Shutterstock (and other sites) have broader license that sell for 22 cents, so it's not clear what "too low" means given the current market.

Alamy's days as a higher end, RM and RF agency are long behind it and they're selling microstock-priced licenses these days. I haven't had anything that low there, but I know I've heard others complain of this type of under $1 license, so it's not unprecedented.

Even if images are placed under Rights Managed, Alamy is allowing lots of freedom to the buyer. Wonder if these "In perpetuity" licenses mean Alamy is going to ditch Rights Managed altogether?

This nonsense of 21 cent "gross" license prices became real for me today - three licenses, each at 21 cents with my net at 8 cents each. Even the sad sack Shutterstock pays better than that!

I can get my head around high volume subscriptions with low per-use royalties and a minimum payment to contributors - what Shutterstock used to do before they switched to pandering to the stock market. But Alamy is so low volume for sales that the 40% with no minimum royalty plus a massively long wait for sales to clear is a terrible package.

If these pathetic royalties increase (or if the higher royalty sales decrease too much) it may be time to bid Alamy farewell.

This nonsense of 21 cent "gross" license prices became real for me today - three licenses, each at 21 cents with my net at 8 cents each. Even the sad sack Shutterstock pays better than that!

I can get my head around high volume subscriptions with low per-use royalties and a minimum payment to contributors - what Shutterstock used to do before they switched to pandering to the stock market. But Alamy is so low volume for sales that the 40% with no minimum royalty plus a massively long wait for sales to clear is a terrible package.

If these pathetic royalties increase (or if the higher royalty sales decrease too much) it may be time to bid Alamy farewell.

July 2022 = 20% for many people.



At the end of each Revenue Year if your total License Fees for that year, net of any refunds:

    are less than $250 then the Alamy Commission for sales of your Content in the following Revenue Year will automatically switch to Alamy Silver as outlined in the Alamy Commission Table; or

    are greater than or equal to $250 then the Alamy Commission for sales of your Content in the following Revenue Year will remain on Alamy Gold for that year, as outlined in the Alamy Commission Table.

So when should I contact Alamy about sale being not reported. I found one of my images on Buzzfeed, article is from June 27th. So it's now been more than 4 months and still not reported?

Make your first report now.

I'll do that, thanks.

And set up reminders to chase it up every four weeks if you don't get the sale report.

So when should I contact Alamy about sale being not reported. I found one of my images on Buzzfeed, article is from June 27th. So it's now been more than 4 months and still not reported?

I'm glad you received confirmation that they need to get this billed, but more importantly, they need to get you paid for this use. My experience with the delay between billing and payment is that it can take months. Given this customer just "forgot" to acknowledge a use 4 months ago, I wouldn't assume prompt payment once it's billed.

The good news is that there's no worry about Buzzfeed not being able to pay

If you didn't already reply to customer support, I'd suggest writing back now. First, thanking them for their confirmation of the download, but then pointing out how long it has been since the use of the image and suggesting that "as soon as possible" is too vague. That you need Alamy to make getting you paid for this a priority, given their error in the usage being ignored for so long.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to have an automated system that sends notices to customers who download images and after (let's say) a month, don't report a sale. There could be boxes to check for "Didn't use" "Oops, forgot to report it" and "Project ongoing" so it'd be simple to manage. For a genuinely forgetful customer it'd be an assist, and it'd put all customers on notice that Alamy does expect them to pay if they use images.

I would cut Liz's suggested time to every couple of weeks until you get paid.

Thanks for your email.

There is a relevant download on this image, so we�ve passed this over to the customers account handler who will get the use billed as soon as possible.

Kind regards

There is a relevant download yeah, so they know if they want to look.

I don't think PA will change things, but sure would be nice to get up to date and charge for a download instead of relying on the honor system. When we see these posts like yours, we see how many are not reported that get discovered. What about the people who don't look, chase and spend time doing what the agency should be doing for us?

So I understand that on Alamy clients are able to download without ever having to pay for the download? It's all on trust basis and self-reporting? That's a really weird way of doing business.

Yes, and unfortunately it is evicent that this trust basis business model doesn't work. Otherwise contributors would not need to hunt down their own sales. I only reported a sale that never showed up on my dashboard that was used in an online article as far back as 2020! Never showed up on my Alamy dashboard, but was credited back to Alamy + me.
And the most frustrating part is that of course we can assume that there are many sales we never notice and never get paid for, because if the site that used my image doesn't add credits to the image (which isn't necessary for commercial use image), I have no way of finding it. Just using an invert image search on thousands of my photos is hardly possible and without credits I don't know what site the image was bought from. When I search for my username + Alamy on google, most of the sales that did get reported don't even show up, so I can assume that only like 10% of my image sales can be detected like this. So, how man images of mine has Alamy given away for free? I'll never know.