iStock has got so bad I now owe THEM money

[gostwyck]

upload to ss, you will earn 5k$ with 10000 images per mounth

I doubt that most people with 10k images are making 5k/month on SS, or 6-7k, as said by stock-will-eat-itself.  Maybe there are a few, but can anyone back that up?   

I have over 5k images there and do well but hardly ever 3k/month even in better years. 

People are making life decisions.  They need realistic numbers. 

I don't feel Cesar's numbers are too far off.  They also agree with yours

he said 10K images for $5K or 50 cents/image online
You said 5k images for hardly ever over $3K (or 2.5K) which is also 50 cents/image online.

Perhaps you were arguing that you can't scale up from 5K images to 10K images and expect the same $/image.. but I think you can.

The average image on SS sells about .28 times per month (probably slightly less the next time the numbers are updated, collection size is growing faster than sales).  So an average portfolio of 10,000 images would have 2,800 sales in a month.  I think average RPD for people at the highest level is around 75 cents.  That comes to around $2,100 per month.

I'd agree with your maths however Fotovoyager is significantly better than an 'average' contributor. Based on our relative sales at IS I'd expect his portfolio to generate about $3K per month at SS (once the highest level has been attained) and maybe another $2K per month at IS (as an independent), DT and FT together.

[Jo Ann Snover]

Your Shutterstock RPD estimate is way off. Mine (and I'm just average but paid at the highest level) is in the .90 to $1 range

[tickstock]

Your Shutterstock RPD estimate is way off. Mine (and I'm just average but paid at the highest level) is in the .90 to $1 range

That's higher than anyone else I've seen report on here.  Gostwyck didn't even argue with that RPD.  From SS the average RPD is reported at 70 cents.

[gostwyck]

Your Shutterstock RPD estimate is way off. Mine (and I'm just average but paid at the highest level) is in the .90 to $1 range

That's higher than anyone else I've seen report on here.  Gostwyck didn't even argue with that RPD.  From SS the average RPD is reported at 70 cents.

My RPD is at 70c this month with fairly good volume and earnings. It's not something I monitor regularly but I don't think I have ever known RPD to go much higher than 80c.

[Sean Locke Photography]

Mine is $.84 this month.

[stocked]

My RPD for September is 0.80 and my all-time RPD (10 years) is 0.57

[Jo Ann Snover]

If i calculated an all-time RPD it would start in 2004 with subs at 20 cents each, which wouldn't really help anyone uploading today figure out what to expect.

This month (the day's not over yet, but...) my RPD is $1.00077; last month it was 96 cents.

YMMV

[Cesar]

i have about triple amount what you wrote.

i think i am average contributor, but i shoot only useful stuff, every photo have some sort of story

u were arguing that you can't scale up from 5K images to 10K images and expect the same $/image.. but I think you can.

The average image on SS sells about .28 times per month (probably slightly less the next time the numbers are updated, collection size is growing faster than sales).  So an average portfolio of 10,000 images would have 2,800 sales in a month.  I think average RPD for people at the highest level is around 75 cents.  That comes to around $2,100 per month.
[/quote]

[tickstock]

i have about triple amount what you wrote.

i think i am average contributor, but i shoot only useful stuff, every photo have some sort of story

u were arguing that you can't scale up from 5K images to 10K images and expect the same $/image.. but I think you can.

The average image on SS sells about .28 times per month (probably slightly less the next time the numbers are updated, collection size is growing faster than sales).  So an average portfolio of 10,000 images would have 2,800 sales in a month.  I think average RPD for people at the highest level is around 75 cents.  That comes to around $2,100 per month.

[/quote]
Congrats.  The numbers I posted are for the average based on what SS reports, if you're making 3x that per image then you are doing 3x the average.

If i calculated an all-time RPD it would start in 2004 with subs at 20 cents each, which wouldn't really help anyone uploading today figure out what to expect.

This month (the day's not over yet, but...) my RPD is $1.00077; last month it was 96 cents.

YMMV

I'm talking about average RPD as of last quarter at SS.  According to what SS has released the average RPD is about 70 cents, it will be higher for some and lower for others.  I used 75 cents because that seems to be around what most long time contributors have said, maybe that should be revised up to around 80 or 85 cents so for contributors who have reached the highest level maybe you could add 10% to my monthly average numbers or for 10,000 images $2,380 would be a better guess for the average.  Not many people here are going to give their exact earnings so using the numbers SS provides, which are real, I think people get a better idea of what is reasonable to expect.

[stocked]

RPI is probably more important than RPD if you think about dropping exclusivity, the RPI for a given portfolio is pretty hard to forecast!
(with RPI I mean RPIO royalty-per-image-online)

[tickstock]

RPI is probably more important than RPD if you think about dropping exclusivity, the RPI for a given portfolio is pretty hard to forecast!

Yep hard to forecast for an individual but the average across all files and contributors is .28 dls/image at 70 cents RPD or a little less than 20 cents per file per month.

