Divide the amount of money earned by the number of sales for the entire period you sell in Shutterstock, Fotolia, iStock...no matter and You'll see that You work for $1 average with all of them!!!


Let's go do some new shots...

Absolutely false. My RPD is almost 13$ (IS exclusive), and with volume, and I'm a photographer.  There's a difference, from 1 to 13.

On the other hand, even is your general RPD is 1, the 0.29, 0.40 or whatever handout you get at DPC, that's not even half 1, even if the images sell at 1 $. Photographer's comission and price of sale is not the same.

I think you have a lot to learn about the microstock business.

Yes, but we don't know what impact DPC is having. Everyone just assumes. I can tell you from my part, it hasn't had any impact other to increase my FT sales a little, maybe. I don't know for sure because FT doesn't report if a sale is coming from DPC or if it's a standard sub off of its site.

I don't think it's accurate to assume that all people who buy OD packs on Shutterstock will all of a sudden jump over to DPC. Some might. And some might also buy cheap packs on 123RF and Deposit Photos.  My OD sales certainly haven't dropped. I haven't had a day yet this month without an OD sale, and most weekdays get me from 6 to 12 OD sales. The only thing I know for sure is that if my photos aren't on DPC, then buyers there will be buying someone else's images instead of mine.

RPD doesn't matter to me because there's no extra cost to me to put the files there. I upload primarily to make money on Shutterstock and everything else is just a bonus.

money is not everything - there is a little thing called moral

So true.
DPC is the worst agency for selling your images.

Yes, but we don't know what impact DPC is having. Everyone just assumes. I can tell you from my part, it hasn't had any impact other to increase my FT sales a little, maybe. I don't know for sure because FT doesn't report if a sale is coming from DPC or if it's a standard sub off of its site.

I don't think it's accurate to assume that all people who buy OD packs on Shutterstock will all of a sudden jump over to DPC. Some might. And some might also buy cheap packs on 123RF and Deposit Photos.  My OD sales certainly haven't dropped. I haven't had a day yet this month without an OD sale, and most weekdays get me from 6 to 12 OD sales. The only thing I know for sure is that if my photos aren't on DPC, then buyers there will be buying someone else's images instead of mine.

RPD doesn't matter to me because there's no extra cost to me to put the files there. I upload primarily to make money on Shutterstock and everything else is just a bonus.

Consider this:
Right now DP, DT, 123, and Getty are in meetings saying "Wow, look what Fotolia got away with!" I bet we could do this "amazing plan which would earn us market share and help our bottom line, because at the same time we can cut commissions by x%. Do you think we could have marketing ready to go within 3 months?"
So right around prime selling season of Sept, Oct, Nov, four "new" dollar photo clubs appear with huge marketing campaigns. All of a sudden On-Demand sales are non-existent and every sale is earning a commission of $.25 to $.38.

Still think DPC won't have any measurable effect on SS or other on-demand sales?
You don't have to be clairvoyant to see this one coming down the pipeline.

Quote from: robhainer on July 23, 2014, 13:52

Yes, but we don't know what impact DPC is having. Everyone just assumes. I can tell you from my part, it hasn't had any impact other to increase my FT sales a little, maybe. I don't know for sure because FT doesn't report if a sale is coming from DPC or if it's a standard sub off of its site.

I don't think it's accurate to assume that all people who buy OD packs on Shutterstock will all of a sudden jump over to DPC. Some might. And some might also buy cheap packs on 123RF and Deposit Photos.  My OD sales certainly haven't dropped. I haven't had a day yet this month without an OD sale, and most weekdays get me from 6 to 12 OD sales. The only thing I know for sure is that if my photos aren't on DPC, then buyers there will be buying someone else's images instead of mine.

RPD doesn't matter to me because there's no extra cost to me to put the files there. I upload primarily to make money on Shutterstock and everything else is just a bonus.

Consider this:
Right now DP, DT, 123, and Getty are in meetings saying "Wow, look what Fotolia got away with!" I bet we could do this "amazing plan which would earn us market share and help our bottom line, because at the same time we can cut commissions by x%. Do you think we could have marketing ready to go within 3 months?"
So right around prime selling season of Sept, Oct, Nov, four "new" dollar photo clubs appear with huge marketing campaigns. All of a sudden On-Demand sales are non-existent and every sale is earning a commission of $.25 to $.38.

Still think DPC won't have any measurable effect on SS or other on-demand sales?
You don't have to be clairvoyant to see this one coming down the pipeline.

There's more to a stock site, and any business for that matter, than price. If it was all about price, then why haven't all of Shutterstock's subscribers moved to Bigstock or Deposit Photos, where sub packages are cheaper? It's about marketing, quality of search, customer service and so on. People who have a good experience at a site are more likely to keep using it even if an image might be cheaper somewhere else.

Maybe, but I would still like to get some on-demand sales at DP, 123, DT and Istock. Your argument seems to be based around SS being the only place you get decent sales so nowhere else really matters (its just extra income). SS doesn't exist in a vacuum and if you are down to just one agency selling for you, eventually you are in trouble.

Shutterstock is 70 to 75 percent of my stock income, so it's pretty important. The other sites do matter, but not nearly as much. I just started really contributing to istock, and I have pretty big backlog to upload but sales are decent there so far from what I have so maybe it will balance things out a little.

...If I were more invested in SS I would be scared to death of DPC and its successors.

One of many reasons I've been glad to see my SS earnings as a percentage of my total microstock income drop below 50% this year.

And I'm not wishing for SS to be any worse off then they are now. I'm just more comfortable seeing my income come more from multiple smaller companies and less from one big one.

Quote from: chromaco on July 23, 2014, 15:25

This is what scares me so much. Shutterstock is where almost everyone is making a large majority of their money. For me they are about 12-15% but that is still a good paycheck and would seriously hurt if I were to lose it. My percentage is relatively small in comparison and yet I am as vocal as I can be to try to protect it from predatory policies. If I were more invested in SS I would be scared to death of DPC and its successors.

With people complaining about 123RF, Deposit Photos, Istock and Fotolia (DPC), that certainly doesn't leave much else except Shutterstock.

I know that is why I seem kind of grouchy most of the time. Because there aren't very many places that I don't have complaints about.