I wouldn't rely on these numbers when making such an important decision.

I wouldn't rely on these numbers when making such an important decision.

I agree.

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But it may also be that until relatively recently, a lot of iS exclusives had no real interest in other sites, so may not be all that well represented here. Times have changed, of course.

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Quote from: chromaco on April 21, 2014, 11:27

Quote from: tickstock on April 21, 2014, 11:23

Quote from: chromaco on April 21, 2014, 11:19

Finally, when you add up the total numbers for independents a number of very high performing sites are not represented in the polls because of voting minimums.

This would hurt exclusives numbers many many times more than nonexclusives.  How many contributors here are making more than 2500/month at Shutterstock?  My guess is very few.  If you were to ask that of exclusives I would guess many of them would be well over that.

True, but this just reinforces my contention that the voting groups are nowhere near equal. In all reality the IS number probably should be higher but that is due to the quality of contributors rather than the agency.

That may be true.  But if it is, doesn't that say something very important if the best quality contributors are exclusive?

Or pseudo-exclusive, which is a horse of a different colour.

Quote from: chromaco on April 21, 2014, 11:19

Finally, when you add up the total numbers for independents a number of very high performing sites are not represented in the polls because of voting minimums.

This would hurt exclusives numbers many many times more than nonexclusives.  How many contributors here are making more than 2500/month at Shutterstock?  My guess is very few.  If you were to ask that of exclusives I would guess many of them would be well over that.

So two things here, 1st $2,500 a month at Shutterstock, is there some sort of cap at Shutterstock? I have heard this number before on earnings there, when you reach $2,500 there is an invisible Cap or something! Why is is hard to make more than $2,500 at Shutterstock? And when you Mention Exclusives you are talking about iStock Correct?

Quote from: tickstock on April 21, 2014, 11:23

Quote from: chromaco on April 21, 2014, 11:19

Finally, when you add up the total numbers for independents a number of very high performing sites are not represented in the polls because of voting minimums.

This would hurt exclusives numbers many many times more than nonexclusives.  How many contributors here are making more than 2500/month at Shutterstock?  My guess is very few.  If you were to ask that of exclusives I would guess many of them would be well over that.

So two things here, 1st $2,500 a month at Shutterstock, is there some sort of cap at Shutterstock? I have heard this number before on earnings there, when you reach $2,500 there is an invisible Cap or something! Why is is hard to make more than $2,500 at Shutterstock? And when you Mention Exclusives you are talking about iStock Correct?

There is no earnings cap on SS

Edit: If I am wrong, and the down vote says I am, please tell me what the earnings cap at Shutterstock is. I am not aware of this earnings cap.

In 14 months to $2500 a month, on SS alone, thats insane.

If the poll showed RPI rather than income, it might prove more helpful, but again, given the vast difference in people's portfolios, it's really not so much an accurate representation of what the average microstocker can expect to earn on those sites, but more a way to see which sites do better, for most people.

It's too bad self-hosted and Stocksy don't have enough voters to get them into the poll, but again, you're always comparing apples to oranges, so knowing that an average portfolio earns $xxx a month, while helpful as a way to compare how you stand vis-a-vis the average microstocker on here, won't really help you predict how well you can expect to do on each site.

The benefit to a poll that showed RPI for each site, would be that you can better gauge how your portfolio does compared to the average, but that would be a far more complicated poll and given the low earners, the RPI numbers for some would be 0.000xx - really discouraging!

Yes, the numbers are not accurate because it's not possible to get everybody to submit the data. When ever you hear about statistics, there's an old story about a diner and sitting at the counter are three truckers. Bill Gates comes in and sits next to them. Instantly the average net worth of the four men comes to 75 million dollars. It's tough to say how istock (or any site) is doing for people because you have too many variables, how many images are they selling, what kind of images, do they promote themselves, etc. I'm sure some have done OK, but for the majority, there is a decline (myself included). It's important to read up on how the business treats it's contributors, corporate decisions, marketing, but you cannot put a score number on that.

Quote from: wordplanet on April 21, 2014, 17:34

If the poll showed RPI rather than income, it might prove more helpful, but again, given the vast difference in people's portfolios, it's really not so much an accurate representation of what the average microstocker can expect to earn on those sites, but more a way to see which sites do better, for most people.

It's too bad self-hosted and Stocksy don't have enough voters to get them into the poll, but again, you're always comparing apples to oranges, so knowing that an average portfolio earns $xxx a month, while helpful as a way to compare how you stand vis-a-vis the average microstocker on here, won't really help you predict how well you can expect to do on each site.

The benefit to a poll that showed RPI for each site, would be that you can better gauge how your portfolio does compared to the average, but that would be a far more complicated poll and given the low earners, the RPI numbers for some would be 0.000xx - really discouraging!