[fotoVoyager]

RPI is probably more important than RPD if you think about dropping exclusivity, the RPI for a given portfolio is pretty hard to forecast!
(with RPI I mean RPIO royalty-per-image-online)

This is the metric I would use to judge performance too.

People whose work I know and who oeuvre is similar to mine tell me $0.60+/image/month is about right for SS.

[PixelBytes]

upload to ss, you will earn 5k$ with 10000 images per mounth

I doubt that most people with 10k images are making 5k/month on SS, or 6-7k, as said by stock-will-eat-itself.  Maybe there are a few, but can anyone back that up?   

I have over 5k images there and do well but hardly ever 3k/month even in better years. 

People are making life decisions.  They need realistic numbers. 

I don't feel Cesar's numbers are too far off.  They also agree with yours

he said 10K images for $5K or 50 cents/image online
You said 5k images for hardly ever over $3K (or 2.5K) which is also 50 cents/image online.

Perhaps you were arguing that you can't scale up from 5K images to 10K images and expect the same $/image.. but I think you can.

No, I am saying I DON'T make that or anywhere near that, bur RARELY  in much better years.  Threr was a short time couple years ago when i had ELs almost every day for couple of months.  That is the only way a photog is gonna see numbers like that.  Those numbers are not reachable today even with good ports except maybe very rarely.  Gostwyck's estimate of $3k per mo. For 10k  good images sounds closer to the mark.

Of course I am speaking as a photog, not video or illustration. 

[stockmarketer]

RPI is probably more important than RPD if you think about dropping exclusivity, the RPI for a given portfolio is pretty hard to forecast!
(with RPI I mean RPIO royalty-per-image-online)

This is the metric I would use to judge performance too.

People whose work I know and who oeuvre is similar to mine tell me $0.60+/image/month is about right for SS.

Yes, this is right, but I think only if you have a port full of high commercial value stuff.

[EmberMike]

The whole RPI/RPD discussion is fine and all, but in the context of this discussion, it's kind of pointless, no? The OP is making almost nothing as an iStock exclusive. It doesn't matter what the average RPD at SS is, it's still better than nothing.

[stockmarketer]

The whole RPI/RPD discussion is fine and all, but in the context of this discussion, it's kind of pointless, no? The OP is making almost nothing as an iStock exclusive. It doesn't matter what the average RPD at SS is, it's still better than nothing.

Sure, but I think what's in debate is HOW MUCH he might make by ditching the crown and uploading his port to SS.  And RPI is the tool you need to figure that. 

Telling him anything is better than nothing isn't quite as powerful as telling him he should make around $6,000 a month at SS ($.60 RPI x 10,000 pics) PLUS another $6,000 per month on all the other sites combined. 

That's IF his port is high commercial value, and judging by what he was earning at IS before they imploded, it sounds like that's the case.

[Monty-m-gue]

What happened to Lobo? I thought he was going to grace us with his presence in this discussion..?

[stock-will-eat-itself]

What happened to Lobo? I thought he was going to grace us with his presence in this discussion..?

What could he say?
We can all see what's going on with our own download numbers.

[Shelma1]

If he's making nothing at iS he's bound to earn more at SS, and probably in the multiples of thousands of $, so what's there to lose by dropping the crown?

[tickstock]

If he's making nothing at iS he's bound to earn more at SS, and probably in the multiples of thousands of $, so what's there to lose by dropping the crown?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that since he thinks he can make about $6,000 per month on SS alone but he's still exclusive at iStock then he's doing better than that.  Just a guess.

[charged]

I'm also an iStock exclusive. The sales keep disappearing. I'd like to hear more about what other people's RPI is at Shutterstock. I'm about 50% down on revenue from my high a few years ago. So not quite as bad as fotoVoyager. Though it has meant that I've had to cut back on production costs quite drastically, otherwise I'd be making zero profit. It does help that some of my stuff is mirrored over to Gettyimages, so the income from there is a bit of a shock absorbent from the fall in iStock sales. 

Obviously iStock reads this forum. So dear iStock, I'd like you to either mirror more exclusive content to both Gettyimages and Thinkstock. I don't care who buys my images at this point, or what they pay for it. I just want the decline in overall income to stop.

[kayann]

I've thought for a few years now that getty is trying to get people to leave so they can go back to their "in-house" contributors.

[stock-will-eat-itself]

There is no easy answer for exclusives looking for a life raft.

But as a rule of thumb I'd say if your earnings dip to 50c per image per month, you'd be better off as an indy. That's with a commercial portfolio thats had some investment poured into it.

iS are treading a thin line with their top exclusives, if their RPI per month drops too much there will be no choice but to drop the crown which will strengthen SS no end.

[gostwyck]

There is no easy answer for exclusives looking for a life raft.

But as a rule of thumb I'd say if your earnings dip to 50c per image per month, you'd be better off as an indy. That's with a commercial portfolio thats had some investment poured into it.

Yep __ I'd say you're assessment is spot-on for most better-than-average contributors.