Over 6000 images Q1 2017: 12 $   

2017 its totally a very bad year for me ? for DR ? i don't know !

FT on the other hand looks better and better for me at least

well i managed to have a pout in january feb and march 65 dollar...not bad for the 2016i hade...first 10 days of april...1 dollar!! with 4000 images. nothing uploaded after 2016 selling. a company nisedoving to the ending i bet in less than a bunch of year.
i read they changed the search in april. hope other sell to keep alive this that was a very good platform once.
this month beaten even by feature pics. unbelievable. it was my strong second earner till 2014. then nosediving.
i have to say that every month i have 3 4 days i sell very good for more than 15 20 dollar. so hope they are to come soon:)

I had a huge 50 credits sale in Jan and after that it has been slow, slow, slow...

it's about 1,5 month without a single sale for me there. I had about 5$ a month before that, not much but no sales for so long is still weird

This year, not a single sale on a small port of 180 images (13 sales totally)
But i uploaded nothing this year

Strange that people have such different experiences with sites. DT has always been a good earner for me, while I have never been able to get alamy to take off for example.

There are problems. Not normal when you receive multiple e-mails about old files, i have 5 or 7 copies last days.

If you uploaded a bunch on a certain day and several of them haven't sold three (?) years later you will get an e-mail for each of the unsold files asking what you want to do with them.
It IS normal.

Sales on Dreamstime were much better for me in 2016 compared to this year. DT in 2017 is just about dead. Though I still continue to upload to this site because I live in hope.

I am not sure if it is lack of customers or over supply of contributors, or both.

It's both. It has to be.

Looking at the stats of random Dreamstime contributors on their forums, I note that some people have done exceptionally well there. Their number of sales far exceeds their number of uploads. And in some cases, it's over 20,000 sales. Though I'm guessing that a lot of these impressive figures occurred in the distant past when things were supposedly 'better' - the glory days so to speak?

Quote from: dragonblade on April 11, 2017, 03:58

Looking at the stats of random Dreamstime contributors on their forums, I note that some people have done exceptionally well there. Their number of sales far exceeds their number of uploads. And in some cases, it's over 20,000 sales. Though I'm guessing that a lot of these impressive figures occurred in the distant past when things were supposedly 'better' - the glory days so to speak?

Oh absolutely I have over 20K sales there but 90% of those before 2015 after that its just turned very sour.

2008/9 was my high point. I'm only selling a third now of what I did then and, of course, my portfolio is a lot bigger than it was in those days. Overall I've got close to 30,000 DT sales but that is over almost 13 years, so it's only a bit above 2,000 a year on average.

My earnings per upload seem to be about the same as BAZ and CHJ.  My portfolio is not "High Commercial Value", it's basically food and travel with hardly any people shots.
The return is currently about 1c per month per upload. As I've got thousands of files online it is still enough to pay the occasional bill, whether it is worth the effort to upload more is something people need to work out for themselves. I'll still send stuff sometimes if I have nothing else to do but I don't expect an exciting return from extra effort any longer.

I keep experimenting with ways to increase revenue, but really with the investment I have in equipment now, I need to step out and do more direct marketing.  Just upgraded to some solid video heads and tripods, so I am looking around locally to see how to make them pay off.

As with all sites it's more about YOUR individual search placement than anything else. A small site with fewer buyers can outsell the biggest site many times over if you are hidden at the big site, but very visible at the small site.

No site is the best for all.

I sell very well at some smaller sites where I know the search engine well and my stuff shows up on page 1-2 for common searches. At some big sites with 100 times more buyers I still don't sell much because it's simply impossible to find my stuff and there's nothing I can do about it except wait a few years for sales so I can rise higher in search.