MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Dreamstime.com => Topic started by: Mantis on December 09, 2014, 19:58
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Since May DT has gone south. HUGE drops in Nov and this month. I think they are losing customers or changed the search and I m on the sh!t end of the stick.
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For me, DT is my second highest earner. Sales have been holding steady, but I've noticed that RPD has been steadily falling for the past two years.
I'd say FT is the one dying. They used to be my #2, and now they're #4. (#3 is 123RF, and we all know who #1 is.)
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Sales have declined there all year, but still better than low tier agencies. I hope they turn things around cuz they are one of the fairest sites to contribs.
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I'm not up for sharing the numbers, but here's my DT graph, October 2004 to now (the flatline in the middle is when I was exclusive at iStock)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12956972/Dreamstime-2004-2014.jpg)
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I don't know why, but these last months the sales always start after the 10th or 15th of the month.
And they are less and less every month despite a growth of my uploads…
For me DT is not dying, it is almost dead…
We need some adrenaline injection here!
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I'm still seeing annual growth but only in small increments - nothing like SS or FT.
DT has always felt like some sort of photo club that happens to sell pictures and has long been outmaneuvered by the rest of the top 4. Even the name, Dreamstime is pony. Or it could be that I have, on average, between 800 and 1,200 fewer files uploaded there thanks to their rotten "similars" policy.
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DT just doesn't work for me. For example they rejected my best seller at SS and FT for being "too simple". Besides this, I got a frenzy rejection of 7 whole batches so I dropped them. I get payout at FT every month, but never reached U$ 50 in DT in a whole year. Sure the RPD is nice and maybe it still works for long time contributors because of the search, but one average day at SS is the same as the whole month for DT. It's just not money-wise uploading there.
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I'm not up for sharing the numbers, but here's my DT graph, October 2004 to now (the flatline in the middle is when I was exclusive at iStock)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12956972/Dreamstime-2004-2014.jpg)
Well your graph as a whole looks like mine, so it's not just me I suspect. I refuse to upload video there to enhance my income due to their crummy video commissions. Really, though, I think it is the same with most agencies. SS, for example, is growing in terms of revenue but declining in terms of number of downloads. It's the OD's, SOD's and video sales that give me cyclic bumps in income. Without those SS would be like any other agency. On DT my last 30 sales are 35 cents, then $2, then $2 again, then 25 35 centers. DT is probably pushing subs because my credit sales are almost non-existent. DT may be able to survive this way nicely, but the contributor loses big time. They will soon be supported by college students who make $25 a month and they will be giddy with that much.
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As of yesterday I was $3 over what I earned in November. Not that I'm having a great month, I hadn't had a month worse than Nov 2014 since December 2008.
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Well if they are still around I estimate I could make the payout threshold by around 2017. It's that bad.
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DT is my best selling site, it is Shutterstock that has taken a steep dive.
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While not in the same league as Shutterstock, DT still does fairly well for me and I take several payouts each year. This is probably due to a relatively large number of individual sales in the $5 to $10 range each month, along with the usual $0.35 subscription sales and an occasional EL. So are they dying ... not so far as I am concerned.
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I do not believe DT is dying. What I believe is that MS business these days is harder for each individual artist due to hundreds of new artists signing in to the agencies and thousands of new images added to the collections each month. Good for the agencies, bad for each one of us that is always receiving a thinner slice of the pie.
I liked DT a lot. Once, it was my 2nd best after SS. Now, it's sad to see the charts...
Huge drop of sales this year, as can be seen in the quarterly graph. If this trend continues, next year there will be no sales at all.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/L3FUrTvSTKNNtWHYvLUFLOHAxeQCEq6zkFPZGnk21Y8=w821-h477-no)
Compared to December of 2013, this month will end about half way. RPD is dropping a lot as well...
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-oKZw-QXecag/VInU705_XoI/AAAAAAAAOj0/5y1AGB2GAJk/w821-h477-no/DTM.jpg)
My uploading pace has been steady all the time but review times are so long now that entire batches of themed images miss the season and a chance to be seen and sold.
Overall, I can notice this trend across all sites, being DepositPhotos the only exception, with very shy monthly improvements.
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I was surprised at how many sub sales I get there. It's just like SS, essentially. But a lot slower.
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I was surprised at how many sub sales I get there. It's just like SS, essentially. But a lot slower.
Your right. DT is almost all subs now. I am lucky to get 1 or 2 credit sales per day there now. Used to be about half and half as recently as last year.
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I was surprised at how many sub sales I get there. It's just like SS, essentially. But a lot slower.
It's been mentioned before, but it goes in waves :) I have some pages of 20 sales where 1/20 is a credit sale and then some where 9/20 are credit sales.
Now DT has done away with more money for subscriptions of level 5 images, the only variation in subs is when the $2 royalty ones show up.
However, after you've been there a while (I think you only recently started uploading there) and have a decent number of level 4 and 5 images, the credit sales when they happen produce better royalties - two recent credit sales on level 5 images produced $7.61 royalty for the medium size, and a level 4 extra large $8.31
I'm still thinking DT's pricing is way too complicated (which has hurt volume there) and that they don't have the bonanza of $75+ royalties of SS SOD sales to make up for the many subscriptions.
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While not in the same league as Shutterstock, DT still does fairly well for me and I take several payouts each year. This is probably due to a relatively large number of individual sales in the $5 to $10 range each month, along with the usual $0.35 subscription sales and an occasional EL. So are they dying ... not so far as I am concerned.
Seems about right. Overall RPI seems to be in slight decline everywhere but IS is the only one that is truly spectacular
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I too experience a decline in DT sales, but I wouldn't say they're dying. They may still have enough profits, or they can cut costs to survive a little longer. Smaller agencies, on the other hand, may succumb first. Although the smaller companies have less costs to run their business.
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Never got to see them alive.... the similars got me
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I've read posts like this long enough to know that different contributors have different experiences. One person's sales have "dropped off a cliff", while someone else's is "best month ever". Perhaps due to the types of images people are producing and buyers are looking for at a particular time.
That said, the reason I took a look at the Dreamstime board is to see if there was a post like this, because my sales have dwindled to almost nothing. (ok...so $0.35 a week isn't exactly nothing.) So, my perception matches others here.
One thing I like to do from time to time is to drop in on the agencies I upload to (SS, DT, BS, & FT), type in main keywords from one of MY images and see what kind of a job their SE does in finding it. Over the past half year or so, I have been unable to find many of my own images using this process on DT. If I can't find my own image, using my own keywords in the meta, how can a buyer?
And don't get me started on their 2 week review process. That may be an indication that they don't have sufficient funds to hire enough reviewers.
It does make one wonder.
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(ok...so $0.35 a week isn't exactly nothing.)
Yeah, it is. I find more than that in lose change on the street most weeks, and wonder if its even worth the effort to bend over and pick it up.
Your right that different people have different experiences, but I doubt many would stick around for those returns. Are you still bothering to upload there for that little money?
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Well, I haven't uploaded to DT for over a month; but my returns on SS and FT still make it worthwhile.
Which makes DT even sadder, since (except for this month) I've uploaded the same images to all.
At this time, I don't see any downside to leaving the DT account open and see what happens.
Hope springs eternal....and I believe in Santy Claus.
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Well, I haven't uploaded to DT for over a month; but my returns on SS and FT still make it worthwhile.
Which makes DT even sadder, since (except for this month) I've uploaded the same images to all.
At this time, I don't see any downside to leaving the DT account open and see what happens.
Hope springs eternal....and I believe in Santy Claus.
I would not remove portfolio either. Lots of trouble to take it down, and like you say, maybe something happens to improve things. But like you I would not keep uploading for that income. :)
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Funny how we're all so different. DT is far and away my worst performer (my other agencies are SS/IS/BS/FT) and the only reason I haven't dumped DT already is that they don't yet have my full port... I've been working through submitting a backlog of 400-or-so images that are already live with my other agencies, and I thought I should let them run with my full port for a while before making my mind up.
As a rough estimate, DT sales are running at about 1-2% of SS sales for me.
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DT has greater ups and downs for me than any other site save Alamy - but after a WME in October, November and December were strong & doing okay this month too, but won't know for sure 'til the end of the month.. The one really frustrating thing lately is it's taking weeks for them to review images.
If you're making sales, I wouldn't pull your port.
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Even though DT - for me - was down almost 25% in 2014, it was still about 57% better than FT. Would have to slide a long way to fall to 3rd place.
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Interesting to hear the complaints regarding review times. Although DT are my worst for sales, they're my quickest for review! As I work through my backlog, I'm routinely submitting 10-20 images daily and I typically find that they've been reviewed just a few hours later. A lot of my stuff is editorial, so maybe it goes to a different queue...
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For me, this Jan, DT is well down on same time last year. DLs and money.
If not dead then certainly not well.
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Here it is the 15th of yet another month and I am at $35. Half of what I usually get. This is month three since my big tank in commissions. Some will come in here and say three months isn't enough time to make a conclusion, you need a year. BS. All I get is subs. Number of downloads is up, commissions are down 50%. They are pushing subs heavily. That model is good for the agency but bad for contributors AND the miscrostock industry as it adds the the cheapening of our work and, like Pavlov's dogs, gets people used to the penny content to the point where there is no way to reverse the trend but to pull all content. That won't happen. Far too many contributors who would be unwilling to pull their work. DT has proven to be a massive disappointment. I have never been able to grow my revenue there and have over 3000 images now. I believe that this sub move is one of panic. Maybe rightfully so as they are probably responding to the other agencies who are really pushing cheap ash* content like FT, IS, DP who are all killing the micro stock market for producers of content.
