Nov 2011 - Microstock Earnings Thread

[leaf]

Here are my numbers and a pretty graph


DepositPhotos and PhotoDune are sneaking up fast on BigStock and 123RF.  They are all still only around 3-4% of my total income but they are certainly all battling for 5th place.

Don't forget to vote, I'm interested to see how PhotoDune changes this month.
www.microstockgroup.com/pollsvote/

[disorderly]

I had a good month with some interesting surprises.  There were some good surprises, like 123RF and CanStock moving into 2nd and 3rd, and some not so good surprises, like Dreamstime coming in at 1/3 of October, its worst performance in five years.  iStock improved on last month but still just lost out to CanStock for 3rd.  Ignoring last month's bundle payment at PhotoDune, which was big enough to throw off all my statistics, I did 12% better in November than October, and 31% over November, 2010.

	Month	Gain/Loss		Year	Gain/Loss
Shutter	38.7%	+1.5%	|	34.1%	+39.0%
123RF	18.5%	+119.5%	|	10.2%	+17.6%
CanStock	10.6%	+604.1%	|	3.8%	+43.4%
iStock	10.5%	+20.5%	|	12.6%	-24.7%
PhotoDune	6.6%	+28.3%	|	11.0%
Dream	3.4%	-64.0%	|	7.7%	-5.4%
Fotolia	3.2%	-20.2%	|	6.4%	-42.8%
BigStock	3.1%	-15.8%	|	4.1%	-16.7%
Deposit	2.9%	-47.0%	|	2.1%	+13.2%
Veer	1.0%	-54.9%	|	4.3%	-49.1%

[Lagereek]

SS, brillant! DT and FT, very good,  Veer and DP, not bad.  IS, horrible.

[XPTO]

IS was a nightmare in November. When I get a 27% drop in the agency that was until recently the most profitable one to me... I get speechless...

Main agencies
SS - +2%
IS - -27%
FL - -5%
DT - +6%

Agencies where a modest variation in $ represent big % numbers
123RF - +24%
BS - +58%
VM - -63%
StockXpert/TS - +4%
SF - -93%

Percentage of the total
SS - 41%
IS - 21%
FL - 18%
DT - 10%
123RF - 4%
BS - 2%
VM - 1%
StockXpert/TS - 3%
SF - 0%

[microstockphoto.co.uk]

SS better and better
FT stable (after months going down)
DT slightly up
123 up
PD great (for a new site)
IS still going down (back at Aug 08 levels - note that I started in May 08)
all other sites stable

Overall, a good month

I added Photokore and Superhug - still too soon to comment
I will add iRockStock as soon as they offer FTP

[Karimala]

BMY for regular + OD sales at SS (I overlook ELs since they can be so sporadic).  It's actually looking like my yearly earnings will be on par with my earnings two years ago.  Last year they dropped about 10%.

53% drop at IS on regular sales from October to November; - 76% from my year high in January.  Unreal.  I had two ELs that saved the month from being a total disaster.  Together they earned more than all the regular sales.  In six years, I've never had a drop so severe.  The few sales I've had over the past few days won't change these percentages much and the total is likely to equal what I normally earn on their PP sales.  Looks like my yearly earnings will be down about 35% from my best year (and that includes all ELs and PPs).  Really depressing.

Worst month of the year at FT.  27% drop from my yearly average.

Can't report on DT until my stats from November are finally updated.  Dunno why they are sitting in December...hopefully that glitch works itself out.

BMY for both BigStock and 123RF.

Mostphotos is picking up, too.  My portfolios on other sites are too small to comment on.

[RacePhoto]

Oh no, everything is zero. "Danger like dagger now. Come quick!" Yours, Marie Céleste.

Oh wait, it's December!

I can't tell what IS is because the pp won't post until (maybe) the 15th of next month, and drag out for a few days. How does everyone else know that. Psychic or crystal ball? StockXpert won't appear until the 15th. So I can't even take the MSG poll until then, if I'm honest?

I had BME on Mostphotos. Someone who I have as a referral made 7c last month. WOW! BME! BEE EM EE, yippee.

