Have to say I am pleased with the sales at crestock.  I was bored one day and uploaded 700 to them.  Only had a few rejections and have had 94 downloads in 2 months.  Most of them are subscription $0.25 but there are a few at higher prices.  The site looks great compared to some of the others I upload to and it is one of the easiest uploads.  I just hope the sales stay steady at this level and slowly improve in the future.  Some sites are very up and down.

I signed on with them a month ago but have yet to upload.... Maybe I'll see how this thread goes in the next couple days.
    I want to expand a little.  I am still waiting on approval by ScanStock ( over  2 weeks now).  I'm on DT, BigStock, FT, FP, SS, IS, LO, NLS, StockXpert, and 123rf. 
    Anyone want to reccomend anything else of value? It would be appreciated.         
                                                     -tom

Sales are slowly picking up for me at Crestock. So far so good i guess

yeah i could believe that Yuri makes more at crestock too.

for me bigstock still earns more, but I have a way larger portfolio at bigstock still.  Crestock has a very nice upload settup too.

Just made $4.5 on this one.  My biggest commission there so far.
http://www.crestock.com/image/393828-Color-spiral.aspx

Crestock is doing great and the management really knows what they are doing. All of us have seen so many versions of microstock agencies trying to be successful, but very few have as sleek and well featured interface as Crestock. If they continue like they are doing now, they are bound to be successful.

I�m investing all my pictures in them, mostly because of future prospects of income, but I actually made over 700 USD from them in the month of January 2008.

Wow... that's good to know/hear ) Thanks, Yuri

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on February 20, 2008, 05:34

... but I actually made over 700 USD from them in the month of January 2008.

Although it's nice to hear that you're making significant money with them, I don't think you are painting an accurate picture of Crestock's earning potential. It's very safe to say that it will take several years for most people to earn $700 with Crestock, and I don't see any reason for that to dramatically change.

well i don't know if it is SO unfair of a picture. it does give an idea of how crestock is compared to other sites.  I feel our portfolio earns similarly sharply, and I am earning $70/month on crestock.. not too bad, even though it is not TOO good either.  It is still money to be had for easy uploading.

Crestock is doing great and the management really knows what they are doing. All of us have seen so many versions of microstock agencies trying to be successful, but very few have as sleek and well featured interface as Crestock. If they continue like they are doing now, they are bound to be successful.

I�m investing all my pictures in them, mostly because of future prospects of income, but I actually made over 700 USD from them in the month of January 2008.

most of us photographers doesn't have the portfolio that you have  or make the money you do . The ones that will make it are the ones that treat the photographersfair. You would be joining us if your  sales were like the majority of us other photographers

Although it's nice to hear that you're making significant money with them, I don't think you are painting an accurate picture of Crestock's earning potential. It's very safe to say that it will take several years for most people to earn $700 with Crestock, and I don't see any reason for that to dramatically change.

Crestock is a microstock photo agency, we accept the majority of your images (which are pretty alright btw) and invest everything we earn into generating better sales for your portfolio. We would be very appreciative as to any constructive suggestions for what we could do to dramatically change yours and our earning potential over the next few years. But it really is the next few years we're getting ready for, now. Everything (and more) is being done at Crestock, and i'm excited by the professionals we have to work with us, who include some of the best in the business.

Thanks sharply_done, the point you make about raising subscription royalties is valid and is something that we've been assessing, constantly. But, more than just this, I understand that, yourself and other photographers, want to generate more sales and, therefore, a higher income out of the agency.

Raising the commission does mean a deserved 20% increase to the photographer, but sales will however, remain the same. It doesn't generate any growth or increase the number of customers. From recent statistics, Crestock has grown almost 100% in sales and images, in the last quarter of 2007. This kind of growth was generated by a well-funded marketing strategy, and i believe it will be achieved again in the near future if the same approach is taken. If its the end sum that counts, I think at this stage its better to be attracting customers and generating sales, which will, at the same time, give at least a 20% increase in sales for photographers.

The idea of the 'faves' is solid, too. This sort of thing will probably get discussed for implementation, some time in the future. Luckily, there are guys working on this that know a lot more than me and they're coming up with some great ideas at the moment.

One thing that could be implemented easily to help photographers:

Why not post a gallery of images at 100% (or 100% crops) with description and indication of most frequent flaws (noise, artifacts, overfiltering etc.) ?  And indicate what is the acceptable limit for each - on examples ? This would remove ambiguity and establish some guidelines.
It is pretty amazing that there are no published quality requirements for images - which are the one and only selling product.

This is a really good suggestion. Actually, we know its good because its already been thought about and is under construction I agree that it has been needed for some time, also.

Until that arrives though, we don't mind answering the personal queries about image rejections.

I had a chat with our CEO, Geir Are Jensen, on this.

Basically, what he said was..

There is luckily a lot of other market methods rather than spending all our bucks on Google's adwords. We have a quite large marketing budget, and have been able to do a fair bit right, so far, since we increased customer traffic by about 500% last year. Due to competitive considerations, we're not able reveal so much of our market plan, but we can say that it also includes the traditional stuff, such as print ads in international design magazines, banners on prominent and relvant web sites and also a Google adwords campaign. We're going for at least a further 500% increase this year. And btw, thanks for all the supportive and useful feedback in this excellent forum. It's great.

Quote from: josh_crestock on February 20, 2008, 17:39

...
Raising the commission does mean a deserved 20% increase to the photographer, but sales will however, remain the same. It doesn't generate any growth or increase the number of customers.

Josh, I do not agree with that, raising the commission means also an increase of numbers of customers.
More photographers will join, and those who are there already and hesitate to upload will upload more because of a higher commision. A bigger library is something buyers might prefer. If I buy images I am looking at the agencies with the bigger libraries. But thanks, its great that you are here to communicate with us.

Freeze is right...if Crestock ponied up more payout, I would consider rejoining and I'm sure others would as well. If you don't have the merchandise, folks will shop elsewhere.