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for me dt has been comatose since they started LIKE with fb and similars rejection en masse
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did Dreamstime tweaked the site interface? I checked my profile, it seems the page has a new layout....
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http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39744 (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39744)
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I've been selling some very old files. Viewing sales is like a walk down memory lane.
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Sales up to now are 88% lower than January 2014 and that was already a bad month. But still 2 weeks (and a bit) to go.
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PhotoDune has sold more for me in the first half of January that DT has (and that's not because PhotoDune is having a banner month)
Shutterstock today sold over three times - in just one day - what DT has Jan 1-15 (there was an SOD in there, to be fair)
Creative Market - where I have only 11 items - has made only $6 less than DT in January so far
Even comparing Jan 14 with Jan 15 at DT, it's only at about 40% of last year's first 15 days
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While not in the same league as Shutterstock, DT still does fairly well for me and I take several payouts each year. This is probably due to a relatively large number of individual sales in the $5 to $10 range each month, along with the usual $0.35 subscription sales and an occasional EL. So are they dying ... not so far as I am concerned.
really?
500+ a month was normal for me for 5 years. Now a 100 is a big deal. SAD. the whole business is sad unless you think a few payouts a year is good. And One of the Problems now. to many make to little and are happy with it. They love you guys. Keep uploading.......We did. And here we are.
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did Dreamstime tweaked the site interface? I checked my profile, it seems the page has a new layout....
What happened to the list of sales by most recent downloads when I click on my earnings balance?
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They change it. But, now, I cannot see what was the last sale. >:(
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They change it. But, now, I cannot see what was the last sale. >:(
Right. Me neither.
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They change it. But, now, I cannot see what was the last sale. >:(
Right. Me neither.
I think that they have solved the problem.
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Yep. Liked the old version better.
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Me too. I wish they would devote less time to making things look "pretty" and more time on the guts of the site. The FAQs haven't been updated since the start and there are so many pages of disparate info that could be consolidated. Bring in some keymasters to review and delete, they accept every word, and purge the forums of useless drivel. Better yet, spend the money they would save on the web designers for some more reviewers. Perhaps up the pay to attract better reviewers. When asked about dropping sales all they seem to do these days is promote social media as the answer to everything.
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Me too. I wish they would devote less time to making things look "pretty" and more time on the guts of the site. The FAQs haven't been updated since the start and there are so many pages of disparate info that could be consolidated. Bring in some keymasters to review and delete, they accept every word, and purge the forums of useless drivel. Better yet, spend the money they would save on the web designers for some more reviewers. Perhaps up the pay to attract better reviewers. When asked about dropping sales all they seem to do these days is promote social media as the answer to everything.
This is also my opinion. I think they must invest in marketing more than the design itself. They must bring more buyers.
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Whoa - I just clicked on a portfolio page too - totally different look there too! It has a portfolio search bar which is nice.
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Yep. Liked the old version better.
I can't think of one single thing in the re-worked sold images list that works better than it did. You can't easily run your eyes down the list to see the patterns, amounts or even dates of sales. Whoever did the design clearly wasn't a contributor and didn't talk to anyone who was.
The public facing portfolio page redesign is a bit better - I guess the way SS presents contributor galleries was an influence
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If you hover over each sold images, those annoying social media icons are visible. They are everywhere there, arrrrgh!
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I liked the old layout better too but am seeing a bunch of $2.00 subs this month which should add up a lot faster than $0.35 - About neck and neck with SS for me this month but both are down from a strong December. After sitting in the queue for weeks, they just rejected a bunch of illustrations as "over processed" which makes no sense. Better than "too simple" I guess which is their other favorite. They are selling on SS so I figure it's DT's loss. And I have a bunch selling on DT that SS rejected.
Starting to trend up again. I don't think they're dying but I'm not rushing to add new images either.
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Not dying, just not anywhere near competing on % annual growth with the rest of the top 4.
As for the site revamp, I neither like it or dislike it, which is probably even worse.
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I don't like the new earnings page too!
But what I need the most are daily earnigs statistics! I don't know other agency who don't have them!
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The new earnings page is visually nicer but it was much easier to get information by looking down columns of a table. Since I use it for information I like the old version better.
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I am guessing the earnings page was done by someone who either was not interested in making the relevant information easily visible or perhaps with the goal of obscuring it. It was painfully easy to see when the last 20 sales were all subs before, now that is harder to see. As a painful aside I got a new low for credit value .118 ouch.
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It is so very sad that DT is dying off for me. Not good at all. I'm trying to figure out a way to make up for the loss of money every month. I used to be hopeful but now I better start planning ...
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The google deal smacks of desperation, so I do think DT as we know it is dying. Serban is taking some big back end payout to give away the library to google. After this and what they did at Getty, google seem like a jackal picking over the bones of dying businesses.
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Doing something like this Google deal, is just another example of how they ("they" being most of the agencies) are not open or forthcoming with the facts. When questioned they dodge and give convoluted non-answers. I wouldn't know about the changes in reporting, I left. But if its designed to hide the facts and the truth, then DT just joined the club.
But here's the last straw of 2015 - DT will be sold, merged or taken over, which will complete the end of independence for the "Big Four". This Google deal is just a precursor to that happening.
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While not in the same league as Shutterstock, DT still does fairly well for me and I take several payouts each year. This is probably due to a relatively large number of individual sales in the $5 to $10 range each month, along with the usual $0.35 subscription sales and an occasional EL. So are they dying ... not so far as I am concerned.
really?
500+ a month was normal for me for 5 years. Now a 100 is a big deal. SAD. the whole business is sad unless you think a few payouts a year is good. And One of the Problems now. to many make to little and are happy with it. They love you guys. Keep uploading.......We did. And here we are.
This reminds me of an old Beatles Song- "Yesderday"
For those kids that have never heard it here are the words-
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
oh, I believe in yesterday
Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go?
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Why she had to go?
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday...
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My sales on DT are not flat...they are nearly dead. 2350 Online files. They used to be my 2nd biggest earner. So far February barely has a pulse. what?
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Somebody will buy them soon, either vulture capitalist like in Getty case or white knight in shiny armor like Adobe :-)
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Can anyone remember when DT announced their exciting news about giving photos away to some mysterious partner? I didn't take note of when I opted out of partner sales, but my sales started getting bad in August. Maybe their partner program was earning 25% - 50% of my earnings? Or is it because there are so many former Istock Exclusives on the roster?
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Can anyone remember when DT announced their exciting news about giving photos away to some mysterious partner? I didn't take note of when I opted out of partner sales, but my sales started getting bad in August. Maybe their partner program was earning 25% - 50% of my earnings? Or is it because there are so many former Istock Exclusives on the roster?
Didn't that turn out to be the Google $2 for unlimited downloads deal?
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my portfolio was also dying, but now in february i got 100% boost, there is al lot of 1.90$, is that google deal?
Can anyone remember when DT announced their exciting news about giving photos away to some mysterious partner? I didn't take note of when I opted out of partner sales, but my sales started getting bad in August. Maybe their partner program was earning 25% - 50% of my earnings? Or is it because there are so many former Istock Exclusives on the roster?
Didn't that turn out to be the Google $2 for unlimited downloads deal?
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DT goes in cycles. Lots of subs then a few days of OD's. That cycle, for me anyhow, is getting very large. About three weeks of subs and 4-5 days of a mix of subs and OD's, then I will get 30-50 straight subs. My sales are way down because of this new, aggressive sub push by DT. They are now performing like Photodune.
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I am seeing the same pattern, with the strings of subs getting longer and longer. The only good thing is that the subs sales do increase the levels of the images so the credit sales may be larger when they come.
The Google deal was supposed to have kicked in after Jan. 31st but I haven't heard of anyone getting any so I don't think those sales have started registering yet. I think it was delayed due to all of the people who opted out. Those are supposed to be for $2 so your $1.90 amounts are probably normal credit sales.
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Perhaps primitively, I've traditionally viewed SS, IS and DT as the three main players. So it came as some surprise to me that Adobe chose to buy FT for a truly staggering amount of money.
If Adobe spent that much money on buying a stock agency asset, they must be gearing up to turn that into real value for their business over the next few years. That must be a game changer, one way or another, for the whole stock industry.
But why did they buy FT and not DT? Surely DT is the "better" agency to own. Surely Adobe would have done their due diligence before dropping $700-million on a stock agency asset? So what did they find?
Had a chuckle when considering a glaringly obvious DT failure . . . that they have spent the last 10 years a bloody long time insisting on a mad "similars" policy.
They have refused many truck-loads of high-selling images and substantially reduced the value of the only thing that has any value to a big player like Adobe - the images in their database.
If their daft policies have been annoying for us, consider how pissed off buyers get when they can only find a quarter of the portfolio of their favorite stock artist. Then consider how much money DT has lost itself in revenue for refusing such images. They have lost so much more revenue than all of us combined - because they have lost the biggest slice of the all the sales.