Add 2nd poll on it's own page, or more all polls to own page.

I always wanted to see the poll without the 50 people minimum.

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Tick no worries,
Math & logic, makes world go round, makes world go round...
 



 

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Quote from: wds on April 23, 2014, 09:07

How exactly are these "earnings ratings" calculated?

People enter their earnings each month.  If you enter $0-$2500+ you get averaged.  The numbers in the "earnings rating" range from 0-500, 500 equals an average of $2500 so each point is equal to $5.  There are structural problems with the poll so it shouldn't be taken as 100% accurate.

So this is about a 9 to 1  ratio (308/35) for iStock exclusive/non-exclusive. Would any folks who recently went from exclusive to non-ex care to comment on whether they saw a roughly 9 to 1 drop in their iStock earnings?

Quote from: wds on April 23, 2014, 09:51

Quote from: tickstock on April 23, 2014, 09:14

Quote from: wds on April 23, 2014, 09:07

How exactly are these "earnings ratings" calculated?

People enter their earnings each month.  If you enter $0-$2500+ you get averaged.  The numbers in the "earnings rating" range from 0-500, 500 equals an average of $2500 so each point is equal to $5.  There are structural problems with the poll so it shouldn't be taken as 100% accurate.

So this is about a 9 to 1  ratio (308/35) for iStock exclusive/non-exclusive. Would any folks who recently went from exclusive to non-ex care to comment on whether they saw a roughly 9 to 1 drop in their iStock earnings?

There are people who did.  The drop in royalty rate, the lower sale price per image, no more GI sales etc.. are some of the ways that happens.  Just looking at those factors it's easy to see a big drop 50% royalty rate and S+ to M is a drop from 60 credits for XXXL to 7.  An XXXL S+ sale would go from about 30 dollars to 2 dollars.

No doubt, there would be a precipitous drop, but it would be nice to hear it from folks that actually went through the experience.

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Quote from: MichaelJayFoto on April 23, 2014, 10:02

Quote from: wds on April 23, 2014, 09:51

So this is about a 9 to 1  ratio (308/35) for iStock exclusive/non-exclusive. Would any folks who recently went from exclusive to non-ex care to comment on whether they saw a roughly 9 to 1 drop in their iStock earnings?

No. Definitely not 9:1. If I would make 9 times more as an exclusive than I do now as a non-exclusive, I would go back to exclusivity right away (well, I couldn't really due to other contractual obligations... but it's a hypothetical question anyways)

For me, the immediate drop was 4:1 which was later even less as more PP income was added to my iStock royalties.

I think you did better than most, I've seen most people say they went down 80-90%.  I also wouldn't expect the jump from going exclusive to be as much as the drop from leaving because getting files into S+ and Vetta is more difficult than losing them.  I know you left before GI sales were big, at least for me they didn't become a major factor until the second quarter of 2013.

On the other hand, getting new files into GI at this point is near impossible for most people, so the GI benefit will fade and disappear over time. The truth is, there are so many changes as time goes on, that it is hard to draw any firm conclusions...the proverbial "moving target"

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And yes, the lacking options to get new content into Vetta or S+ makes going exclusive at this point far less attractive.

Not to mention the long-standing problem of new files hardly getting seen, which most contributors are experiencing. There was one very high ranking BD (at one time was in the top 5 on the site, don't know about now) who hadn't uploaded for almost a full year, yet their most recent 200 uploads had about 15 dls between them. [They have just started uploading again, I see, in the past few days - maybe they were ill (?)]

What just popped up in my head is another question that could explain the steeper than (I) expected difference between exclusive and non-exclusive: I assume that most people fill out the Poll at the start of the month. When I do that, I usually add some allowance to my iStock earnings for the PP that will be added later in the month. But I guess not everyone is doing that. So there might be a part of the overall income missing and not being represented at all but it would mostly be added to the iStock non-exclusive part.

Also another consideration: There are quite a few people who quit uploading to iStock but still kept their images they already had. Or at least part of the images. I know a couple people who have many thousand images on Shutter & Co but only 20 per cent of their portfolio on iStock. For those people it would be natural to make less money on iStock compared to what they would make with their full portfolio.

This would at least also explain my personal experience that while Shutterstock is now my #1 earner, iStock including the PP is still close to them, definitely not less than half of what Shutter makes. But for me it's the other way around: I still have more images in my iStock portfolio than everywhere else because I have quite some images (including some good sellers) that I can't upload anywhere else because they were shot at minilypses.

In my personal experience, iStock would rate somewhere in the 60's in this poll. This would match everything else pretty well: The 80% drop from exclusivity, closer to Shutterstock but far ahead of Fotolia and Dreamstime.