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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: archibald1221 on February 14, 2012, 17:07

Title: low earners - good income
Post by: archibald1221 on February 14, 2012, 17:07
Hello,
Which of "Low earners" category (in Microstock Poll Results)  sites brings best profit for You? We have quite long list there of "low earners" in the right side of webpage and probably most of these sites earns only cents for contributors... But for some contributors some of these agencies are good earners and even better then some middle tier or top tier agencies.
For example, for me (i create mostly vectors) good agencies from "low earners" are graphicriver, vectorstock (about the same earnings as Dreamstime). Graphicleftovers have some sales and are getting better.
Please, share Your experience: what do You mostly upload (vectors, photography, video...) and which of the low earners is best for You?
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: lisafx on February 14, 2012, 18:32
The only "low earner" I make any money on is Photodune.  My other "low earners" are actually considered middle tier:  Canstock, Veer, and Depositphoto. 
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: steheap on February 14, 2012, 22:28
Of the ones in the lower tier, I agree that Photodune is pretty reliable. Similarly with iSignstock. That is a bit higher than Photodune for me. Zoonar is up and down. Many months nothing then a couple of reasonable sales. Pond5 can be good, but that is video. The rest are good for rounding up to the next $10!

Steve
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: steheap on February 14, 2012, 22:34
BTW - I did a review of all the smaller sites a month or two back. That may help you decide which is worthwhile.

http://www.backyardsilver.com/2011/11/review-of-the-smaller-microstock-sites/ (http://www.backyardsilver.com/2011/11/review-of-the-smaller-microstock-sites/)

Steve
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: dacasdo on February 21, 2012, 17:35
In my case the mid - low doing very well are:
Photodune
Isignstock
Deposit Photos
Panthermedia
Clipdealer
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: luissantos84 on February 21, 2012, 17:51
In my case the mid - low doing very well are:
Photodune
Isignstock
Deposit Photos
Panthermedia
Clipdealer

can you elaborate Clipdealer? are into photos or illustrations?
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: dacasdo on February 21, 2012, 17:58
Hi Luis.

I have in clipdealer photos and illustrations made in 3ds Studio Max.

Clipdealer is doing good for me.  Better than Fotolia and Canstock.

David.
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: luissantos84 on February 21, 2012, 18:08
interesting, thanks for sharing (they actually pay 50% less 4% fee)
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: dacasdo on February 21, 2012, 18:42
You are welcome.

Good luck!
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: michaeldb on February 22, 2012, 16:42
Speaking from the perspective of a fellow vectorist,
I find it profitable to submit to GL, Cutcaster, and Veer among the 'Low Earners'. They are easy to submit to, so the cost in time is low, and GL is not really a low-earner for me, it earns more than DP.
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: archibald1221 on February 23, 2012, 10:07

...I make a few hundred bucks per month at an agency that isn't even on that list at right (no, I'm not telling anyone which agency, don't ask)...

   In one another post Helix wrote this line and i found it very suprising - it's hard to believe for me that it is possible. Currently there really lot of info about microstock, so i thought all good and profitable agencies are already well known to everyone. I wonder where did he find this goldmine :)
Anyway, once again i've heard some good words about clipdealer - i guess it's time to try my luck there :)
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: RT on February 23, 2012, 10:12
Isn't the title of this thread 'low earners - good income' a double negative?
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: luissantos84 on February 23, 2012, 10:13

...I make a few hundred bucks per month at an agency that isn't even on that list at right (no, I'm not telling anyone which agency, don't ask)...

   In one another post Helix wrote this line and i found it very suprising - it's hard to believe for me that it is possible. Currently there really lot of info about microstock, so i thought all good and profitable agencies are already well known to everyone. I wonder where did he find this goldmine :)
Anyway, once again i've heard some good words about clipdealer - i guess it's time to try my luck there :)

I am doing that too this minute.. regarding the helix agency I donīt know which is it.. but I have one not a new one that ainīt there too, just finished my upload there, I will let you know, only you :D
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: luissantos84 on February 23, 2012, 10:15
Isn't the title of this thread 'low earners - good income' a double negative?

it ainīt.. its relative actually.. it can be a good income considering its a low earner
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: archibald1221 on February 23, 2012, 10:59
I am doing that too this minute.. regarding the helix agency I donīt know which is it.. but I have one not a new one that ainīt there too, just finished my upload there, I will let you know, only you :D
[/quote]

Thanks :) you're very kind :)
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: mtilghma on February 23, 2012, 11:19
Isn't the title of this thread 'low earners - good income' a double negative?

it ainīt.. its relative actually.. it can be a good income considering its a low earner

also it wouldnt be a double negative even in theory... neither of those things is a negative.  I think the word you were looking for was oxymoron :)
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: RT on February 23, 2012, 11:36
Isn't the title of this thread 'low earners - good income' a double negative?

it ainīt.. its relative actually.. it can be a good income considering its a low earner

also it wouldnt be a double negative even in theory... neither of those things is a negative.  I think the word you were looking for was oxymoron :)

You're right it was, although being a low earner in my book is a huge negative. Either way no matter how you look at it you can't get a 'good income' from a 'low earner'.
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: stockmarketer on February 23, 2012, 12:01
Low is a relative term.  If you only submit to two agencies, one will be higher than the other, so you will have a high earner and a low earner.  But that doesn't mean that the low earner is delivering "bad" income and should be dropped.