DT is one of the prettiest girls at the ball, but she has bad teeth resulting in rotten breath. Everyone keeps on saying she should see a dentist, but she stubbornly refuses to accept her problem. Now the prince has visited the ball and it's too late, he has chosen the lesser maiden with reasonable dental hygiene.
As far as I can tell, the whole industry is in a state of flux. Somehow I feel that the elephant just entered the room and it's already having an impact. And for DT, the horse just bolted and they are at least five years too late to close the stable door.
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Perhaps primitively, I've traditionally viewed SS, IS and DT as the three main players. So it came as some surprise to me that Adobe chose to buy FT for a truly staggering amount of money.
If Adobe spent that much money on buying a stock agency asset, they must be gearing up to turn that into real value for their business over the next few years. That must be a game changer, one way or another, for the whole stock industry.
But why did they buy FT and not DT? Surely DT is the "better" agency to own. Surely Adobe would have done their due diligence before dropping $700-million on a stock agency asset? So what did they find?
Had a chuckle when considering a glaringly obvious DT failure . . . that they have spent the last 10 years insisting on a mad "similars" policy.
They have refused many truck-loads of high-selling images and substantially reduced the value of the only thing that has any value to a big player like Adobe - the images in their database.
If their daft policies have been annoying for us, consider how pissed off buyers get when they can only find a quarter of the portfolio of their favorite stock artist. Then consider how much money DT has lost itself in revenue for refusing such images. They have lost so much more revenue than all of us combined - because they have lost the biggest slice of the all the sales.
DT is one of the prettiest girls at the ball, but she has bad teeth resulting in rotten breath. Everyone keeps on saying she should see a dentist, but she stubbornly refuses to accept her problem. Now the prince has visited the ball and it's too late, he has chosen the lesser maiden with reasonable dental hygiene.
As far as I can tell, the whole industry is in a state of flux. Somehow I feel that the elephant just entered the room and it's already having an impact. And for DT, the horse just bolted and they are at least five years too late to close the stable door.
Enjoyed your post and agree fully.
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GREAT POST, but it hasn't been 10 years, I think maybe 4 or 5. I joined in 2006 and it was a few years after that! I think it was when I shot a series of Irish dance photos that they didn't want, around 2011 (of course they were happy to select what I thought was the worst one... ah well). But they do have all those lovely series with "turn-of-the-century" styling and digital cameras. ;)
Had a chuckle when considering a glaringly obvious DT failure . . . that they have spent the last 10 years insisting on a mad "similars" policy.
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GREAT POST, but it hasn't been 10 years, I think maybe 4 or 5.
Good point - the number of years may well be incorrect. According to the SS forum date I've been contributing to them since 2005. Was "Dreamstime" still a contributor to iStock back then?
Either way, they have spent a long time rejecting images that otherwise sell.
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[quote ]
Had a chuckle when considering a glaringly obvious DT failure . . . that they have spent the last 10 years insisting on a mad "similars" policy.
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dead yet??? what??? it was comatose a long time ago since they rejected anything more than 2 similars and got the IV drip pulled off from the veggie-in-coma, when they added fb like.
it also didn't help when serbian came in here to scold everyone who did not like dt . he should come in now to let us know if it is going to be exumed for autopsy
it's a great pity because eric, carmen, all were very good 2 us. only somewhere along the way, they f**ked-up
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According to the SS forum date I've been contributing to them since 2005. Was "Dreamstime" still a contributor to iStock back then?
I joined DT at the end of October 2004; the domain registration says it began June 2000 (istockphoto was registered January 2000). This article (in Spanish but Google translate helps) says the web design company Archiweb was around from 2000
http://mymicrostock.net/serban-enache-ceo-de-dreamstime-nos-habla-sobre-filosofia-de-una-de-las-mejores-agencias-microstock/ (http://mymicrostock.net/serban-enache-ceo-de-dreamstime-nos-habla-sobre-filosofia-de-una-de-las-mejores-agencias-microstock/)
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Dying ? The funeral was a long time ago.
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No they are not dying. One said: every desperate situation has at least two exits.
Which they will take - will see soon , the changes are active there.
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DT only 3% income (and still fall down) of all Big 4. If the site will finally die, I will not be too affected. Their latest move (Google "cooperation"), was an desperate attempt I think.
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According to the SS forum date I've been contributing to them since 2005. Was "Dreamstime" still a contributor to iStock back then?
I joined DT at the end of October 2004; the domain registration says it began June 2000 (istockphoto was registered January 2000). This article (in Spanish but Google translate helps) says the web design company Archiweb was around from 2000
[url]http://mymicrostock.net/serban-enache-ceo-de-dreamstime-nos-habla-sobre-filosofia-de-una-de-las-mejores-agencias-microstock/[/url] ([url]http://mymicrostock.net/serban-enache-ceo-de-dreamstime-nos-habla-sobre-filosofia-de-una-de-las-mejores-agencias-microstock/[/url])
I joined in June 2004, just after they opened the site for contributions. The first file I uploaded is number 5305 on June 8 that year. By October, the file numbers were up around 30,000 and they had around 20,000 images online. I think iStock allowed Serban to have his site and continue as an iStock contributor for a few months after he announced (on iStock's message board) that he was taking contributions. By November 2004, when Shutterstock opened its doors, they weren't allowing that sort of thing and more.
Oh, and it's not dying. It may not be doing terribly well for individual contributors but it will be generating a lot of cash as a company.
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Dreamstime - I think the name says everything ;)
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Got a bunch of credit sales in February and they were more than double what I earned on SS - DT is usually not very consistent for me but they've been trending up since late last year for me. Not happy with the google deal - they seem to have nabbed a lot of my images in Jan and Feb assuming they're the $2 subs - even without those sales google sales though (which I'm guessing are a one-time deal?), DT would still beat out SS this month by a mile. DT has beat SS before but never by more that $5-10, this time the difference is huge.
While I'm glad that DT is trending up, I'm concerned that SS earnings are starting to swing widely from one month to the next, where I used to be able to count on a a certain minimum there, last month was my worst month there in years - not just because it was mostly subs, but the number of DLs dropped drastically too. I had almost as many DLs on DT as I did on SS last month and that has never happened before.
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I agree SS is on the downswing. Feb was my worst month there since years ago, but DT still is about half SS earnings.
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I agree SS is on the downswing. Feb was my worst month there since years ago, but DT still is about half SS earnings.
but i like to think it was the IT eff-up (approval emails,etc) that is connected with this downswing that have produced more 0 to 30+ cts days. or am i just being too much faith in ss in the days resembling istock last glory days before the boat sank after the capt and crew left a long time ago ???
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as for dt... only an easter resurrection can bring it out of comatose
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Since the 26th of having those $2 sales I have had nothing. Dead.
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Perhaps primitively, I've traditionally viewed SS, IS and DT as the three main players. So it came as some surprise to me that Adobe chose to buy FT for a truly staggering amount of money.
I think DT was not exploitive enough for Adobe to buy. Getty had already huge problems with the over 20% percentage for exclusives and tried everything to bring this down. FT was their choice because it was the most aggressive, contributor-unfriendly and unfair agency if you think Adobe is the artists friend than dream on................
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Well, here we are a month or more later from my original post. March might be my worst month yet with 3100 images. I am now at $25. Just to refresh, I was making $250 a month, then it trickled down to $200 then something INSTANT happened (perhaps search change) and it dropped to just over $100 a month and has slowly eroded to well under $100 per month. All of this has occurred in the last 6 months. So Baldrick is probably right, DT isn't dying per se, but individual contributors, some anyway, are feeling some real pain. I'm running out of sites to claim that they are the last ones I upload to!!
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as i said before, it was already comatose and unless this Easter brings a resurrection
that being said.
like mantis said, before dt was earning well. when i joined i reached payout in a few months even with a poor portfolio as a beginner. today i am still waiting for the payout and i earn that with ss in two months on the worst months. it's been so long since i cashed out on dt i can't remember what year it was.
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Well, here we are a month or more later from my original post. March might be my worst month yet with 3100 images. I am now at $25. Just to refresh, I was making $250 a month, then it trickled down to $200 then something INSTANT happened (perhaps search change) and it dropped to just over $100 a month and has slowly eroded to well under $100 per month. All of this has occurred in the last 6 months. So Baldrick is probably right, DT isn't dying per se, but individual contributors, some anyway, are feeling some real pain. I'm running out of sites to claim that they are the last ones I upload to!!
Agree. March is terrible. Every year I been in stock March was my BMY. This March feels like a summer month for sales. Not just D, but everywhere.
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I not have much sales that I had. But I have a lot images and vector pending approval. This is the longuest microstock site waiting time ! :'(
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I had my first non sub sale of the month today. Not dead, but not entirely well either.
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For me, DT is my second highest earner. Sales have been holding steady, but I've noticed that RPD has been steadily falling for the past two years.
I'd say FT is the one dying. They used to be my #2, and now they're #4. (#3 is 123RF, and we all know who #1 is.)
me too, and I certainly hope they're not dying cause I kinda love that outfit -- seriously!
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IStock is the one that is dying for me. My best earners are SS, Fot and DT in that order.
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I hope the long waiting times are not a sign of cash flow problems paying reviewers. Always kinda liked DT but they are trending down for me despite the flurry of $2 sales last month.
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IS is my best earner and is NOT dying. SS next and DT a sale every sighting of Elvis riding on the back of the Loch Ness Monster. Truly pathetic.