Something about all the cheer leading and stats is beginning to bother me.

SS most sales ever, but not BME because no ED this month.

[leaf]

Oh no, everything is zero. "Danger like dagger now. Come quick!" Yours, Marie Céleste.

Oh wait, it's December!

I can't tell what IS is because the pp won't post until (maybe) the 15th of next month, and drag out for a few days. How does everyone else know that. Psychic or crystal ball? StockXpert won't appear until the 15th. So I can't even take the MSG poll until then, if I'm honest?

I had BME on Mostphotos. Someone who I have as a referral made 7c last month. WOW! BME! BEE EM EE, yippee.

Something about all the cheer leading and stats is beginning to bother me.

SS most sales ever, but not BME because no ED this month.

Well, those stats are all a month delayed so for my Nov StockXpert sales were technically sold in October, for example.

[aeonf]

A bit difficult to provide accurate data because of the broken IS site but this looks more or less correct:
IS exclusive at 30%
Over 3,000 photos
On par with last month ~1,800$
2 EL's

Unless December is a total disaster, we should reach 35% in the following 2-3 weeks which would be a most welcome boost.

[RacePhoto]

Oh no, everything is zero. "Danger like dagger now. Come quick!" Yours, Marie Céleste.

Oh wait, it's December!

I can't tell what IS is because the pp won't post until (maybe) the 15th of next month, and drag out for a few days. How does everyone else know that. Psychic or crystal ball? StockXpert won't appear until the 15th. So I can't even take the MSG poll until then, if I'm honest?

I had BME on Mostphotos. Someone who I have as a referral made 7c last month. WOW! BME! BEE EM EE, yippee.

Something about all the cheer leading and stats is beginning to bother me.

SS most sales ever, but not BME because no ED this month.

Well, those stats are all a month delayed so for my Nov StockXpert sales were technically sold in October, for example.

So half my sales on IS are last month and half are this month. But last month is really this month. And on StockXpert all of last month is next month?

Yes, honestly, reported isn't the same as sold. BigStock waits, but at least tells us what's on hold.

It's still too darn confusing with delayed reporting and delayed earnings. I mean, there are people who will get a commission on 2011 sales in 2012, based on some magic (changing and mysterious) RC value that will adjust your RR%. Is that January?

On Alamy do I count what I got paid via PayPal, or what I will get paid when I reach $135? Or cleared vs uncleared if I'm reporting, when I'm counting sales, but some are unpaid?

[wut]

BME at SS (by over 15%), FT and DT (by a few $, so it barely counts). Not sure about IS, but it surely is slightly up from Oct, so it's a decent month (I'll have to wait for PP earnings to be sure). 123RF was a disaster, I didn't even make half of what I did in Oct, so this spoils the big picture a bit. If it weren't for the drop there it would be an incredible month for me (it is my 3rd best earner). I'm not sure wether it's my BME, but it's in the neighbourhood of it at least.

I don't even bother calculating percentages for CS, DP and BS. DP is way up percentage wise, but that really doesn't mean anything earnings wise.

[Perry]

1. IS - keeps falling. Depending on the partner earnings, this might be the first month when IS will be left behind SS, it all depends on the partner earnings. (SS beat IS in my first month in 2006, when I got the "new conributor boost", but I left that out of consideration)

2. SS - A Good month. BME for subscriptions. Total figure not quite BME because I didn't sell enough ELs.

3. DT - Best month of the year. Last time I earned this much was june 2009. I'm glad that DT seems to be climbing up.

4. Veer - Veer was my fourth best microstock earner, left FT behind for the first time.

5. FT - Ridiculous! I earned only about 30% of my BME (september 2010).

6. The rest. Good earners: Photodune, 123rf, Zoonar, Photocase.

A very good month at Alamy, a few nice ones (hundreds of dollars) sales.

I'm really happy that greedy crappy sites gets punished and the more fairer and nicer ones rise up.

