I've been at BigStock since around mid-2005 and am seriously considering pulling all my images from the site. BigStock's always been the lowest earner (I submit also to SS and 123RF on a regular basis), but I kept submitting there to see if things changed. Among the 3, they had the highest acceptance rate and lowest requirements too in terms of resolution so I was able to submit some good shots that would make other agencies, but whose only failing was resolution.

Sales tend to be very slow. Reviews take a good 3-4 weeks with some weeks having uploading disabled entirely across the whole site. Service very poor when questions are asked via support as well (as a photographer, and for buyers I've referred). The uploading process is also a bit of a chore in comparison to other sites as well (biggest gripe: 7 word description makes me stuff descriptions for simple objects).

On top of that, the most recent batch of 24 I've submitted to agencies had a pretty high acceptance rate (~20/24) to all except BigStock, which accepted a dismal 4 out of 24. The rejection reasons I find quite questionable too, among them:

"Dull, lifeless color: Colors are dull or lackluster. Sometimes this can be fixed using some saturation boost in Photoshop."

for the Papuan Frogmouth bird species, whose plumage is dull brown (camouflage) and artificially making the plumage rich is a mis-representation. Some others involved blur rejections because the backgrounds of macro photos were not in focus (even though the subject is perfectly sharp). Previous rejections made perfect sense, even if I disagreed with them but these are simply ridiculous. So this, in addition to the above things (as much as I don't like removing work I've put so much effort on) it's looking like it's not worth it anymore.

The only issue I have now with pulling my gallery is whether BigStock will actually follow through. I left the site at one point in the past and requested deletion (due to their past licensing issues), but came back 6 months later to find out that they kept all of my photos on and ignored the request. That worked out well enough for me since I felt like giving them another chance after they were changed.

Those are my experiences with how successful BigStock has been, though I know others have had better luck. Has anyone else had similar experiences with them? Or anyone want to try to convince me that there's cause behind these sudden reviewing changes?

And that's the end of that BigStock rant. Thinking about giving the other big 6's that I haven't tried a go with re-invested time. =)

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Joyce.

I've been having the same kind of rejections - blur for the background of macro shots or images making use of DOF, exposure problems (?) for anything that has not a pure white background, although isolation on white was not at all my intention in the first place and the most ridiculous one, model release required for a box of chocolates (!).

I stopped uploading for about 3 months and the sales stopped too. Then I decided to give it another try and out of 20 images, 5 were rejected with the above reasons.
I give up, I won't even bother to send an e-mail about that silly MR rejection. I will stick with IS and DT.

Except for the fact that they should really work on the dusty interface, one thing that really bugs me is how they process the thumbnails for preview. The compression is awful and any image that has red or purple color palette simply scares the buyers away.

So, until I see some kind of improvement, I won't upload anymore to BigStock.
Good luck to the rest of you!

Those are my experiences with how successful BigStock has been, though I know others have had better luck. Has anyone else had similar experiences with them? Or anyone want to try to convince me that there's cause behind these sudden reviewing changes?

I wouldn't pull images based on senseless rejection of one batch of images.  That has happened to me on every site at one time or another - most recently istock. 

When that happens it is virtually always a newbie reviewer who is too heavy handed with the rejection button.  Try sitemailing their support and asking for Dawn to take another look at the images. 

Steady but not spectacular results, I like their low payout number of $30.00.

i just started with BigStock , fotolia, crestock about 4 months ago, and my portfolio is small. worse, i am not your typical microstock photographer, so i shoot what i want. naturally, i don't expect to be making lots of money like say, lisafx,pixart,etc...  as my photos are quite niche.
but to date BigStock has sold as much for me as StockXpert and DST, all neck to neck with sales.  and i am happy with these 3 sites.

but one thing i noticed about BigStock, they are slow starters, as my sales are from images from my earliest upload. so maybe their promo is a little laidback, but as i said, all three sites sold as much for me.
different images though.
another thing, i have to mentioned, BigStock will delete your images after 90 days. i just had to delete 3 of my travel photos, and joseph from BigStock responded to me within 24 hours.
so credit to BigStock for that.   good luck.

UPDATED:
sorry, it should have read "within 48 hours". and this morning, i checked my portfolio with BigStock ... 81 images yesterday, now 79

I had a BME there in June 

-  Mark

He who can't be named with a white beard needs new glasses?

Heh ... Volderind.

wicked. just logged in after being motivated after seeing this thread. I just got a $20 sale so earnings for July so far $33

I recently join Bigstock and am uploading stock images. The slow approval process is a drag.

I am interested to know how sales are and if it worth my time? I have about fifty image up at this time and more pending.

Back to the original question!

Yes, you can make money on BigStock. But with any site the more you have the more you will get. That is if they are mostly stock selling shots.

Most of my images on BigStock are general subjects, golf, nature, landscape, agriculture, realestate, and with 2000 plus of them I have about 50-90 DL's a month. Every month.

If you have a handful of images like 100 or 200 do not expect too much on any site.

Hope I helped with your question.

-Larry