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My sales on DT are not flat...they are nearly dead. 2350 Online files. They used to be my 2nd biggest earner. So far February barely has a pulse. what?
When DT is same as 123RF you know they are dead from top four.
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Always been behind RF123 for me.....my most overperforming expectations site :o
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DT & 123 are neck and neck for me today. DT used to be $100 a month more, now about the same....$100 a month or so with 3000 images.
123 have never gone up......always been about 100 a month
DT has gone down from ~$200 a month, to $100 a month.
My words "dying" could mean many things...bigger collection, search preferences, fewer customers, and misaligned submissions I suppose.
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Weeks between sales = dead.
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Dreamstime is good seller for me ! Was my worst but now it's the third best seller for may.
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DT is about the only site where I can steadily grow my earning by uploading. Their tiered pricing based on popularity of an image is a great idea. I wish the other sites would take it on too, it would mean more cash for everyone.
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I believe that Microstock is dying ... for photographers.
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DT is hanging in there for me. They have the largest variance month to month. May was below the usual but the three months before that were decent. I hate that they now are mostly subs but at least the subs sales advance images in levels so the rare credit sales usually are for more.
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So, I have finally reached 100$ for payment. At least that's what it says on the front page (earning balance). But when I go to account statistics, total sum is 98.85$. Anyone knows, why this difference?
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Though I have 100 fewer files on DT than on SS, DT has been beating out SS lately which is really surprising. I thought it was a fluke when it happened some months back but it has been steadily beating SS for me by anywhere from 5% to 100% nearly every month since November. My average month on SS has dropped down in that time and my average on DT has risen. I have a lot of level 4 and 5 files - including a few exclusive images - and those credit sales make a difference.
I used to make payout on SS every other month on average (usually 7 payouts a year) and on DT about once every 3 months but the two seem to now be reversed. Without their similars policy I'd probably have another 100 files on DT but I think that the policy works for me since I get a lot of level 4 and 5 sales.
Since you can look it up, I average 4.52 sales per image which seems pretty decent to me. I'd be tempted to put a lot more up there if I wasn't hearing so much doom and gloom from everyone, but, like many here, I think that trying to spread my work to higher earning sites given the overall decline in microstock makes sense.
I'm really shocked at how low DT has dropped in the ranking because even when SS was doing well for me, DT was nearly always a strong number 2.
I'm getting repeats on the $2 subs, so thinking that maybe the google deal requires payment more than once a year - I sure hope so.
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So, I have finally reached 100$ for payment. At least that's what it says on the front page (earning balance). But when I go to account statistics, total sum is 98.85$. Anyone knows, why this difference?
Maybe some of it is referral income and you need to wait a certain time for it to be payable? I often forget to request my earnings there, wish it was automatic like the others. You could send them a message and ask.
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I am on DT since 2006. And may 2015 has been my WME on DT.
I never experienced such a poor performance.
So the downtrend continues ... at least for me.
Unacceptable inspection times, questionable rejections ...
DT, where have you gone? ???
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So, I have finally reached 100$ for payment. At least that's what it says on the front page (earning balance). But when I go to account statistics, total sum is 98.85$. Anyone knows, why this difference?
Maybe some of it is referral income and you need to wait a certain time for it to be payable? I often forget to request my earnings there, wish it was automatic like the others. You could send them a message and ask.
I don't have any referral earnings. I guess I'll have to investigate.
Maybe it's because of taxes or something, or are reported sales already stripped of tax?
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DT is nearly 100% subs for me now, The only time I am really happy to see that a sale there is a sub is when it is a "level 0" sale. The credit sales are nice, but almost like ODD or EL at SS now. I am getting a fair number of $2 subs now, but I think those are "pseudo subs" - where they sell some sort of image pack or something and pretend it is a sub - at least they pay over the .35 for it. It was nice when the higher level files also yielded more for subs sales.
According to the quarterly earnings graph they have bounced around a bit but in general been flat curving to a downward trend since 2011 for me. At that time they were about = to IS with double the files and 30% of SS with a similar # of files.
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DT was the only agency down, May, 2014 -to-May, 2015 , in purchases. The other five were up-way up. 28% up on average on number of purchases and 38% up on revenue. Is that DT's fault? I doubt it. Things shift over time. When I started 4 years ago DT was consistently my top agency. And I bet two or three years down the road I could be saying the same thing again.
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Well it's that bad for me sales are going backwards. I have had $65 in my account for ages and then it goes up to $66. Then it has gone back to $65. What on earth is going on with DT ? >:(
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I see it only is dying for some time just before payout. This was all years i know DT, no change.
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DT is about the only site where I can steadily grow my earning by uploading. Their tiered pricing based on popularity of an image is a great idea. I wish the other sites would take it on too, it would mean more cash for everyone.
They used to pay 50% for all sales, then they changed to the tiered system which pays between 25 and 45%. This tiered system is paying you 10-50% less than they used to.
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DT is about the only site where I can steadily grow my earning by uploading. Their tiered pricing based on popularity of an image is a great idea. I wish the other sites would take it on too, it would mean more cash for everyone.
They used to pay 50% for all sales, then they changed to the tiered system which pays between 25 and 45%. This tiered system is paying you 10-50% less than they used to.
It's the fashion. :( >:(
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DT has simply never grown for me. It performes on a seasaw downward trend. All i have is photos there, i do not provide them videos due to their crummy commissions and pricing.
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Yes i think DT is dying. Last quarter i had a lower revenue than my first quarter on DT 5 years ago with a portfolio now that is 25 times bigger than then.
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DT has simply never grown for me.
+1
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DT is not dying but is already dead...im still uploading for hope
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Actually having quite a good run at the moment ;D
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Actually having quite a good run at the moment ;D
Im glad someone is. Congrats. Lets hope it continues for you.
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Thanks....In my experience it will come to an end and restart again :o at some unspecified time in the future.
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Still zero. Zilch. Nowt. And yesterdays uploads are not even showing. It's a mess.
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My last year of good earnings was 2010, in the years after that earnings shrunk by about 50%.
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they should really lower their payout threshold to $50
it would be in line withother agencies esp seeing they dont have volume sales
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Absolutely dead. Still no sales and still annoyed they deducted some of my earnings for some unknown reason. Since joined Fotolia I have already had loads of sales. Note to self: do not upload anymore images to DT.
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Stopped uploading there a month ago after having my worst month ever (after 9 years of membership and a growing portfolio).
Actually i already sold 5 (five) files this month ... but to conclude: there is no more motivation for me to upload new work.
May be this will change somehow in the future but for now i am done with DT :(
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I'm having mostly credits sales. Not much though, but they are regular. And this month is my second best month at the moment.
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They are hanging in there for me. Mostly subs these days but many are for $2 and enough credit sales to keep them in the top 4 or 5.. Definitely not dying.
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awful..
barely a pulse for me at DT
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Still dead.
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Still dead.
Same for me... :-\
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Thanks....In my experience it will come to an end and restart again :o at some unspecified time in the future.
Dropped off a cliff for me after a good run since late last year. They've never been consistent for me from month to month, but if I look at my average monthly earnings year over year they are actually within a few dollars since 2013 - though my portfolio has grown since then in order to keep up.
They are accepting a lot more files even more similars than in the past.
At least SS rebounded this month.
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Wow - I have actually earned $2 since my last post. I can't contain myself !
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On a seesaw. After a BME in February, this month they are down there with Bigstock and Canstock. Heading for worst month since 2007.
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So, I have finally reached 100$ for payment. At least that's what it says on the front page (earning balance). But when I go to account statistics, total sum is 98.85$. Anyone knows, why this difference?
Server Lag
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As a newbie, it is the only site where I have had no sales despite a good approval rate. I have had more on the lower tiers and those on the right margin below the low earners than DT. Probably a matter of my subject matter being different than than the focus of their clientele.
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3.07 $ - for the entire month !!!!!!
I believe that further comment will be useless !
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i have BME in july, about 60x more $ with same big portfolio, no el. Subs are still problem. DT is not dying.
all pages are normal in july! 8-10% lower sales, thats all. stop complaining
3.07 $ - for the entire month !!!!!!
I believe that further comment will be useless !
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This month DT is doing only about 25% of the average for last year and the worst month in 2.5 years. Number of sales is the lowest since 2010. For me they often have the most variability but the drop for this month is so severe that it seems something has changed. Supposedly they rotate favorability in the search so hopefully I just rotated out of favor and will rotate back in next month, but I am not optimistic.
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Dreamstime is such a strange site to me.
The name is strange. The website is poorly designed. Their upload process for vectors is cringe-worthy. They reject a lot of images as "too simple" and they refuse to let you have more than 1 image of what is supposed to be a set some of the time.
They're really hurting themselves with their contributor model. I have a lot of images that sell well elsewhere, but they refuse to accept it. And when they do accept it, images that sell well elsewhere don't sell well on Dreamstime.
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One thing has changed, recently. Their review process is much faster.
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One thing has changed, recently. Their review process is much faster.
Indeed. Just a couple hours to reject shots as similars when one is horizontal format, and the other vertical....! Oh - and a night shot for poor lighting. ???
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One thing has changed, recently. Their review process is much faster.
Is the only good thing that happened in the last years :-\
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At DT this month i am at the same level as when i started many years ago with 1/100th the portfolio. I am even thinking of skipping them in the uploads from now, it's not worth it any more.