[steheap]

This month was OK - not the best, but maintaining a nice steady pattern of being the fourth month over $1000. Istock for me continues to be pretty good. It was low over Thanksgiving, and the past couple of days have been a bit of a mystery, but since Photo+ was established, I've doubled my iStock earnings and kept steady at around $200 a month. I've continued to add files (with their 20 a week limit), but I'm sure Photo+ made most of the difference in earnings. More details as usual on my blog, but here are the graphs:
 
 
 . This last graph shows the number of files online on each site.

Steve

[rubyroo]

All agencies were up on last month except for iStock , Fotolia and (sadly) 123RF.  I even sold a few on some small agencies that never usually sell for me.

The indisputable star of the month was Shutterstock, which constituted  42.24% of my overall earnings (up from 30% last month).

IStock crashed again after picking up a bit last month, and constituted only 10.12% of my overall earnings.

A BME for me, even without much weight from iStock and almost nothing from FT.  Once again I must thank Shutterstock for keeping me afloat.

[SNP]

IS exclusive
Income and downloads were my BME by quite a bit, even without last week's reported dls. Not including ELs.

$ - 22.5% above previous BME
DLs - 20.5% above previous BME

[wut]

IS exclusive
Income and downloads were my BME by quite a bit, even without last week's reported dls. Not including ELs.

$ - 22.5% above previous BME
DLs - 20.5% above previous BME

Nice to read some good news about IS. Over at IS forums, the vast majority of the contributors, especially diamonds like yourself, reported bad months, many of them WMY or even worst months in years. And November is supposed to be one of the best months. It usually is my BMY.

Now I find it easier to understand why u're such an IS cheerleader. Everything seems to be rosy for you and taking into account it's been really bad for most IS contributors, that's a great achievement.

[flashon]

[Anyka]

I had a BME by 2,4%, my last BME dated from November 2010, so I'm pretty happy today.
Istock made me less than 50% of November 2010, and this loss was covered by SS, DT and FT.
SS had a BME in downloads, not in sales because of lack of EL's (September 3x as many EL's).
FT, DS, 123rf, GLO and Canstock all had BME's - yes it was an incredible month!
Rodeo, Cutcaster were disappointing.  Alamy did well, but YTD Alamy is down a lot.
Am I the only one who's doing well at Fotolia

[Daevid]

Overall, best month ever for me despite iStock being half what it was last November. BME at SS, 123RF (by a mile) and BigStock.

[SNP]

@wut: I'm a regular poster here and there aren't a lot of istock exclusives that regularly post on msg. Because of that I try to include meaningful posts like monthly stats. I'm not any sort of cheerleader for anything. I say what I see, regardless of where it falls in the popular opinion. Over here that often finds me in the minority. If you had any sort of analytical skills, you might have acknowledged that I'm frequently critical of istock too. And you might also want to work on counting. Since you used diamonds as your baseline - about half the reporting diamonds in the istock thread report solid months.

[wut]

@wut: I'm a regular poster here and there aren't a lot of istock exclusives that regularly post on msg. Because of that I try to include meaningful posts like monthly stats. I'm not any sort of cheerleader for anything. I say what I see, regardless of where it falls in the popular opinion. Over here that often finds me in the minority. If you had any sort of analytical skills, you might have acknowledged that I'm frequently critical of istock too. And you might also want to work on counting. Since you used diamonds as your baseline - about half the reporting diamonds in the istock thread report solid months.

I counted diamond reports, out of the first 125 posts 32 reported a bad month (SJlocke included), while only 7 reported good months, but usually saying solid, not BME or BMY, unlike many reported WMY or WME. That shows just how objective you are. That being said, yes, you are critical, but usually you're just stating the obvious, reporting something and mildly expressing disappointment, while you're usually passionately defending IS or at least put a lot more energy into, what you see as, positive things about IS. Sure there are lots of ppl being overly pessimistic and negative over here, but given the current situation that's more understandable, than being a cheerleader, at least if you look at the big picture, not just your own sales.

Just try to be a bit more realistic and it doesn't matter if you consider you IS marriage as death do us part

[pancaketom]

overall it was a good month but behind my BME last month (mostly because of Alamy last month)

SS BME with less ELs than last month. I finally passed my total DL # from Oct 2008 there (with more than 2x the number of images).

