I see in the April results thread that BigStock doesn't seem to figure very highly in most peep's income results.  I opened an account with BigStock when I started off in this nusiness back at the end of January, but within three weeks I got a feel that 'something was wrong'; no views, no downloads, just dead.

I haven't uploaded anything there since then and I imagine I've now got through the 90 days notice period.  So I'm thinking of closing that account.

Anyone got any positive experiences, or reasons to be optimistic for the future?

I am making about $70 a month now with BigStock.  Not a lot for 2,000 photos but over a period of time the money adds up nicely.  They have sold some photos that other sites have rejected for not being stock photos.  It is nice to make some money from photos rejected by the other sites.

I am making about $70 a month now with BigStock. ...

3.1/2 cents/image/month ... yikes, that's a low ROI.
Thanks for the info, sharpshot!

Yes, thanks sharpshot, and to everyone else for their comments.

I'll shut down my account with BigStock; $70 a month for 2,000 images is an appalling result (no offence intended sharpshot - your portfolio is excellent and sells well elsewhere), and with the amount of uploading work involved that probably works out at a return below most western countries minimum hourly wage.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I reckon every image of mine takes a couple of hours for finishing, keywording etc, so $70 a month for 4,000 hours work just doesn't stack up.  Okay, I know I'd be doing this work anyway for the other agencies, but you know what I mean.  I'd rather spend the time creating more images and submitting them to agencies that can actually sell product.

With sharply's focus on ROI and other statistics I can see he'd rather shoot himself than generate this poor return.  I think I'll join him.  On the other hand I'll just close the account.

I want to be able to focus on just three or four agencies, not all of them.  I'm happy with IS and DT, optimistic for StockXpert, suspicious of FT but making sales, and I'm playing the game at SS (but SS doesn't figure in my long term plans).  Corbis will be along soon.  I certainly don't think BigStock cuts the mustard, particularly as sharpshot's portfolio is way above average quality and diversity.

They were down in the dumps all April for me, but have had an awesome start to May already.

My experience with BigStock has been very poor.  I don't have that many pictures online (85) but mainly pics that sell fairly well on other sites and after almost a year I am $1 short of my first payout.  That's $34 in 11 months - so I understand hayman12 and will probably do the same once I got that ellusive last Dollar. 

I mean, really, what's my incentive for uploading there again?  I do microstock for the money, sure, but an extra $34?  Living in Silicon Valley $34 won't even buy a nice dinner for my husband and me.  So I do microstock also for the thrill of selling my pics. When I check my account (daily, at least) I want to see some progress, not stagnation.  I get nothing out of uploading at BigStock, not even fun.  So why bother?

Thanks for the input.  How many pics do you have there? 
I am debating to try StockXpert where I am currently not selling but I can't hbnadle too many sites on top of work and family.  Any insights as to BigStock vs. StockXpert?

Thanks

Yes, I would post my referral link somewhere too, that CJPhoto would get all those referrals alone ;-)

Maybe interesting... Just a comment BigStock sent to me with a paypal payout:
"In case you were wondering about BigStock last week, we lost two critical Servers two days apart and we managed to keep most things online although we had to publish a DNS change for one server. But we are almost back to normal. Just taking care of a few rough edges.  All user functions are fine now. All will be totaly back to normal very shortly. Thanks for your patience! Have a fantastic week!"