On the DT forum a reaction from Achilles read:
Competition, competition, competition. Remember Dreamstime has the largest customer base in the world, so if your sales are not up it's due to competition. Another contributor or more are getting what you missed. I won't repeat how you can improve, it's been said above. Dreamstime is growing strong, last 12 months were the best in more than 5 years. True, more designers shift to subscriptions, something we expected and prepared in advance to accommodate through all-at-once subscriptions that pay much better royalties than the regular ones.
Alamy,Fotolia,Shutterstock to name a few are far outselling DT for me, every month again and again.
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I like DT. They are very different from most sites. They have a different attitude to similars and older files make up more income there. It's good to have a site that prolongs the life expectancy of images. I have to agree that with the tiered pricing and less subs competition is stronger there. I have seen very consistent growth over the years with them.
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Just had a HORRIBLE month but they have a habit of bouncing back a bit - I do like them because they are a bit different and sell pictures I like rather than some of my more uninspired stock stuff. But never been "top 4" for me.
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I don't like DT. Why ? Because i can never make any payout because I go weeks and weeks without a single download. Abysmal sales all the time. It should be ranked bottom of everything for me.
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I stopped uploading long ago. A good day in SS earns me more than DT in a year.
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Just ended a two week drought with a stonking 28c sale - the worst run I can remember for a long time
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Amazingly, DT is actually outperforming SS and everyone else this month. It's early days of course, but the first five days of August at DT have already beat all of July. It may be a fluke, or it may be signs of a real change.
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As newbie, DT is only place where I have more then 20 images for sale for a couple of weeks at least where I have 0 sales. Having a lot more sales from those under the low earner category here than them.
The blogs by contributors annoy me.
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For me, DT is very slow... I barely sell a picture in a couple of days :-\
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Amazingly, DT is actually outperforming SS and everyone else this month. It's early days of course, but the first five days of August at DT have already beat all of July. It may be a fluke, or it may be signs of a real change.
They go up and down so much for me - I've had months like yours where they come close to or even beat out SS, usually my best micro site (though I have 1/3rd few images on DT), and then others where sales are so slow. They've been like that for me from the beginning, so I don't think they're dying, they are just very different than SS. SS is really the only micro site for me that's (generally) consistent.
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if dt is a person, we attended his funeral many years ago.
if we dug up his coffin, it will be nothing but maggots and bones.
it's best we leave it for halloween or day of the dead to ever mention dt .
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Amazingly, DT is actually outperforming SS and everyone else this month. It's early days of course, but the first five days of August at DT have already beat all of July. It may be a fluke, or it may be signs of a real change.
They go up and down so much for me - I've had months like yours where they come close to or even beat out SS, usually my best micro site (though I have 1/3rd few images on DT), and then others where sales are so slow. They've been like that for me from the beginning, so I don't think they're dying, they are just very different than SS. SS is really the only micro site for me that's (generally) consistent.
I barely sell a picture in a couple of months.
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Amazingly, DT is actually outperforming SS and everyone else this month. It's early days of course, but the first five days of August at DT have already beat all of July. It may be a fluke, or it may be signs of a real change.
They go up and down so much for me - I've had months like yours where they come close to or even beat out SS, usually my best micro site (though I have 1/3rd few images on DT), and then others where sales are so slow. They've been like that for me from the beginning, so I don't think they're dying, they are just very different than SS. SS is really the only micro site for me that's (generally) consistent.
I barely sell a picture in a couple of months.
Same thing for me >:(
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I think I'm done with DT. 1 sale for the entire month so far despite having some of my most popular images on there and having them ranked highly in the search results.
I've earned more with Zazzle with 1/20 of the effort I've put into DT. That clearly deserves more of my attention.
Despite the high traffic numbers, they seem to have very few paying customers.
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Been with Dreamstime since 2007 and it used to be a great earner but something happened about a year back, I don't know what but the site just isn't the same anymore. The subs are a down out killer at least for me that is.
The few reports coming in on a good day/month earnings often comes from fairly new people with small portfolios.
This is my observation anyway.
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I'm actually having one of my better months on DT. Several multi-credit sales added to the usual sub sales have made me a happy woman.
So… no complaints at the moment from this corner of the world.
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DT used to be good but has died the past few months - almost all subs nowadays and credit sales mostly low value. This month was looking terrible until the past few days when it suddenly picked up a bit. I hope it means a switch but it might just be luck of the draw.
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DT has felt like the site that took the longest for me to get traction on as a newbie. SS, Big Stock, Fotolia, etc, seemed to have sales rolling, or trickling in and all have provided me multiple payouts so far. IS has been slow for actual credit sales, but the partner program and subs make it seem like stuff (whether or good or bad) is happening there. After over a year of selling on DT, we finally qualified for our first payout there this month.
Aside from the subjective feeling of it being slow, it looks to be performing better than other sites, though. I make more profit per photo (we sell video, too, and I am not accounting for that here) on DT than on can stock, 123, Veer, Pond5, and Envato. If it weren't for an extended license sale on big stock this year, DT would probably be making a better return per image than there as well.
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DT has felt like the site that took the longest for me to get traction on as a newbie. SS, Big Stock, Fotolia, etc, seemed to have sales rolling, or trickling in and all have provided me multiple payouts so far. IS has been slow for actual credit sales, but the partner program and subs make it seem like stuff (whether or good or bad) is happening there. After over a year of selling on DT, we finally qualified for our first payout there this month.
Aside from the subjective feeling of it being slow, it looks to be performing better than other sites, though. I make more profit per photo (we sell video, too, and I am not accounting for that here) on DT than on can stock, 123, Veer, Pond5, and Envato. If it weren't for an extended license sale on big stock this year, DT would probably be making a better return per image than there as well.
Do you see any life with your video on DT? I have read where they practically give away your clips for a couple of bucks, which is why i never uploaded my video there. In fact i closed revostock and dissolve and an increasing my prices on p5 to align with the other agencies.
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The video sales are pretty small, yes. And they are rare. Right now, our video collections is very, very, basic. No real production cost to speak of, limited equipment. So we are submitting our current content there. But content that we produce in the future may not go there. I think we've had 5-6 DT video sales, all with profit less than $10. The smallest profits have come from web-only usage.
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The video sales are pretty small, yes. And they are rare. Right now, our video collections is very, very, basic. No real production cost to speak of, limited equipment. So we are submitting our current content there. But content that we produce in the future may not go there. I think we've had 5-6 DT video sales, all with profit less than $10. The smallest profits have come from web-only usage.
Good to know. August is shaping up to be among the worst I've had there in seven years...about $70 with 3200 images.
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I really don't think they get much business anymore. Place is deserted. No doubt the subs are aiding DT but for the members it's just a slow and painful death. Been there for seven years with 8000 images and never seen it this bad.
Might be wrong but todays micro seems to be all about SS and FT with DT and IS just draining away.
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I really don't think they get much business anymore. Place is deserted. No doubt the subs are aiding DT but for the members it's just a slow and painful death. Been there for seven years with 8000 images and never seen it this bad.
Might be wrong but todays micro seems to be all about SS and FT with DT and IS just draining away.
WOW. Congrats on a big port. I agree that sales are diluted by subs. I used to get waves of OD sales but that has slowed to just a couple every week. The rest are subs. I completely agree with you that DT is still probably making out with subs, but the contributor isn't.
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One data point I know, but I'm having a BME at DT. More than double July, and more than double last August. Year over year I'm up 40%. No idea if September will continue the trend, but at least for me there's life in DT yet.
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One data point I know, but I'm having a BME at DT. More than double July, and more than double last August. Year over year I'm up 40%. No idea if September will continue the trend, but at least for me there's life in DT yet.
That's good to hear and congratulations on a ridiculously large portfolio there!
Have the recent sales been off long-time popular images or newer uploads?
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One data point I know, but I'm having a BME at DT. More than double July, and more than double last August. Year over year I'm up 40%. No idea if September will continue the trend, but at least for me there's life in DT yet.
That's good to hear and congratulations on a ridiculously large portfolio there!
Have the recent sales been off long-time popular images or newer uploads?
Mostly newer uploads, and often multiple images from the same shoot. DT's relaxing of its similars rejection policy has changed the nature of my sales there, and for the better.
To be specific, 84% of this month's sales have been from images I uploaded in 2013 or later. 37% were 2015 uploads, 27% were from 2014 and 20% were from 2013.
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One data point I know, but I'm having a BME at DT. More than double July, and more than double last August. Year over year I'm up 40%. No idea if September will continue the trend, but at least for me there's life in DT yet.
That's good to hear and congratulations on a ridiculously large portfolio there!
Have the recent sales been off long-time popular images or newer uploads?
Mostly newer uploads, and often multiple images from the same shoot. DT's relaxing of its similars rejection policy has changed the nature of my sales there, and for the better.
To be specific, 84% of this month's sales have been from images I uploaded in 2013 or later. 37% were 2015 uploads, 27% were from 2014 and 20% were from 2013.
Good info. That explains my poor sales. Hardly uploaded anything this year. Maybe you give me a little motivation.
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I really don't think they get much business anymore. Place is deserted. No doubt the subs are aiding DT but for the members it's just a slow and painful death. Been there for seven years with 8000 images and never seen it this bad.
