Well, please let me express my opinion. Dreamstime has proven to be one of the most consistent agencies in the stock market for me, especially since the beginning of 2008. Plus, I believe it is also known as an agency that rarely raises big controversies among members when new policies are implemented, which, in all honesty, I can't see on the their most direct competitors message boards (i.e. FL & SS). Further more, I guess it is also fair to say that they have been very innovative regardless all these market bumps, and still surprinsingly keeping this growing pace. And finally, management and support are also definitely worth of a note on their high professionalism. I only wish FL, for instance,  could follow the example.
By the way, DT is my second big earner, but I feel it's quite fair to wish all agencies could be so consistent and trustful.
Regards,

Dreamstimes ROCKS!!!

All indications are that this will be a BME for me - need only about $3 to get there!

DT was always been my second earner after SS. I just love it.

DT is also doing well for me. Its still #3 overall, but I'm seeing constant growth there, unlike IS which is dropping at the moment.

Seriously?!  You guys would rather deal with StockXpert than DT??

Are we talking about the same StockXpert that put our images on photos.com and was giving away EL usage for .30 subscription price without even offering an opt out (until half their contributors threatened to pull their portfolios)?
And is this the same StockXpert that failed to record or pay royalties on sales from photos.com for over three weeks (supposedly because their ONLY PROGRAMMER was on vacation!?), until (again) contributors raised hell and demanded payment? 

Dreamstime has NEVER pulled anything underhanded with their contributors and has recorded sales and paid on time, every time, without hassle. 

There is absolutely no comparison between the two sites.  At least none that is favorable to StockXpert.

Don't you guys understand?  I guess not. it's about you not the sites and, what you upload.

Sure, it's about what we upload. Literally. In the end, your fantastic port (and I mean it) probably won't sell the same way oin every site. And proporttionally and comparatively, sure you can trust more and expect more from one than another. Unless you are stating they all can be put on the same bag

Seriously?!  You guys would rather deal with StockXpert than DT??

Are we talking about the same StockXpert that put our images on photos.com and was giving away EL usage for .30 subscription price without even offering an opt out (until half their contributors threatened to pull their portfolios)?
And is this the same StockXpert that failed to record or pay royalties on sales from photos.com for over three weeks (supposedly because their ONLY PROGRAMMER was on vacation!?), until (again) contributors raised hell and demanded payment? 

Dreamstime has NEVER pulled anything underhanded with their contributors and has recorded sales and paid on time, every time, without hassle. 

There is absolutely no comparison between the two sites.  At least none that is favorable to StockXpert.

Absolutely true.. Although StockXpert is a OK site, there is no comparison.. DT is always climbing and always fair and is consistent.. If I had to choose, between all sites except for SS (just SS and 1 other) it would be DT hands down.. All the rest are lagging pretty hard except for maybe fotolia and that is sometimes questionable as well unless your in the top teir..

For those of us who are not doing so well at DT.

I have spurts where I do well, and then it dies.

I figure that tastes have changed with their buyers. The people who are doing well are either aware of what people want, or they are simply naturally gifted.

For me, the bigger I have built my portfolio, the less I seem to sell.

I am looking at changing the types of images I put there.

Most of their new policies were well accepted, but the subscriptions raised a lot of problems, and DT deleted posts against them, or even suggestions to limit size, etc.  In that respect, I think StockXpert is the best site to deal it, they let people discuss more freely, and they listen more.

They listened and Achilles made a quite elaborate post about the issue in the Yahoo microstock group when the debate was at its azimuth. The point was that they did market simulations that showed that in general, subs would not eat into SPP but rather synergically provide sales that otherwise wouldn't happen.
Now you can have doubts about the business attitude of sites like SV, MP, LO, and others, but not about that of DT.
Apart from SS, it's clearly the best site business wise, and it proves it by its results. We aren't there to be pampered but to make money. DT is clearly homing in on its main competitor iStk and though DT can be tough sometimes to deal with, they don't employ Attila class reviewers and they don't look down apparently on (non exclusive) contributors like iStk seems to do.

Apart from my "law" #1 of microstock that no new site after 2005 will make it, I have a tentative law #2 (my 2 cents) that after the creative destruction in the arena of the microstock free market (currently in a fast acceleration phase), there will be only 2 main players left: SS for the bulk model, and DT for the mixed model.

As to forums, well, iStk is still the champion in stifling posts, in so far it has been ages since I checked that forum, let alone contribute. Buyers read forums too, and a site forum is one of the fronts of the enterprise. Disgruntled posts might turn off buyers or make them worried for instance about the sustainability of the subs model or policies in general. If we want to let off steam, we have our independent forum here, right? What do you prefer: a site with a frank forum like YAY and no sales, or a site with sales but a tightly monitored forum?

DT always made it quite clear that they have two parties to deal with, contributors and buyers. Buyers have wishes too, and as to the subs model, it would be quite confusing that some images can be purchased as sub and some can't. It would piss off buyers, and without happy buyers, less sales for contributors.

The main point was in fact if subs would eat into SPP. At Crestock it certainly does, but I still trust the DT policy for now, since subs in my case still aren't the majority. That might differ for the large contributors or for contributors with limited themes. A look at yesterday's sales at DT as a sample (3 subs, 5 SPP). Even 50/50 or 40/60 would do, a ratio that SS doesn't attain with its On Demand (3% for me this month).



Just as a side remark here: I have dry spells too, like one or two days without any sales at all at DT. Why sometimes there are spells of sales? It might have to do with occasional buyers wandering off into your portfolio and deciding purely based on visual search. This is suggested by the "n/a" in the table above (in fact half of all sales! Keywords alone are not the full story).
DT is the best in presenting both "More images from <your>'s portfolio" and "Similar images" from other contributors. It's a presentation that facilitates visual search enormously, both for yourself and for others.

Another remark: portfolio diversity seems to be very important to make visual search work properly, and also for the fashionable themes of the moment. I can imagine that a portfolio with only landscapes, cheering girls with headset and successful businessmen striking fabulous deals will be less in demand now at the start of the recession. In the above table 6 images are about the economy, China, greed and money. You just have to have them all I guess to have a sustainable sales profile and to avoid too many dry spells.

Just my 2 cents. Experiences and opinions might differ and mileage may vary too

Well, I am very small potatoes compared to most forum members but I have 18 months experience with DT and my results there do not compare favorably with my best performing sites.  I think some of my problems may stem from a low acceptance rate early on.  It has taken me a long time to raise it to my current 58%.  I know that this factors into search results and I suspect that reviewers use it to decide how closely to scrutinize submissions - making it even more difficult to raise.  This policy tends to penalize contributors who are just starting with MS.  If I had to do it over I would not start with DT until I had some well established images to bring to my initial uploads to avoid the low acceptance rate problems.

My experience with StockXpert has been very different.  My acceptance rate is 90% or so - understandable since I started with images that had a good track record elsewhere.  My first full month with them was October 08 and they will be my number one site (among IS, SS, DT, FT, BigStock, 123RF) this month - surpassing the usual frontrunners SS and IS. 

Businesswise I don't have any serious problems with either site.  I think the controversies with StockXpert were overblown and something of an overeaction after the FT incident had raised the temperature.

Hopefully, StockXpert will not change too much due the new ownership.

fred

It will. Istock was a great and friendly site till Getty bought it.

LOL    they have been arrogant right from their beginning!

In my opinion Dreamstime is the most straight-forward microstock site. I haven't got a bad word to say about it so I'm going out for a cigarette.