So there's green notification on Adobe profile page stating I've been selected for a Mission for some AI training. Long story short, they want up to 100 photos of someone's daily routine, with some more characters involved. It literarly says "50$" per submition (if it gets selected).
Am I reading it right, they suggest we split 50$ between models and ourselves for about 100 fully processed photos?
Are they out of their minds? Such work would cost any other client at least 10 times more.   

And all to potentially do yourself out of some sales / a job in future!

Not "up to 100". Exactly 100! With at least one other person. For me it says 300 USD.

Hard pass for me.

I get it now. Personal opinion, but I think that it's the new "How low can you go game". So you offer the same task to different individuals. One gets paid $300, the other $150, the other $100 and the loser gets $50. And then wait and see who will do the work and check their quality. Analyse the results out of 1000 potential candidates and your price is set for the next run.
They are smart, no question about it.

Fine print though says it "might" be selected. So - while perhaps just a (lazy) way to easily weed out 'crappy' submissions - even if you go through all the work of get a good model/model release, etc - there is NO guarantee you'd be selected. Might just be 'meh, yeah, sorry'. So definitely not worth it, because it takes a lot of time to do things properly, especially for something as low as $300 USD.

I got invited to submit videos with audio.
46 assets(each 10-30 seconds) per submission.
Audio corresponding to action, and no background noise.
Directional microphone.
69 USD per submission.

I think the requirements are too high for that pay. It will be a lot of work, and I normally don't submit video.

Quote from: Robert_Ruidl on October 17, 2025, 17:13
Not "up to 100". Exactly 100! With at least one other person. For me it says 300 USD.

Hard pass for me.

Interesting. For me it says $200.
So why is one person offered $50, another $200 and another $300 for the same mission?

For me $200 isn't enough to make it worth my time and the time of 2 other people to document all their day, and knowing that somehow my time is worth less to Adobe than someone else's time makes it even worse.

This is an interesting situation, I was given the same assignment and they would pay me $150. I don't understand why we would get different amounts either. It's not worth it, too much time, too much work compared to the pay. If I wanted to do this kind of photography, I wouldn't be on stock sites.   

Quote from: Her Ugliness on October 18, 2025, 09:29

Quote from: Robert_Ruidl on October 17, 2025, 17:13
Not "up to 100". Exactly 100! With at least one other person. For me it says 300 USD.

Hard pass for me.

Interesting. For me it says $200.
So why is one person offered $50, another $200 and another $300 for the same mission?

For me $200 isn't enough to make it worth my time and the time of 2 other people to document all their day, and knowing that somehow my time is worth less to Adobe than someone else's time makes it even worse.

I guess they are "split testing". Very popular with companies in general to maximize revenue and minimize costs.

You give 1000 people the exact same thing - but change one variable (i.e., "price") - and then you measure how many submit @ $50, how many submit @ $100, how many submit @ ... etc

Then - they make an educated guess about what type of response they can expect next time - so make "that" offer.

For me - $300 is too low. Yes, of course $300 USD in my pocket is nice... but - as other people have mentioned - TWO models (its not one - its TWO - because they want you to introduce a 2nd model) - so potentially $100 USD per person. Then, it's also a lot of work to do a "good" job - because they ALSO wanted it KEYWORDED & TITLED, etc. (While some "ai" tools have made that easier, it is still extra work). And on TOP of that - there is NO GUARANTEE they will "accept" your work. So you work FOR FREE, with the hope you MIGHT get 'picked up', for a very tiny amount - to TRAIN an "AI" to make a COMPETING PRODUCT for YOU...

Yeah. Hard pass no.

I'm not even sure if I would do it for "more" money because the whole "making a competing product" thing. Like - if I was offered a guaranteed $5,000 - while even that would be nice... knowing that it would be used to "train" a computer algorithm to make infinite images on my ONE TIME payment, not sure I would be comfortable with that.

Now on the OTHER hand... if I received infinite payments on their infinite generator (i.e., say paid 5-10% of each generation based on my work) - I might be okay with that. I'd have to work out the math - but that would make a LOT more sense to be paid 5, 10, 20+ years into the future on a regular, recurring perpetual basis... kind of what like these "ai" tools are designed to do for the companies that make them...

Maybe they are calculating pay based on portfolio size/earnings, maybe even country based. But could also be that they are trying to see how good quality can they get for as low as posible.

