MicrostockGroup

Hi,

for the past 3 years sept & oct have been about 10% higher than average, november average and december down about 20%, basically making those four months about the same as previous 4. Overall istock would sell more, my guess is those with a lot christmas stuff sell absolute heaps and basically would skew the view of everyone selling a lot more (could be wrong here though).

That is spot on

I'll take it one step further.
If we know the value of a redeemed credit at each level, you can work out the royalties needed in order to maintain your commission level. You can calculate what royalties you'll need to jump up a level, too. Here's another handy dandy chart:

Level          Commission   Redeemed    Royalties Needed    Royalties Needed
                                       Credits Req'd      to Maintain              to Promote
IndyBase                15%               -                       -                               $398
IndyBronze             16%           2,000                 $424                         $2,650
IndySilver               17%         12,500               $2,816                         $9,010
IndyGold                18%         40,000               $9,540                       $35,775
IndyDiamond          19%       150,000              $37,763                     $352,450
IndyBlackDiamond  20%     1,400,000            $371,000                             -

Bronze                   25%           2,000                    -                              $4,141
Silver                     30%         12,500                $4,969                       $15,900   
Gold                      35%         40,000              $18,550                        $69,563
Diamond                40%       150,000              $79,500                      $742,000         
Black Diamond        45%    1,400,000            $834,750                              -


So if you're currently at Gold level, you'll need to earn $18,550 per year to maintain that commission rate - if you earn $69,553 you'll jump up to Diamond level. If you're an independent and iStock comprises 40% of your total microstock revenue, then you'll have to be earning about $94k to "earn" a 19% commission, and about 928k to get 20%.

Did you account for EL bonus, referrals ?

My estimation is $0.26/credit as IndyGold (including just 3 or 4 ELs this year)

that's  a good chart. the only problem is that it does not account for those, like me, who have multiple mediums at iStock.  currently I am gold, but my port is both vector and photos so I will drop into different categories for that. 

You also need to include access to Veta and increased upload quota and able to spend more time concentrating on shooting and improving Istock portfolio. These are all hard to quantify which makes the decision for exclusive harder. With Istock's recent behaviour I'd be surprised if many people are considering going exclusive.

You need to calculate the additional income from higher file prices - ie. each download you get is a higher percentage of a higher number of credits.

So on the new system it should be easier for exclusive to reach the higher levels in terms of the number of downloads.

With no other changes in your portfolio (ie. no vetta and no content in exclusive +) the number in this thread are reasonably accurate as a minimum. http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/evaluating-exclusivity-at-istock-crunching-the-numbers/

lisafx: a few more factors you forgot and where not mentioned here:

1. As an exc your files are much more expensive. more expensive photos = less demand = less downloads.
2. as an exc you get better best match = more sales.

which of the 2 out weighs the other is unknown.

I wasn't suggesting that you were forgetting the higher prices, just that you couldn't use these stats to extrapolate your potential earnings as an exclusive.

The way the targets are set it would be relatively easier for exclusives to reach than independents precisely for the reason that they're accumulating credits faster on the same download numbers. 

The other factor is that the figures are fairly rough because credit prices vary depending on how credits are purchased. If you have a lot of sales from bloggers buying small credit packages (for example) your redeemed credit value would be higher because the credits cost more - but it would also mean that you need to earn more to reach the levels.

Another big variable that we don't know is whether the calculation of the redeemed credits is properly in sync with the annual download statistics.

That's a very good point. It has no advantage to go exclusive at the end of the year.

For Lisa, it will be too risky to go exclusive because she has built large ports with all agencies. Not only just the micros, she has to delete all her RF files from Alamy or perhaps other macros, not sure if there are many.