Might be wrong but todays micro seems to be all about SS and FT with DT and IS just draining away.
WOW. Congrats on a big port. I agree that sales are diluted by subs. I used to get waves of OD sales but that has slowed to just a couple every week. The rest are subs. I completely agree with you that DT is still probably making out with subs, but the contributor isn't.
I know! same here plenty of good credit sales Can't remember but some time back they made some deal or something? and ever since that it's gone downhill, so much so that speaking for myself it's not even worth uploading anymore.
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I remember when I was started about 5 years ago. I had around of 20 photos, but almost every day I was selling something. I was upset because I must had over 50 pictures so I can become exclusive. How many have changed since then. And changes were not well. It was a good thing that I could not become exclusive and I woke up quickly from "the dream"...
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Weeks on the same balance in my account with 979 files. Why DT is in the big 4 here is beyond me. It's just c**p
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I'm wondering the same question. My all time earnings are better on bigstock and my alltime 123rf earnings are just a little bit less of those on dreamstime.
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When this thread start I was defending DT, but after August, which was WME and totally pitiful, I will have to change my mind. DT is going way down hill. They used to be my fave site for some years, but now barely paying anything.
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If you take out the fluke BME in February, DT has been steady at the same level since the end of 2012, when it dropped to about 70% of previous levels. Before then, it was almost always my #2 behind SS. Since then, it has fallen to competing with the bottom of my big 8 on a par with Canstock and Bigstock. Top tier to a solid mid-tier
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DT has never been consistent for me, but August was my BME there with a few decent credit sales besides the subs and an EL-1 year exclusive that netted me $375 for one license; I occasional earn that much for a single traditional RM license, but it was a nice surprise to earn it from one of the micros. I know that's a one-time thing but it made for a great month. Without that it would have been below average.
I have a handful of exclusive images on DT, glad I set the exclusive sales prices high.
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I'm making now the some money with 6000 images as I did in 2005 with 30 images. Oh I love this business model lol!
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If you take out the fluke BME in February, DT has been steady at the same level since the end of 2012, when it dropped to about 70% of previous levels. Before then, it was almost always my #2 behind SS. Since then, it has fallen to competing with the bottom of my big 8 on a par with Canstock and Bigstock. Top tier to a solid mid-tier
Ditto. March 12th 2012 to be exact. same as SS. like a light switch. FT is the only site Im watching currently. lots of sales.
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I'm making now the some money with 6000 images as I did in 2005 with 30 images. Oh I love this business model lol!
It's a sickening feeling isn't it? and the new kids on the block go whoHoo for every Nickel. Little do they know how it was at the time.
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Agree 100%. Adobe/FT have really got it together and they are stable. SS can on a good day still produce lots of money but shakey, next day can be terrible.
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DT has never been consistent for me, but August was my BME there
That was my experience too, and previous months were holding steady. I'm actually happy with DT right now.
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DT has never been consistent for me, but August was my BME there
That was my experience too, and previous months were holding steady. I'm actually happy with DT right now.
strange...
completely opposite here. Pretty steady over the years, but august WME. Less than half my average sales
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DT has never been consistent for me, but August was my BME there
That was my experience too, and previous months were holding steady. I'm actually happy with DT right now.
strange...
completely opposite here. Pretty steady over the years, but august WME. Less than half my average sales
Exactly my experience.
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Same here, one of the worst months...
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normal sales on dreamstime ( 14 days very strong then next 14 days little slower )
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Oh what a surprise. My balance is still exactly the same.
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They are pushing subs, packages, same as SS. Thats why credit sales are scarse. They earn more we earn less.
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They are pushing subs, packages, same as SS. Thats why credit sales are scarse. They earn more we earn less.
Right. And I feel it, even more recently. In the last month my "wave" is 1-3 OD then 20-30 subs. My income at this point is 50% to 60% down per month.
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Wow - $1 earned.
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Wow - $1 earned.
You're lucky !
I'm used to get 0.35 $
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Look upon it this way. DT, is the only one of the main four agencies which haven't had a multi million dollar offer. Now either they have had offers but turned them down or they simply haven't, in which case it must be very frustrating for the management.
So what do they do, well instead of making things better for regular contributors, making sure at least most members are kept happy, they do the kardinal mistake of dollar chasing, desperation, pushing subs, packages all the way. What happens? in the end everyone is unhappy, hence threads like these all over the place.
Not too clever an advertisment!
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really bad sales i get 10-15 sales in a month...with 800 pictures
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Look upon it this way. DT, is the only one of the main four agencies which haven't had a multi million dollar offer. Now either they have had offers but turned them down or they simply haven't, in which case it must be very frustrating for the management.
So what do they do, well instead of making things better for regular contributors, making sure at least most members are kept happy, they do the kardinal mistake of dollar chasing, desperation, pushing subs, packages all the way. What happens? in the end everyone is unhappy, hence threads like these all over the place.
Not too clever an advertisment!
Agree. I am one person who used to shoot as many images as I can, set up the studio, buy props, shoot, upload. Now, I no longer do that. It is simply not worth my time. I have transitioned more to video and do not support DT at all there, so I am one data point of a contributor who has stopped shooting "concept" images. If I am bored I might shoot for a day in the studio but now it is with my GH4 mostly. I can't imagine that there aren't more contributors who are doing what I am doing or just becoming demotivated to shoot for agency gain at contributor expense.
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Look upon it this way. DT, is the only one of the main four agencies which haven't had a multi million dollar offer. Now either they have had offers but turned them down or they simply haven't, in which case it must be very frustrating for the management.
So what do they do, well instead of making things better for regular contributors, making sure at least most members are kept happy, they do the kardinal mistake of dollar chasing, desperation, pushing subs, packages all the way. What happens? in the end everyone is unhappy, hence threads like these all over the place.
Not too clever an advertisment!
Agree. I am one person who used to shoot as many images as I can, set up the studio, buy props, shoot, upload. Now, I no longer do that. It is simply not worth my time. I have transitioned more to video and do not support DT at all there, so I am one data point of a contributor who has stopped shooting "concept" images. If I am bored I might shoot for a day in the studio but now it is with my GH4 mostly. I can't imagine that there aren't more contributors who are doing what I am doing or just becoming demotivated to shoot for agency gain at contributor expense.
Exact same here. Count me for data point #2.
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I've been with DT for 13 months.
I've been with 123RF for 3 months.
Yesterday my total number of downloads on 123RF exceeded my total number of downloads on DT.
Insane!
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This thread is proving to be true. This month (September 17) I am at $25 for the month. I will be lucky to hit $50 when just a few months ago I was in the $175-$200 range. Total disaster there.
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I have 1129 images on DT. My last sale there was September 3rd...a sub for .35 cents.
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Not dying, but interface is really a pain. Change from editorial to commercial and "sell the rights" is checked in by default. I don't want this, and i have to spend time to search for these accidents
p.s. just checked - this checkbox is always checked by default. Before i didn't need to verify this, it was always unchecked. They go by FT way, i see. Very bad
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I have 1129 images on DT. My last sale there was September 3rd...a sub for .35 cents.
My port is similar sized - 2 x .35 cents this month - embarassing really!
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I reach payout every couple of years there.
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After several days of unchecked "sell the rights" today i see it checked again! DT==FT? It is clear that checkbox cannot check/uncheck on its own. I noticed that this comes not always. Submission of several images can pass normally and then for next i have all boxes checked. DT - i never wanted to sell the rights!
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Haven´t sold a picture for 5 weeks - with roundabout 400 in port.
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So my month in September ended at $80, one half of my norm, third straight month. Bummer.
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Still stone dead. No sales for weeks.
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October: $63
My pattern: $185, $160, $180, $150, $175, $155, $80, $85, $78, $90, $63.
So between $155 and $80 is when I they made a change. At about $78 I emailed them and that's when they told me they made a search change to make it fair for everyone and that they had to distribute the sales more fairly. This is not a case of crowd sourcing per se, it is an intentional change to give others sales who may or may not deserve it, may or may not have put in the blood, sweat & tears to develop a 4,000 asset portfolio, whatever. Bottom line, this is the new norm.
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DT is really going downhill as well as FT and 123 for me. It is a slow downward pattern. If I upload more it does not matter. I agree with mantis, why spend money on props and time when it doesn't even make a difference. I do not upload to them anymore now.
SS was "the one" for me but since I have signed the contract, I do not upload to them anymore.
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DT has always had a larger month-to-month variance than most other agencies but the past few months it really has gone downhill as others have noted - my experience is very similar to Mantis except my numbers are lower. I suspect the lack of any major deals has hurt them - they had that Google deal but that does not seem to be generating anything long term (for contributors anyway). Their similars policy also has hurt them - that was a nice idea originally, to keep the database clean, but it seems that buyers have spoken and they prefer tons of choices with an efficient search algorithm to eliminate the chaff. The levels system at DT also is nice when you get higher-level credit sales but unfortunately those have become very rare - it is now mostly 35-cent subs with the occasional $2 sub sale. I hope they can turn things around but will not be holding my breath.
I haven't submitted anything to stock sites except Canva and the occasional video since January - once SS started rejecting everything it was no longer worth the effort. I might do more once the weather turns bad if I get bored but in the meantime am enjoying other activities - I spent the weekend at a swing dance workshop and left my camera gear at home.
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I spent the weekend at a swing dance workshop and left my camera gear at home.