DT quite good, also Veer, CanStockPhoto, 123RF were good. IS was even more pathetic than last month (at least I think so, it is a little hard to tell what is going on there) (I did remove much of my IS post by the PP deadline though).

Considering I didn't upload much last month it was quite good with SS being the star and DT doing well.

[MatHayward]

This last year has presented a real challenge for me to get back up to the numbers I was getting exclusively at FT.  Fortunately they rallied for me in November.  In particular my Infinite collection so it was a decent month. 

SS definitely impresses me as the growth is continuing day to day.  It's so easy to build my portfolio there as there system is so user friendly and intuitive.  Not to mention their approval rate for me has been really great. 

DT is a mystery to me.  It's a pain in the neck to upload there with the limitations.  When I get motivated to keyword and all that the momentum is suddenly stopped for a week and I have to wait.  So many rejections for similar submissions makes me very hesitant to upload for fear of my percentage and ultimately my submission cap being lowered.  Sales are moderate.  Still trying to figure out the ranking system.  I have a couple of images at level 5 that pay well but most are still at level 0 or 1 so the commission is extremely low.  All in all I find myself scratching my head at that site.  I see the potential but I'm pessimistic about it coming to fruition for me for a while.  I am hoping though.

123RF I don't see what the excitement is about.  Very low sales, very low commission on very low prices.  I'm going to stick with it to see if something shifts for me but right now it's pretty discouraging.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Mat

[Zerkalo]

IS exclusive here as well. And no cheerleader or sth.

I had a good month on IS. Both $ and DL increased significantly, without counting the EL. Portfolio growth was around %5, $ increased around %25 (thanks to hitting the RC target) and DL increased around 8%. I think if you can upload at least with a certain pattern you can have increase.

Apart from these, what is happening at the site nowadays is stunning. I am as disgusted as most of the contributors, maybe even more disgusted than independents. All my eggs are here. Last days gave me some stress.

I hope everybody had a good month.

[SNP]

@pancaketom: i'm not claiming objectivity. I don't think anyone invested could. We are discussing November sales. Not the big picture. Concerning big picture, I've regularly criticized istock for making company benefitting decisions at the expense of contributors. What makes you think I don't have my finger at the ready over the crown eject button? You're reading what you want to as much as anyone else is. I don't think your comments are fair or accurate. I don't passionately defend istock. I do sometimes defend individuals who are being personally attacked by sophomoric twits. There are real people at work, good people. And fwiw I can't scroll easily only iPhone. I'm currently sitting in a cessna 4000 ft above Georgian bay. I wasn't intentionally inflating monthly reports. I was simply stating that there are some diamonds doing well and there are reasons why some contributors don't appear to be doing well. I don't know why
Contributors compare this year to x year. Those numbers only matter if ports are growing at the same rate as the collection. Obviously not possible for any of us

MicrostockGroup Email Updates

[Site]

Site	Earnings Rating
Top Tier - Big 4
Shutterstock	100
iStock	66.7
Fotolia	34.9
Dreamstime	26.7
Middle Tier
DepositPhotos	21.6
123RF	16.3
Canstockphoto	11.2
Bigstockphoto	9.5
Veer	8.7
Low Earners
PantherMedia	6.7
PhotoDune	5.8
isignstock	4.1
Zoonar	3.5
GLStockImages	2.7
Stockfresh	2.2
YayMicro	1.8
FeaturePics	1.4
MostPhotos	1.3
ScanStockPhoto	1.1
Crestock	0.8
Cutcaster	0.6
AllYouCanStock	0.1
ClipartOf
Pond5
RevoStock
Clipcanvas
DrawShop
ClipDealer
PhotoSpin
VectorStock
GraphicRiver
Pixmac
PhotoCase
The3dStudio
photaki
SuperHug
PhotoKore
iRockStock
Vivozoom
StockPhotoMedia
Regimages
ImageVortex
Imagegate
ViscoImages
More Poll Results Updated: 2012-05-26