Microstock Group - A meeting place for microstock photographers

First,
Happy 2008 !!!

Seems that we agree. that is why Zymmetrical.com offers a 70/30 split to ALL contributors, detailed rejections, self pricing,  and we listen very closely to the needs, demands and concerns of our members. We be eive strongly that happy contributors make for a healthy and wealthy site.

Looking forward to seeing more of your images on zymmetrical.com this year !!

This is a difficult one for me to resolve.  I have not yet decided where I stand with regard to subscription models, and the money I make at Shutterstock.  In terms of commission percentage, its anybody's guess what share we are taking.  I did some rough paper estimates and came up with 35%-45%.

However the 25c/30c price tag is awfully difficult to get past for me.  I never said I was happy with the Shutterstock model, even if it makes me money.  I opted out of SXP subscriptions too.  I do know that I sell a lot of images which probably otherwise would be very slow movers.  And as Sharpshot wrote, the volume is amazing.  Also, the SS share of EL's is quite nice, and I have had far more EL's in less time with SS than I ever had with iSP. 

You bring up a very valid point.  I won't argue with it, as it is always on my mind.  My guess is subscription prices will rise quite a bit, now that iStock is raising the bar on pricing.

That blog read like a diary of a crazy teenage girl. Notice that she was mainly complaining about LO in the blog.

My view: interesting decision Dan, but BIG mistake.

At the moment, of the reasonably sized sites, I think featurepics give contibutors a good deal, 70% commission for non-exclusive images.

Stockxpert, Dreamstime and Bigstock are good at 50%.

Fotolia is poor starting at 33% but it does increase with lots of downloads.

Lucky Oliver is poor at just 30% but those lucky enough to get 100 downloads can get 50% from the sideshow.

istock is the worst at 20%

Looking at this from the contributor's perspective:  the truth is that most of us are in this for the money, whether it's just to keep us in camera gear for our hobby or whatever other reason, the money matters.  If you're dubious about that, just peruse this and other archives for all the heated threads about payment problems from stock sites, and you'll see just how much the money matters!  Unfortunately, Istock is at the top 1 or 2 total earnings spot of many if not most contributors' lists, the other one being Shutterstock.    Istock are a royal pain to deal with for contributors (tedious uploading, weird rejections, and on and on), but they pay well on volume even at 20% commission, and I almost never hear about them paying late.  It's definitely a love-hate relationship for many.  The cold hard fact is that contributors try to go where they get the best (read "most") pay, except for pure hobbyists who care more about community and the fun of getting their pictures sold anywhere (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, if that's what you like). 
  At this moment, LuckyO is not famous for bringing in large financial returns to the majority of their contributors, but hopefully that will change over time and they are definitely one of the most open and user-approachable sites out there.
  Now if FeaturePics at 70% could have the same volume of payments as IS....wow.  I think FP has the best overall interface for contributors of any site, but sadly they are lagging far behind the others in financial returns.
  So there's no easy answers for you.  The sites that are the most contributor-centered and pay the highest % also pay the least amount overall.  The coldest and least user-friendly sites have the lowest per-picture % but pay the most overall in terms of total $$.

Extraordinary thread that asks all the wrong questions and gets all the wrong answers (except HSI's input).

CUSTOMERS, ladies and gentlemen.  What a business needs is CUSTOMERS.  Without customers we are all doomed to failure.

And to get customers an agency needs to invest in marketing, development, PR and systems.  That takes money.

Paying too much to artists leaves little money to get customers.  No customers = no sales.

Anyone looked at iStock's 'most popular' list lately?  Some of those pictures have sold up to 8,000 copies in three months.  Let me repeat that - 8,000 in THREE MONTHS.

Now simply ask yourself this question: "would you like 20% of 8,000 sales, or 50% of nothing?"

As HSI points out - the two agencies that generate the most income for most people pay the lowest per sale.  But they both invest heavily in marketing to generate customers.  That benefits them, and it benefits the artist.

Don't tell me about percentages, because any % of zero will always be zero.  Tell me about customers.

And this is why Dan's decision is the worst one he could have made - he's focussed on % and not on customers; he's just said goodbye to the agency with easily the largest number of customers; it's equivalent to removing his goods from Wal-mart's stores or saying "no" to having his product bundled with Windows because Microsoft would only offer him 20c per sale instead of 50c.

Customers are the most valuable asset a business can have.  It doesn't make any sense to say goodbye to them.

That is a very odd business calculation model you got going here. Everywhere I go I hear the exact opposite. Microstock could easily handle a 500 percent raise in prices and would probably lose 50% of their customers doing so. Net result is 250% more in income. When FT allowed me to price my images at 3 credits per image because of being in the highest contributor category, this gave me an instant raise of about 30% (going from 2 to 3 credits as minimum) with no visible loss of amount of pictures sold per day.

I don't know if that is a good estimation.  Perhaps your source only downloads 15-30% but I am sure there are others downloading 100%.  I don't think there is a way to get a good estimate of the % commission we get from subscription sites.

Well of course I bow to your greater industry knowledge (and contacts) Yuri.

However I'm sure you understand the point I am making - % isn't everything.

I suspect that to get the best balance of % and investment for growth, the appropriate artist payment is somewhere around 40%, meaning that IS is too low and some others are too high.

If you are correct with your understanding of the subscription model and its profitability, this would explain why the other agencies (DT, 123 and SXP) have been so keen to jump on that bandwagon.

It would also mean that Shutterstock is considerably more profitable than I estimate.

Oh, bugger. I hadn't even thought of that! You're very right. I'll go spend money and close out my credits. Thanks for pointing that out. Just goes to show how different operations look from opposite sides of the fence.

Pixart, thanks, that's so nice of you. That site was done in 4 days for an emergency facelift deadline but we're going back to it this month, should be fun!

Bryan, that was three cents. You owe me a download credit!  But certainly, as a buyer I appreciate it when I'm heard as a customer, so thanks for being so cool about it.

DanP68, buyers will not normally come here because this site is very specifically not targeted at them. I only came here by accident, because people were visiting my site from here and the thread URL was turning up a lot in my logs. I was interested in what I learned but I wouldn't have ever even though to search that information out.

If you really do want to put the word out, probably the best strategy is for someone to register ethicalstockphototography.com or something, stick a blog in there and put information on it that is just targeted for buyers - who pays what, who is good to their artists, and the most highly read stuff: who stinks!

Gossip and porn: what the internet was made for.