Bet that was fun!
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Yes, it was definitely fun but now I have a sore knee - it was at at local university and I can't keep up with the young kids like I used to!
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October: $63
My pattern: $185, $160, $180, $150, $175, $155, $80, $85, $78, $90, $63.
So between $155 and $80 is when I they made a change. At about $78 I emailed them and that's when they told me they made a search change to make it fair for everyone and that they had to distribute the sales more fairly. This is not a case of crowd sourcing per se, it is an intentional change to give others sales who may or may not deserve it, may or may not have put in the blood, sweat & tears to develop a 4,000 asset portfolio, whatever. Bottom line, this is the new norm.
That's correct. I stopped uploading to them long ago and only have 400 files there.
But in recent months I have seen increase in revenue (2x what it used to be).
With DT socialism, the less images you have, the higher the RPI. It's counter-productive.
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For me DT has been okay,
with sales every day. Just had 6 sales per day.
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Its okay
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For me DT has been okay,
with sales every day. Just had 6 sales per day.
If you set your goals low, you will be happy. Do you like $30 a month or less from an agency that is worse every month. Don't give up until they drag you down to the bottom and take advantage of your work for every penny they can squeese out of you. DT is dying.
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For me DT has been okay,
with sales every day. Just had 6 sales per day.
If you set your goals low, you will be happy. Do you like $30 a month or less from an agency that is worse every month. Don't give up until they drag you down to the bottom and take advantage of your work for every penny they can squeese out of you. DT is dying.
Don't assume that everyone's results are the same as yours and you know what they earn for some people DT may be very successful.
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October was one of the worst months on DT...
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2 downloads in november ???
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I started submitting 4 years ago with 4 agencies. DT was far and away my
most successful agency. Even with a tiny portfolio at the time (200-400) I
was selling images everyday.
Today with approx. 2500 images in my portfolio I may, if I'm lucky, sell one image
a week. What changed?
The assumption that our portfolios are the perfect fit for ALL agencies, of course,
is naive and incorrect. In the early days when I was first submitting, the vast
majority of submissions were "big city" themes. Its since been replaced with a
"rural/country" theme.
As far as numbers and not income, which agencies have taken over DT's numbers? Surprisingly, DepositPhoto! Followed by 123rf, and then IStock.
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If there is one good think about the (current) DT, it is the TIFF and Level5 sales, happening from time to time, netting 6-9 USD each.
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I started submitting 4 years ago with 4 agencies. DT was far and away my
most successful agency. Even with a tiny portfolio at the time (200-400) I
was selling images everyday.
Today with approx. 2500 images in my portfolio I may, if I'm lucky, sell one image
a week. What changed?
The assumption that our portfolios are the perfect fit for ALL agencies, of course,
is naive and incorrect. In the early days when I was first submitting, the vast
majority of submissions were "big city" themes. Its since been replaced with a
"rural/country" theme.
As far as numbers and not income, which agencies have taken over DT's numbers? Surprisingly, DepositPhoto! Followed by 123rf, and then IStock.
Well I wish I could sell one a week. That's good going. I have a lot of new images I could upload to DT but what's the point ? And why with it being so poor these days is it ranked as "top tier" ? I think this site needs to update it's ranking.
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DT is doing well for me. So far November there is on a pace to be down about 11% from 2014. But that is pretty good because:
1. I stopped doing new images over a year ago
2. All of the other sites, except Fotolia, are down more than DT
DT remains in the Top Tier for me.
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A few days ago, I got an email from DT that someone wants to buy one of my photos as P-EL and if I agree, I should enable that checkbox that allows EL licensing. So I did that witihin half an hour after I received e-mail. But my earning balance hasn't changed since then so obviously buyer didn't buy that photo (yet?).
So I'm curious if someone has similar experience, how long does it take after enabling EL licensing and actually receiving money.
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now i have about 10 downloads on DT every month.
and many are 35 cents.
it used to be much better
like downloads worth 8 dollars every day.
so i dont bother upload to them unless im drunk and have nothing to do.
I think there are 4 months of uploads that I have not sent in the DT direction.
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A few days ago, I got an email from DT that someone wants to buy one of my photos as P-EL and if I agree, I should enable that checkbox that allows EL licensing. So I did that witihin half an hour after I received e-mail. But my earning balance hasn't changed since then so obviously buyer didn't buy that photo (yet?).
So I'm curious if someone has similar experience, how long does it take after enabling EL licensing and actually receiving money.
I have had at least 20 of these requests, did the same thing you did and not one of them has ever purchased the image.
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Thanks or the info. I was already celebrating my first EL on DT. I don't understand, why would anyone send EL request and then not buying file.
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A few days ago, I got an email from DT that someone wants to buy one of my photos as P-EL and if I agree, I should enable that checkbox that allows EL licensing. So I did that witihin half an hour after I received e-mail. But my earning balance hasn't changed since then so obviously buyer didn't buy that photo (yet?).
So I'm curious if someone has similar experience, how long does it take after enabling EL licensing and actually receiving money.
I have had at least 20 of these requests, did the same thing you did and not one of them has ever purchased the image.
Actually, I had one of these about two weeks ago and the EL sale did go through. I was amazed, because I'd had two other requests like this in the past and neither of them produced anything.
For me, third time was the charm.
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How long it was between request and actual sale?
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How long it was between request and actual sale?
Right away. I think I picked up the request one evening and the sale showed up the next morning. It was only $15 or so, but better than the usual payoff at DT.
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Thanks, I guess I'll forget this EL would be sale. And I already bought some extra chocholate at store.
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A few days ago, I got an email from DT that someone wants to buy one of my photos as P-EL and if I agree, I should enable that checkbox that allows EL licensing. So I did that witihin half an hour after I received e-mail. But my earning balance hasn't changed since then so obviously buyer didn't buy that photo (yet?).
So I'm curious if someone has similar experience, how long does it take after enabling EL licensing and actually receiving money.
I have had at least 20 of these requests, did the same thing you did and not one of them has ever purchased the image.
Good to know. I never bothered to change my setting for these requests. Glad to know I'm not missing anything.
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A few days ago, I got an email from DT that someone wants to buy one of my photos as P-EL and if I agree, I should enable that checkbox that allows EL licensing. So I did that witihin half an hour after I received e-mail. But my earning balance hasn't changed since then so obviously buyer didn't buy that photo (yet?).
So I'm curious if someone has similar experience, how long does it take after enabling EL licensing and actually receiving money.
I have had at least 20 of these requests, did the same thing you did and not one of them has ever purchased the image.
People are like that. They "want to" buy and then they just disappear. It's not Dreamstime 's fault.
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A few days ago, I got an email from DT that someone wants to buy one of my photos as P-EL and if I agree, I should enable that checkbox that allows EL licensing. So I did that witihin half an hour after I received e-mail. But my earning balance hasn't changed since then so obviously buyer didn't buy that photo (yet?).
So I'm curious if someone has similar experience, how long does it take after enabling EL licensing and actually receiving money.
I have had at least 20 of these requests, did the same thing you did and not one of them has ever purchased the image.
People are like that. They "want to" buy and then they just disappear. It's not Dreamstime 's fault.
No thats not their fault. But what is their fault is the intentionl reduction of royalty volume so they can redistribute the income to make it more "fair". My income is literally cut in half and their response is what i just said. They arent even trying to hide it.
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I keep getting emails from them updating me on the latest files of mine they have deleted from the catalogue. Mmmmm. Lovely.
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I keep getting emails from them updating me on the latest files of mine they have deleted from the catalogue. Mmmmm. Lovely.
Really? If this is true then they are culling the collection and taking the 4-year no sales thing further. I can expect a good chunk of files to be canned. DT really lost any ounce of respect I had for them whe they did their income redistribution thing six months ago. It cut my earnings in half.
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I keep getting emails from them updating me on the latest files of mine they have deleted from the catalogue. Mmmmm. Lovely.
Really? If this is true then they are culling the collection and taking the 4-year no sales thing further. I can expect a good chunk of files to be canned. DT really lost any ounce of respect I had for them whe they did their income redistribution thing six months ago. It cut my earnings in half.
Nothings changed for me. I still get emails giving me thirty days notice regarding non-sellers over 4 years old. I can either keep online or donate to their free section. If you do not respond to the email your chosen default action happens (keep on line in my case). You just preset this option on your account. If you do click the link on the email you get the two options there and then to choose from.
I always keep on line for the very good reason that I often get sales on older images that have never sold before (probaly more relevant to editorial images than, say, a sliced tomato on white). Regards, David.
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I always keep on line for the very good reason that I often get sales on older images that have never sold before
I've noticed that too. Really odd, but definitely not an incentive to delete an image, especially if it's one that has sold well elsewhere.
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I keep getting emails from them updating me on the latest files of mine they have deleted from the catalogue. Mmmmm. Lovely.
Really? If this is true then they are culling the collection and taking the 4-year no sales thing further. I can expect a good chunk of files to be canned. DT really lost any ounce of respect I had for them whe they did their income redistribution thing six months ago. It cut my earnings in half.
Nothings changed for me. I still get emails giving me thirty days notice regarding non-sellers over 4 years old. I can either keep online or donate to their free section. If you do not respond to the email your chosen default action happens (keep on line in my case). You just preset this option on your account. If you do click the link on the email you get the two options there and then to choose from.
