I have been a contributor for the past 15 years or so. I got my payment once when it was at 50.00 minimum. I can't remember.

In the last 10 years I have maybe made 3 dollars!

I have an illness which prevents me from enjoying taking pictures and my portfolio is now obsolete... so I wanted to close my account and move on. I have 42.00 in my account. They won't let me close my account and they won't give me my money! They already made money from me. I know in their terms they don't legally have to but still. I was a member of bigstockphotos and they were kind and let me close my account and I got my royalties and it was at 20.00.

What should I do? Should I give up and let them keep my money? Should I keep my account and wait my entire life to make that 100 dollars? Should I keep emailing them for an answer?

Thanks in advance.

I just tried to look up your portfolio on Dreamstime...  I guess "cyclone" isn't your name there? 

Sadly this has always been Dreamstime's policy.  (payout was never as low as $50, you misremember)

I think you are correct, as far as I can remember, it's been $100?

I'm right at the point of thinking do I care about $12 or do I upload more, and wait until 2024? 

I have been a contributor for the past 15 years or so.

In the last 10 years I have maybe made 3 dollars!

Will $3 $42 (I missed the actual number, when I read $3 in the last ten years, thanks for the correction) change your life? If not, then close your account, so you have control over your assets, and forget about it.

Ethically you are correct, but apparently DT doesn't care and can't see their way to let people leave. They claim to be a US company, at least the headquarters, which might work in your favor.

    Serban Enache
    Owner & Co-founder, CEO - Dreamstime
    Bucharest, Romania

Looks complicated. Complicated like, at $3 a year, you would have to wait 16 more years?

I'm taking one of alternative paths. Uploading more, hoping to make it to $100 and then say Thank You and Goodbye to Dreamstime.

Hi, Thank you for your reply. this is my portfolio on Dreamstime
https://www.dreamstime.com/chris_s_info

Oh.  Well, with only 34 images, yeah...

I understand how an illness might keep you from taking photographs.  However, I notice you are able to post on this forum.  You have some abilities.  Perhaps you can use them in some way to expand that portfolio. 

You might even find a friend who wants to try selling on Dreamstime and give them your account. 

That would be something, at least.  If they become successful, when they reach payout, they can give you your $42.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Yea I agree I don't have many photos on there. I was making money years ago (more then bigstockphotos) but eventually I was getting less and less sales as the years went by. Some photos were removed because they had been on there so long. They got moved to the free section..I think. I never did reach my goal of being successful with stock photos.

bigstockphotos seems like a great company. Never had any issues with them.

The $42.00 is actually 54.76 Canadian.

I do like your idea but I don't know anyone who would want to do that. Getting the payout probably  wouldn't change me life... My illness is a tough thing to talk about. But I think its the right thing for them to do.

Chris

I finally got a response from Dreamstime. Still no luck but here is what they said.

Hello Chris,

 

We understand you want to request payment before reaching the $100 mark. We have been making a one time exception for active contributors during this difficult time. If you uploaded files in the last 30 days, you should write back and we will enable you to request payment.

Please note that we cannot lower the payment threshold as we have the largest number of contributors in stock photography, hence such adjustment would increase the logistics and slow down payments, making the process slower and more expensive for all contributors. Ultimately, a larger portfolio will bring you more sales and you will reach next payment sooner.

 

Best Regards,

They accept most images submitted so why not try to submit some and then ask them to pay you after they have accepted them?

$100 payout is ridiculous. My last payout was May 2018 and at this rate it will take me another six months. I do like Dreamstime but they just don't sell enough. I average two sales per month  Time for me to ditch them also after my next payout.

I average two sales per month  Time for me to ditch them also after my next payout.

why ditch them, it's passive income. At least you are making something.

Their approval process is pretty strict I found. Quite a few images were declined. Maybe I just suck. I'm not sure I have any images to upload... that would be approved. I have a few good photos but they are not good quality(noisy).

Hello sorry for the bump.
This issue still has not been resolved.
Contacted them again but just gave me a copy and paste answers ignoring what I said
I have made only one sale since my last post here

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 10, 2020, 12:46

Quote from: Hannafate on November 10, 2020, 09:13

Quote from: Cyclone on November 09, 2020, 15:07

Hi, Thank you for your reply. this is my portfolio on Dreamstime
https://www.dreamstime.com/chris_s_info

Oh.  Well, with only 34 images, yeah...