I think the words we should be using are significant vs. insignificant.  I have several high earners and several low earners.  Then I could divide my low earners into significant and insignificant earners.   But even then, I haven't dropped my ports at the insignificant earners... what is the point?  To punish them?  Why not keep them open in case they get bought, start aggressively marketing, or some other change occurs that suddenly brings in lots of sales?

So under these definitions, here's how I look at the agencies:

High Earners
SS
FT
IS
DT

Low Earners - Significant Income
123
DP
BigStock
CanStockPhoto

Low Earners - Insignificant Income
GL
SF
Veer
Cre
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: Metsafile on February 23, 2012, 12:39

Low Earners - Insignificant Income
GL
SF
Veer
Cre

Though Veer is listed as a low earner for me it's in first place.
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: wut on February 23, 2012, 12:43
You're right it was, although being a low earner in my book is a huge negative. Either way no matter how you look at it you can't get a 'good income' from a 'low earner'.

Why not, there are numerous reports of mid/low tier agencies offering preferential SE placements to contributors with big, quality ports. So if your images always get first row treatment you can make serious money, at least until too many get favoured ;)
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: archibald1221 on February 23, 2012, 13:13
Low is a relative term.  If you only submit to two agencies, one will be higher than the other, so you will have a high earner and a low earner.  But that doesn't mean that the low earner is delivering "bad" income and should be dropped.


I see there are a lot of discussions about the title of the thread, but not about essence of it :)
 We all probably upload works to most or all of biggest agencies - shutter, istock, fotolia.....  The goal of this thread is to find out which of the "low earners" could be good earner. (most of them earns only cents and it is waste of time to work with them)
I just wanted to note - by saying "LOW EARNER" i meant the list of the agencies which we all see at the right side of the webpage:

Low Earners
PhotoDune 9.1   
Veer 6.4   
GLStockImages 4.4   
Crestock 2.3   
YayMicro 1.4   
Stockfresh 1.2   
Cutcaster 0.8   
ClipartOf
Pond5
GraphicRiver
DrawShop
VectorStock
PhotoSpin
isignstock
ClipDealer
AllYouCanStock
ScanStockPhoto
Clipcanvas
FeaturePics
Zoonar
The3dStudio
photaki
Pixmac
MostPhotos
StockPhotoMedia
SuperHug
ViscoImages
PhotoKore
RevoStock
ImageVortex
iRockStock
PhotoCase
Vivozoom
Regimages
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: luissantos84 on February 23, 2012, 14:01
123RF is a top agency for me, I do more there than I do at FT, DT and IS (without PP)
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: BaldricksTrousers on February 23, 2012, 14:09
It's an oxymoron, not a double negative.
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: microstockphoto.co.uk on February 23, 2012, 14:22
It's actually an oxymoron if you take each "low earner" individually, with a few exceptions:

PhotoDune (http://photodune.net/?ref=claudiodivizia)
ISignStock (http://www.isignstock.com/?urefid=IMSUSER:13FDE112-19B9-EAA4-10AFF297FB8B079F)
Veer (http://contributor.veer.com/)

But considered as whole, low earners account for about 5% of my total earnings (3% the three sites above, and 2% all the rest). Is it worth it? In my opinion, yes, if you have a good workflow including IPTC, FTP (or Lightburner) and only submit to sites with an easy upload method.
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: luissantos84 on February 23, 2012, 15:04
we know that everybody will do differently in all agencies especially the low/middle tier ones, the polls are an average of around 100 contributors I guess, its not even a very big universe..

impossible to know if you are going to do "well or bad" in a small agency, its your choice basically

bigstock, canstock for me is the best example, I do 3x less than DP or PD
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: RT on February 23, 2012, 16:17
We all probably upload works to most or all of biggest agencies - shutter, istock, fotolia.....  The goal of this thread is to find out which of the "low earners" could be good earner. (most of them earns only cents and it is waste of time to work with them)

I knew what the 'essence' of this thread was, but I don't understand why you're asking the question, there's a poll on the right whereby a number of people have entered information that means the agencies listed in the "low earner" section are, for the high majority of the people who voted 'low earners' , but now you're asking the exact same people which of the agencies they said were low earners give them a good income - so without pointing out the obvious oxymoron  :) none of the agencies in the poll results under "low earners" provide a good income for the majority of people here, because if they did they wouldn't be in the "low earners section"

You may have noticed that one or two people have mentioned they do quite well on the odd agency in the list, therefore your answer to which one's could be a good earner is - any of them.

