Quote from: Dook on October 07, 2014, 16:35

RPI means nothing in my opinion. Let's take two photographers - one is doing complicated studio shot with a lot of lighting and retouching work, the other is lifestyle or street photographer making dozens of pictures at the same time. They both earn the same amount of money for the same time and work invested. The first one with one picture, the other with ten or fifty. And their RPIs are completely different.

But wouldn't you agree that both these individuals could forecast future earnings by knowing their own RPI and quantity of images produced? 

Here I figured I have used my RPI to forecast my own growth and set goals, so it's been a meaningful number for me.  I guess I've been wrong.

For an individual, yes.

Quote from: cascoly on October 07, 2014, 15:24

you can't make any predictions based solely on reported rpi 

what matters is $/mo and that can be achieved with many different strategies; some of those will result in high rpi, others won't.   so again, rpi can't be used to answer the question "how many images do I need to make $X"

Huh.  That's funny.  For my first several years I did exactly what you say is impossible.  After my first few months, I figured my average RPI and asked myself, "how much do I want to make and by what date?"  I charted it, figured how much I would need to upload each day to reach it... and guess what... in about two years of following this projection, I hit my goal, right when I figured I would. 

......

'you' in the general sense -- several of us have said repeatedly that rpi is meaningful only for the individual photographer -- using it as you did.  what's not possible is to use polls like this one to make predictions about rpi for another photographer

...... If you don't see how it can be used to help make decisions, it's easy to ignore it but it's just plain silly to say that it is inherently useless or pointless.

nope - voodoo is voodoo -- it's up to the proponents to show why this stat has any validity

I've always thought that RPI was the best indicator since tracking your own RPI and seeing how you stack up against the average contributor are both helpful metrics. Looking at your RPI from year to year, which includes those top sellers as well as the duds that never sell, indeed gives you a good feel for how your "average photo"* should do over time and helps you project just how many photos you need online to meet your microstock income goals.

RPI also helps you compare how you're doing vis-a-vis others since it gives you a sense of whether or not your average image earns more or less than the average image on SS, regardless of portfolio size. I'm not surprised that most of us are above the 28 cent RPI/month average. I'd guess most people on here take their work seriously and that their work reflects it.

I'd like to see this poll be posted each month. +1 for the OP 

"Average photo" is really a misnomer, but RPI takes into consideration that out of say every 25 images you upload, x will be winners, y will be duds, and a bunch will fall somewhere in between, giving you a sense of how much more you can expect to earn as you increase your portfolio. As some people have said, once images hit a certain age they may sell less frequently, and new images are more likely than ever to get lost in the plethora of new work uploaded daily, but it's still the best metric to help you project how much you need to increase your portfolio to meet your goals.

"Average photo" is really a misnomer, but RPI takes into consideration that out of say every 25 images you upload, x will be winners, y will be duds, and a bunch will fall somewhere in between, giving you a sense of how much more you can expect to earn as you increase your portfolio. As some people have said, once images hit a certain age they may sell less frequently, and new images are more likely than ever to get lost in the plethora of new work uploaded daily, but it's still the best metric to help you project how much you need to increase your portfolio to meet your goals.

I disagree with this as it entirely depends on the subject matter of the photos. I know this from experience. You cant tell how many images will be winners, will be duds, and will fall somewhere in between if you shoot a variety of subjects. Unless you shoot the same subject/category over and over, and even then at some point you will start to compete with yourself and your RPI will go down.

I personally find this thread very interesting. For me it helps me understand where I stand with my type of portfolio and upload patterns. I think the RPI value in this poll could be even more helpful if we post a 12 month average RPI - this evens out monthly anomalies.  My vote bracket would not change based on that.

(In my personal performance I need to say though that my 12mRPI has been constantly falling since the beginning of the year  )

I think Leaf changed the poll so that you can now enter your RPI if you made a mistake and entered your RPD.

I personally find this thread very interesting. For me it helps me understand where I stand with my type of portfolio and upload patterns......

how does  the poll help you when type of portfolio and upload patterns are PRECISELY the information missing in the poll? 

Quote from: Mellimage on October 08, 2014, 08:23

I personally find this thread very interesting. For me it helps me understand where I stand with my type of portfolio and upload patterns......

how does  the poll help you when type of portfolio and upload patterns are PRECISELY the information missing in the poll?

I am not talking about the poll alone, I talk about this thread in general. From the poll I see the spread of RPIs - that is helpful already - is RPI spread from 0.00 to 1.00USD, or to 3-4 $ USD, or to 10 USD. Also, being in the business for some time it helps me guestimate which ports perform better and which don't (for some contributors I can just look it up based on the info they posted in this thread). I know this information is not statistically accurate - but my information is now better than it was before the thread was opened - hence, helpful thread.

But again, a 12month average RPI would be even more helpful.

Quote from: Mellimage on October 08, 2014, 13:19

I am not talking about the poll alone, I talk about this thread in general. From the poll I see the spread of RPIs - that is helpful already - is RPI spread from 0.00 to 1.00USD, or to 3-4 $ USD, or to 10 USD. Also, being in the business for some time it helps me guestimate which ports perform better and which don't (for some contributors I can just look it up based on the info they posted in this thread). I know this information is not statistically accurate - but my information is now better than it was before the thread was opened - hence, helpful thread.

But again, a 12month average RPI would be even more helpful.

That would be way too much trouble to figure out. I'd have to go back to see how many images I had online each month.

I've been keeping record on this for over a year, hence, I have the number. But certainly do not expect everyone to have this number. It is hard to figure this out in hindsight.  Just think this could be helpful - also seeing how my 12mRPI develops over time gives me some interesting insights.

There's something seriously wrong with the results when nearly 50% of voters are claiming more than 40c per image/month ... which itself is nearly 50% higher than Shutterstock's declared average.

Even Sean said he's only generating about 60c per image/month (in a previous thread) so we must have some absolute stock geniuses voting in the poll.

Just depends on the ODD's and EL's that month. September was good with 3 EL's and quite a few ODD's. RPI = $0.91 with less than 400 photo's.

What is really very interesting is that if I take my total SS income and divide it by the number of months I've been at SS and divide that by, say, an 'estimated average' number of photo's during the time there, I still come out at an average of $0.91 cents.