I suggest you delete your post and stop throwing other person earnings in the air.

I am using common sense...and I'm not asking anyone to publish their earnings on Shutterstock and no I'm not going to delete my post as I don't feel it's inappropriate - I'm simply having a conversation just as if we were to have met in the street or at a conference. I'm trying to understand this and I don't think we're comparing apples to apples. If you take your total portfolio size at an agency, and you divide it by your revenue and you come up with $6 on average that's just amazing to me - absolutely terrific for you.

I can certainly see an average of 50 cents per image for each image downloaded per month but again, 50 cents per image per month for every image in your portfolio just seems incredible to me. Keep in mind that if we're still considering the original question asked, there is a difference between having a 200 image portfolio and about a 2,000 image portfolio (based on my experience as a contributor) - that's a pretty big variance.

Paulie - $1 per image per year comes from the pre-micro days and isn't specific to just Alamy.

cthoman · « **Reply #65 on:** July 26, 2014, 08:57 »

Quote from: Ed on July 25, 2014, 21:46

1,415 image portfolio * .50 per month on average = $16,980
$16,980 divided by 1,523 images licensed (based on your landing page on Dreamstime) = $11.15 per licensed image at Dreamstime?

So between Dreamstime and Shutterstock, your gross earnings over the past year has been $21,192? Good for you! That's just shocking to me.

You lost me here. Where did the $.50 per image at Dreamstime come from?

Ed · « **Reply #66 on:** July 26, 2014, 09:19 »

Quote from: cthoman on July 26, 2014, 08:57

Quote from: Ed on July 25, 2014, 21:46
1,415 image portfolio * .50 per month on average = $16,980
$16,980 divided by 1,523 images licensed (based on your landing page on Dreamstime) = $11.15 per licensed image at Dreamstime?

So between Dreamstime and Shutterstock, your gross earnings over the past year has been $21,192? Good for you! That's just shocking to me.

You lost me here. Where did the $.50 per image at Dreamstime come from?

Rob indicated he averaged .50 per month on average just as 'charged' did....maybe I misread that and I should only consider that being applicable to Shutterstock?

MxR · « **Reply #67 on:** July 26, 2014, 09:51 »

Absurd Post, many answers.
Post interesting, fewer answers.

Microstock is full of boring people retouching photos with internet connection ... like me ...

The secret answer is 1to 4000: 1 photo: being unique incredible photos and 4000 photos: of your feet and your dog eating an apple isolated over white whit "photo, business and human" like keywords.

Dont worry now for these, just only improve!

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #68 on:** July 26, 2014, 18:39 »

Quote from: MxR on July 26, 2014, 09:51

Absurd Post, many answers.
Post interesting, fewer answers...
an apple isolated over white whit ...
Dont worry now for these, just only improve!

i am not sure if i understand this. whether or not it is interesting , depends on whether u want to answer the OP question.
also, apple isolated over white... isolated is fine...

to date, i have boring apple, and other food isolated (over white)
and each recorded 100 dollars, while some of my favorite which to me, have improved
extremely, have recorded 10 dollars apiece.

why is it so many ppl assumed isolated apples is a waste of time?
some ppl do not make isolated apples because it is not isolated if it has a shadow.

and not everything that is awesome looking is what the clients need.
top sellers will tell you that it is not what you think is awesome looking that sells,
it is what the client thinks is awesome that sells.

or else everyone with a Flickr account would be top sellers in SS

Goofy · « **Reply #69 on:** July 26, 2014, 19:49 »

This sort of question is like asking "How many earth type planets are there in the universe?'

PixelBytes · « **Reply #70 on:** July 26, 2014, 23:08 »

Quote from: Goofy on July 26, 2014, 19:49

This sort of question is like asking "How many earth type planets are there in the universe?'

Only much less interesting.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #71 on:** July 26, 2014, 23:18 »

Quote from: Goofy on July 26, 2014, 19:49

This sort of question is like asking "How many earth type planets are there in the universe?'

um, last time i checked, it was 6,214 . oops, make that 6,212... 2 just got obliterated by asteroids

Goofy · « **Reply #72 on:** July 26, 2014, 23:44 »

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on July 26, 2014, 23:18

Quote from: Goofy on July 26, 2014, 19:49
This sort of question is like asking "How many earth type planets are there in the universe?'

um, last time i checked, it was 6,214 . oops, make that 6,212... 2 just got obliterated by asteroids

Probability assimilated by the borg...

LesPalenik · « **Reply #73 on:** July 27, 2014, 00:44 »

You should be able to make $100 just with 3 good images: One Other download at $70, second a $28 EL, and one SOD at $2.85.
They could also sell a few times as regular subscriptions, but that would be gravy.

Just make sure not to upload them to DPC, because if somebody buys them there, that could ruin the projections above.

danielsbfoto · « **Reply #74 on:** July 27, 2014, 01:22 »

I read somewhere that a good ratio is
1 image = 1$ = month. (I suppose big 4).
Just a target, not an automatic rule. Exept a Yuri clone or similar

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Author Topic: How many images do I need to have to make say at least $100 a month (Read 11782 times)

Ed

cthoman

Ed

ShadySue

pancaketom

charged

etudiante_rapide

dbvirago

etudiante_rapide

robhainer

Ed

kaboom

PaulieWalnuts

PaulieWalnuts

Ed

cthoman

Ed

MxR

etudiante_rapide

Goofy

PixelBytes

etudiante_rapide

Goofy

LesPalenik

danielsbfoto

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