I know your point of this thread, but the only way you'll get your answer is by uploading to them all and then make your own decision.
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: RT on February 23, 2012, 16:22
So if your images always get first row treatment you can make serious money, at least until too many get favoured ;)

In which case the "low earners" would still, within your earnings, be a low earner in comparison to the top and middle tier  ;)
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: archibald1221 on February 23, 2012, 17:27
I knew what the 'essence' of this thread was, but I don't understand why you're asking the question, there's a poll on the right whereby a number of people have entered information that means the agencies listed in the "low earner" section are, for the high majority of the people who voted 'low earners' , but now you're asking the exact same people which of the agencies they said were low earners give them a good income - so without pointing out the obvious oxymoron  :) none of the agencies in the poll results under "low earners" provide a good income for the majority of people here, because if they did they wouldn't be in the "low earners section"....


ok, ok i admit - the name of the topic isn't very good - sorry for my bad english,( i'm not good at it, i know )
but about the Poll results - it doesn't always reflect real potential of microstock sites. For example, some time ago  i've already tried some of the "low earners" category sites - all of them were completely unsuccesful... So after that i didn't paid any attention to site called graphicriver , because it was somewhere in the bottom of the list... - i thought it would be just another waste of time there... but  one day one microstocker reccomended it to me  so ,i registered to this site and now it's one of my best earners. I'm sure that it doesn't matter what theme or style vectors You create - You'll be much more succesful there than in most of "low tier" or even "middle tier" agencies.
http://graphicriver.net/?ref=vecart (http://graphicriver.net/?ref=vecart)
next great earner from "low earners " category - clipartof. Take a look at this:
http://www.graphicgravy.com/2011/09/vector-microstock-power-rankings-%e2%80%93-august-2011/ (http://www.graphicgravy.com/2011/09/vector-microstock-power-rankings-%e2%80%93-august-2011/)   - unfortunately they don't accept new contributors anymore :(
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: RT on February 23, 2012, 17:49
^ It may be a case where the polls don't reflect accurate statistics for vector only portfolios, I'm guessing the majority of voters have a mainly photo based portfolio. Having had a look at the list it appears that there are eight sites in the list that are vector or video only sites.
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: michaeldb on February 23, 2012, 18:35

...I make a few hundred bucks per month at an agency that isn't even on that list at right (no, I'm not telling anyone which agency, don't ask)...

   In one another post Helix wrote this line and i found it very suprising - it's hard to believe for me that it is possible. Currently there really lot of info about microstock, so i thought all good and profitable agencies are already well known to everyone. I wonder where did he find this goldmine :)
Anyway, once again i've heard some good words about clipdealer - i guess it's time to try my luck there :)

I am doing that too this minute.. regarding the helix agency I donīt know which is it.. but I have one not a new one that ainīt there too, just finished my upload there, I will let you know, only you :D
Last month I made over $100 on vectors at an agency which is not on the list (secret codeword 'Rodeo').
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: archibald1221 on February 24, 2012, 05:02

Last month I made over $100 on vectors at an agency which is not on the list (secret codeword 'Rodeo').

Thanks for sharing. I knew this agency but i didn't think it has potential. Perhaps i'm wrong. maybe it's worth to try it.

P.S. Trere are lot of notes about strange name of this thread :) i admit - i've made a mistake there. I should have called it "Small agencies - good income"  - it would be more logical;)
Title: Re: low earners - good income
Post by: luissantos84 on February 24, 2012, 08:43

...I make a few hundred bucks per month at an agency that isn't even on that list at right (no, I'm not telling anyone which agency, don't ask)...

   In one another post Helix wrote this line and i found it very suprising - it's hard to believe for me that it is possible. Currently there really lot of info about microstock, so i thought all good and profitable agencies are already well known to everyone. I wonder where did he find this goldmine :)
Anyway, once again i've heard some good words about clipdealer - i guess it's time to try my luck there :)

I am doing that too this minute.. regarding the helix agency I donīt know which is it.. but I have one not a new one that ainīt there too, just finished my upload there, I will let you know, only you :D
Last month I made over $100 on vectors at an agency which is not on the list (secret codeword 'Rodeo').

ahah thanks for sharing :D

p.s: just got rejected at Rodeo but hey actually donīt get what they are looking for open for 10 years and only 200k files, no problem anyway