You might even find a friend who wants to try selling on Dreamstime and give them your account. 

Interesting idea, let me modify that a bit. Sell them the account for $40. Hey there's a plan.

After they pay, remove your images and everyone is happy.

hehehehe.

I don't know if @Cyclone is pulling our leg. Only 34 images? What are the expectations for earnings from 34 images?

I am definitely not. Why would I do that?

That�s not the point. I was an avid photographer and spent lots of time with the photos that are already on there.

I want my money and close my account..

And some respect

I don't know what your health problem is, and I do not need to know. But it sounds like something has happened to you recently.
I got pernmanently ill in 2017. I could improve a little, but most important was that I over time learned to live with my illness, shut some of my activities down, and change others, do things in another way - and I am now able to participate in some sort of stock photography again. Health issues have become a part of my portfolio, they were not before. Those things sells on DT. While I was in hospital I never thought I would be able to do that again.
DT is not a pixel peeping agency, and they pay us 35 cents for a subscription, who else does that - except AS if you've been there long enough? 

If you can not make new material for DT, then you just need to accept that these conditions were what you signed up for.

So it's been well over a year and not a single sale. Emailed them again. But same answer.

I don't work so it would be nice if I could get payed for the work I put into my photography in the first place!

I will keep trying...

May this be a warning to future photographers to check their policies before submitting!

I think DT might have a 100% royalty day about once per year - figure out when it is and put it on your calendar and then buy yourself up to $100 and cash out.

Or upload a lot more images that sell, or just write it off.

I agree that 100$ is a bit of a high amount with the rate of sales these days, and they should pay whatever balance remains when you close the account, but this is the way it has been at DT for as long as I can remember, so at least it isn't because they moved the goalposts.

If is good year with lot of sun and rain and no snow maybe twice  
 

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm not going to give up lol... bigstock photos was awesome. They closed my account and gave me my few dolars earnings. They had really good customer service.

I upload batches of images when I have them, and then process them in the DT system over the next several months, as I have time and think of it. Their processing is easy for me, so no big deal.

I find the DT uploading process mostly straight forward except for one thing. Their web uploader is really buggy. Uploaded images seem to disappear and I have to start over again. And this could happen a few times.

Now that's with photo files which is frustrating enough. Though last night, I tried using their web uploader to submit video files for the first time and that is a whole new level of frustration.

So many times, the web uploader stops the transfer part way through and I have to start again.  And again and again and again. It's morning now and none of my video files have been successfully transferred.

I'm still suck on this matter.
 I am making an average of 50 cents a year. At this rate it's going to take me 50 years to reach payout!

It's not worth the time to upload since the web uploader is really a mess for larger batches although they accept almost everything during 24h.
Have uploaded approx. 600 AI images in january and sold just one for 35 cents.
In the same time I uploaded to Adobe over 1300 AI images and currently I'm making 30 USD / month.

There is also absolutely no pattern on Dreamstime which images you sell. The only pattern I notice is that I sell regularly almost the same amount every year, which leads me to conspiracy theory.
As I said in another thread I believe it's a part of their business model to hold as many contributors as possible below the payout threshold.
If you start to calculate a little bit you will realize there could be some dozens millions from contributors they are probably using for other investments, etc.

really sorry about your situation.

as others have said it will be difficult to get the money. if they have a 100% royalty day, you could ask a friend to buy your content, cash out and give them the money back.

alternatively - are there any images you could use? are you a designer? you could use the 42 dollars to buy needed images on dreamstime.

or maybe somebody you know needs images, you buy them for them and they pay you the 42 dollars.

if you can create ai content on your computer, you can supply both adobe and dreamstime.

for me dreamstime is maybe 5% of adobe, but it is growing very slowly.

last year was 35 dollars, this year 13 so far. with around 2500 files.

i estimate that at 5k files i might make 120 dollars a year..and at 10k perhaps it will be 30 dollars a month.
but it all adds up and if i need 50k files to get a regular 100 dollars a month, why not.

but personally i find the upload very easy, so they get all non people ai content and normal photos and videos.