On top of all that, knowing myself, I would light all the shots properly and edit them all with the most care, plus the metadata work. My client would probably be looking at at least 500euros for this. No way I'm doing that for a chance to win 50$, it's an insult, I might come from developing country, but even here 50$ would get a client an hour or two of mostly unprocessed event jpegs. 

I had doubts about participating, but after much thought I decided not to. It's very little considering the time I have to invest, and sending those files doesn't guarantee that they will be accepted. And I live in a third-world country, so what they were planning to pay me doesn't seem attractive to me.

In my case: 50$

I have been offered $50 bucks. For 100 maybe images ans two models its very little money and will probably get rejected

Quote from: alexandersr on October 18, 2025, 15:34
I had doubts about participating, but after much thought I decided not to. It's very little considering the time I have to invest, and sending those files doesn't guarantee that they will be accepted. And I live in a third-world country, so what they were planning to pay me doesn't seem attractive to me.

I did it. Got reviewed within two hours and money directly into my account ($134). Was a bit more work then expected but hey, I had nothing else to do.

Quote from: SimonSays on October 21, 2025, 21:40

Quote from: alexandersr on October 18, 2025, 15:34
I had doubts about participating, but after much thought I decided not to. It's very little considering the time I have to invest, and sending those files doesn't guarantee that they will be accepted. And I live in a third-world country, so what they were planning to pay me doesn't seem attractive to me.

I did it. Got reviewed within two hours and money directly into my account ($134). Was a bit more work then expected but hey, I had nothing else to do.

Hello, i want to ask you about the mission. Did you make 10 different stories with 10 photos a story? The second model have to be in every story. I want to try it but i am a little confused.

Quote from: lazaros_video on October 27, 2025, 10:25

Quote from: SimonSays on October 21, 2025, 21:40

Quote from: alexandersr on October 18, 2025, 15:34
I had doubts about participating, but after much thought I decided not to. It's very little considering the time I have to invest, and sending those files doesn't guarantee that they will be accepted. And I live in a third-world country, so what they were planning to pay me doesn't seem attractive to me.

I did it. Got reviewed within two hours and money directly into my account ($134). Was a bit more work then expected but hey, I had nothing else to do.

Hello, i want to ask you about the mission. Did you make 10 different stories with 10 photos a story? The second model have to be in every story. I want to try it but i am a little confused.

I had a different mission then you have. Sorry but can't help you out here.

Mission Impossible to make a living in micro-stock---"Your mission, should you choose to accept it.. Will be to work endless hours submitting materials that will eventually replace you-- "This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck."

Quote from: Big Money on October 28, 2025, 01:08
Mission Impossible to make a living in micro-stock---"Your mission, should you choose to accept it.. Will be to work endless hours submitting materials that will eventually replace you-- "This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck."

For my part, I contribute by sending stock images in order to offer my productions to buyers and be duly remunerated in royalties and keep my copyright. I will never be their illegal worker made slave, without being one of their declared employees. Here is my mission 

I got "offered" a mission for 200$. That covers 2-3 hours of my work time - no way I'll be able to organize, shoot, select and upload 100 photos in that time frame. So that's no deal for me .
But I guess for contributors from developing countries 200$ would be a lot, if only it was offered to them.

Or, grab some money on your way out.
You can walk away complaining about the unfairness but I will just grab the little money next to the exit.
Also, first ever for me, I nominated all my videos for the free collection (extra grabbing money).
Things will not change around. Microstock is over.

Quote from: SimonSays on October 28, 2025, 19:25
Things will not change around. Microstock is over.

Microstock is over. It doesn't mean you need to earn pennies through missions. Do something better with your time.

$300 here. Hard pass like most everyone else here. Just analyzing the time involved in shooting AND post, forget it.

I did it and got passed. I was the model with the help of my wife. It wasn't so hard, i spent around 8 hours for the whole process. Let's see what's next.

Quote from: lazaros_video on November 05, 2025, 06:26
I did it and got passed. I was the model with the help of my wife. It wasn't so hard, i spent around 8 hours for the whole process. Let's see what's next.

The problem is, that's a daily fee - 8 hours, and for me that's nowhere near 50$ for my local clients. 

For those who are interested in doing these missions.

Apparently when you succesfully completed a mission you get offered new missions with a higher price tag and are allowed to submit multiple instances of the mission then just the one instance you had with the first mission. Can't go into much detail here (it seems prohibited) but if I would do the work I could earn 15 times the previous mission. So, something to think about whether to accrept a mission or not. There can be more lucrative offers resulting from it.