I always keep on line for the very good reason that I often get sales on older images that have never sold before (probaly more relevant to editorial images than, say, a sliced tomato on white). Regards, David.
I get those too but I was referencing Herg saying that they are deleting his images from the catalogue. To me that means they are deleting some of his approved images from the DT collection.
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I think you are right. Reading the email I can see they haven't actually deleted them as such. I quick read it and assumed they had deleted.
This is an automated notification. Your portfolio includes images that have been online for more than 4 years with no downloads up to the present. In order to keep up with the current standards we believe they should be removed from our commercial database, allowing fresh content to be more visible.
The following action options are available for you to decide:
- donate the image to the free section (default action) which can provide significant portfolio exposure and increase your sales; images can be disabled at any time later.
- keep the image online.
In order to review the images and take the desired action, please access the link below.
If no action is taken, the default one is automatically selected.
Review the images
My option was set by default to donate (now set to keep) so all my deleted files are out there fre. Is there any way I can pull them from being free ?
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Herg, as far as I know there's no way of reversing them from free to back on sale -though there would be no harm in emailing them to ask. Assuming you do not want your images offered for free, you have the option of disabling them (they'll no longer be available for free and will then eventually auto delete). In theory, you could then re-upload them as new files -though they'd have to go through the review process again. Personally, I would check that they are OK with this first.
Worth noting perhaps that as well as the email they send you the exact same message is also posted to the "comments" area of your account on the site. Sometimes emails go astray so a regular check on comments could be worthwhile. Regards, David.
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So how do I find where the images of mine (if any) are free ?
DT are now rejecting for silly reasons like "you already have several similar images in your portfolio" when in fact the 2 different images of the same subject are the only ones I have submitted. They reject both. Why not reject one and accept the other ?
Another rejection is the only image of this subject in my portfolio rejected for having "several of the same in my port" I give up with DT.
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Topic: Do you believe that DT is dying?
For me: YES
Middle Tier with Earnings Rating 17,3: NEVER (It was maybe long ago in last year)
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Stop everything !!! I had 41 downloads today!!!!!! All subs...but it made me feel like it's Shutterstock for a day.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Not dying - dead, unfortunately. So far this month I have had four sub sales totaling $1.40 - that it the worst probably since my first month with them in 2009. It's too bad. I liked their levels system where you could get decent amounts for higher-level images, and it makes sense to charge more for popular images. I appreciated their similars policy and deleting images that haven't sold in four years in an attempt to keep the database clean and relevant. Of course I hated getting similars rejections but at least I can understand the goal. Unfortunately for DT (and us!), SS's approach of having a huge database that is sorted out with an efficient algorithm and uniform prices for images regardless of downloads seems to be more popular with buyers. DT had a decent bump last year with their Google deal but that appears to be a one-off thing and the ELs from that deal so far were few and at only $6 not particularly good for contributors - not the boon we were led to expect, anyway. I hope they can turn it around and get back in the game (without diminishing contributor returns!) but am not optimistic. Glad the previous poster had a good day there today - hope that becomes the norm.
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The usual crappy zero, zilch downloads continue into 2016.
DT SHOULD NOT BE RANKING IN THE TOP TIER. >:(
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used to low download but everything 1,5 2,3 3,5 dollar, sometimes even more...now only few sales at 0,35 cent....is dying? yes. in my opinion all the micro industry is dying. probably stock shutter and fotolia will stay for the future with very low per capita earning for photographers. time to go other way, macro, rm, stocks...better a sale sometimes who bring real money, than all these 0,35 cent that bring nothing
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The volume isn't the best but for me the payouts have been better. $2 - $6 with a few subs throw in the mix. I seem more likely to get these $2+ commissions these days.
The only ones I bother with these days is SS and DT. SS will tosses me a nice $50-$120 sale once in a while which DT never does but lately SS has been crap. December's earnings on SS was a quarter of a typical month. This month DT is actually better than SS.
When I first started I was exclusive with DT. Then when I branched out my sales there fell hard. But my SS earnings made up for it.
These days I'm concentrating on fine art anyway and just tossing the obviously stock images over to SS and DT if they aren't good enough for RM agencies. Looking at my 1099s, microstock is making up such a small percentage of my over all earnings.
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My MISC 1099's are shrinking and shrinking every year. It is funny back in 2011-2012 I had huge MISC 1099's from DT and FT, maybe next year I may not even "qualify" for one - (over $600). It is getting worse and worse...
I stopped uploading to DT many months ago.
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My MISC 1099's are shrinking and shrinking every year. It is funny back in 2011-2012 I had huge MISC 1099's from DT and FT, maybe next year I may not even "qualify" for one - (over $600). It is getting worse and worse...
I stopped uploading to DT many months ago.
I just looked at mine (it came this weekend) and I am down from $1800 in 2014 to $1200 in 2015. in micro stock, $600 is a lot of money...$50 a month.
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Abysmal. I am lucky if my balance goes up by a few cents every few weeks.
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Clearly something happened to the search engine in the first Q of 2010. I'd say that it took me roughly 3 years to reach to a point where the tech guys at DT decided that from then on my sales would drop slowly, giving space to newcomers to climb to their peak as well. Uploads have been steady throwout the years.
My RPD has been way above $1 since Q2 2008 until the beginning of this year.
I'm still uploading but my best work is not to be sent to DT anymore. Not worth it. Now I'll work hard for sites that reward my effort. And there are still a few.
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Clearly something happened to the search engine in the first Q of 2010. I'd say that it took me roughly 3 years to reach to a point where the tech guys at DT decided that from then on my sales would drop slowly, giving space to newcomers to climb to their peak as well. Uploads have been steady throwout the years.
My RPD has been way above $1 since Q2 2008 until the beginning of this year.
I'm still uploading but my best work is not to be sent to DT anymore. Not worth it. Now I'll work hard for sites that reward my effort. And there are still a few.
Similar graph here peaking in 2011. Fotolia peaked in 2010
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Similar here too but mine peaked in 2009 and I haven't uploaded much because I was bored of their similars rejections. Just goes to show that uploading new images makes very little difference.
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Similar here too but mine peaked in 2009 and I haven't uploaded much because I was bored of their similars rejections. Just goes to show that uploading new images makes very little difference.
I'm not a prolific uploader either. You can see on my graph the line right at the bottom is my uploads.
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Yes, I did see that but ccaetano said that uploads have been steady throughout the years, so my observation is that uploading doesn't make much difference to downloads.
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You don't get the download spikes that we used to see when uploading. Very little of my new stuff sells on DT whereas at Fotolia there are always a couple in each batch that take off quite quickly. Even more so than SS these days.
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Similar here too but mine peaked in 2009 and I haven't uploaded much because I was bored of their similars rejections. Just goes to show that uploading new images makes very little difference.
Very similar! That's impressive.
Yes, I did see that but ccaetano said that uploads have been steady throughout the years, so my observation is that uploading doesn't make much difference to downloads.
Yes, that's what I think. The great majority of the downloads are from old or very old images. Very few downloads from the hundreds of images I have uploaded last year.
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My experience with DT is the same. Ive been contributing for quite a few yrs. its always been my 2nd top producer. since the middle of 2015 sales have sunk and seems no help in sight. i've posted on their own message board asking for advise on portfolio exposure ( as sooo many images go without views) and not a single seasoned member can offer advise. leads me to believe there are no seasoned successful members anymore. with contributors like wavebreakmedia who has oversaturated the market, i wonder if the little guy can stand a chance.
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yes completely dead....still have always 100 dollar minimum earning till december....januar very bad...february 4 sales at 0,35 dollar....worst of all agency even restock is making better....they messed up or i'm completely out the engine...
i will keep uploading till jiune to see if something happen....then i will decide what to do...maybe i will keep only shutter fotolia and stock for some thousand a year without doing nothing.
i'm full time back to RM AND ASSIGNMENT WORK ONLY. RF AND MICROSTOCK IS GOOD ONLY FOR OWNER AND SOME BIG PROACTION company.
living with micro stock is now simply impossible...even grocery store guy earn much more now.
this is also reflected in the uploaded photos i see in the agency,. very low quality.
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yes completely dead....still have always 100 dollar minimum earning till december....januar very bad...february 4 sales at 0,35 dollar....worst of all agency even restock is making better....they messed up or i'm completely out the engine...
i will keep uploading till jiune to see if something happen....then i will decide what to do...maybe i will keep only shutter fotolia and stock for some thousand a year without doing nothing.
i'm full time back to RM AND ASSIGNMENT WORK ONLY. RF AND MICROSTOCK IS GOOD ONLY FOR OWNER AND SOME BIG PROACTION company.
living with micro stock is now simply impossible...even grocery store guy earn much more now.
this is also reflected in the uploaded photos i see in the agency,. very low quality.
I now make more on RF 123. DT is now one of those agencies that I look at once a month to see if I "break $50". That shift in search they admitted to has really hurt a lot of contributors. As I mentioned my income mysteriously got cut in half from one month to the next. When I emailed them, the answer was at least honest. "We changed the search to make it fair for everyone to make some money, regardless of port size." At least we know the cause, or major partial cause, as to why they have gone down the toilet.
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i will upload only the photos i will garbage otherwise from now on...i have thousand of photos i will put in these falling industry to see if i can go back at least to 800-1000 dollar per month.
back full time to rm agency.