Quote

Please note that we cannot lower the payment threshold as we have the largest number of contributors in stock photography, hence such adjustment would increase the logistics and slow down payments, making the process slower and more expensive for all contributors.

What a lame excuse from DT. A $100 treshold is insanely high for a low-tier agency and they should suck up the cost. If they can't afford that or make it work logistically, I wonder how they're managing their business.

If they lowered the threshold to $50 they would have about 10,000 requests for the money and then those people would close their accounts. This has nothing to do with processing speed, after that, because no matter what the threshold, it would even out. But the overwhelming number of people between $50 and $100 would certainly bring a heavy number of requests.

The people who run DT are smart and they know that too many contributors would cash out and leave. This is just a way to slow that process and hang on to as many photos as possible.

Some people do cash out a few times a year, my compliments to them for having the right images for DT, to make it work.

"Some people do cash out a few times a year, my compliments to them for having the right images for DT, to make it work."

I have been wondering about this. The DT sales thread has people who post quite often. Most of them are fully exclusive with DT.

Not sure how much they make, but some of them have very strong sales with a small or a not so great port (IMO).  Also quite a bit of editorial sales. I keep undererstimating editorial everywhwere.

There also some well known people with large people ports that have very high sales numbers.

In the end quality always makes money.

I get a payout from Dreamstime (not exclusive) 3-4 times a year.

Approx. 15,000 images, no videos. Rarely sales in the 2 digit range.

Most sales are actually editorials. I wouldn't necessarily attribute it to the quality, but to the topics. I edit a whole range of niches.

Hi Ralf,

Thank you for the really interesting information.

Editorial did really very well for me on SS, which is the main reason I miss the port a lot and twenty20. Also on istock still regular sales.

Never thought about sending editorial to Dreamstime. Will absolutely do that.

They even have a breaking news section from what I read.

And always, they were the only agency that raised payouts during the pandemic. i think that counts for something.

Jasmin, every agency reacts differently to the portfolio.

Because of the editorials, Alamy is probably also doing very well for me in comparison.
 
But I have completely written off iStock for myself. I only reach the payout limit here every 1-2 years.
It's a shame because of all the upload work, but it doesn't really upset me. It works better for others, so it's down to my port.

I absolutely agree with you that Dreamstime is one of the fairer agencies.
That's why I don't understand all the excitement here, or even hostility.
If you only cash out once in a blue moon, you should just forget about the agency like I did with iStock.

There are more important things to get excited about 

Anyone having trouble today uploading? Seems like new files can't be processed. I added 23 yesterday with no issues. Didn't want to start another thread for what's hopefully a temporary issue. Thanks.

Anyone having trouble today uploading? Seems like new files can't be processed. I added 23 yesterday with no issues. Didn't want to start another thread for what's hopefully a temporary issue. Thanks.

i now upload only in small batches of 2-4 images. Otherwise it seems to take ages to process files, it is very slow for me.

However, perhaps the total processing time of one long wait with over 20 files versus uploading smaller ones is the same, I don�t know.

I don't understand why people waste their time uploading to Dreamstime

The upload for already prepared images runs on the side and I wouldn't call it work.
Brings in around 400 dollars a year. If I add the other small agency Deposit, I get a total of $800.  I can easily fly to the Canary Islands or pay the electricity bill from here from that amount.

I think that's cool for the small outlay and a nice extra income for a hobby.

I don't understand your question.

there is an ai forum here, there are lots of youtube clips how to create ai content and many ai creation software companies have their own discord groups, forums, facebook communities.

There is a learning curve, it took me several months to get familiar.

Adobe has a generativbe ai channel in their discord channel.

I would sign up with maybe midjourney and a stable diffusion company. Adrej mention mage which has. free plan, but also a reasonable plan starting at 8 dollars. I haven�t tried them, but it looks good.

Also adobe firefly is very easy to use.

For upsizing you will need gigapixel ai from topazlabs.

Just make sure that when you send the files to adobe, to keep the files around 6-8mp to avoid rejections.

i would also recommend to browse the declined files discussion reports to avoid certain mistakes from the start.

I am not aware of a simple 123 step by step guide for stock artists at this point.

But just sign up somewhere or just start with firefly and take it from there.