Author Topic: 2020 Year-End Review: Good, Bad and Ugly (Read 2974 times)

Brasilnut · « **on:** January 01, 2021, 09:58 »

2020 is officially over and it’s finally time to publish a comprehensive review of the extraordinary (un)forgettable year that was, while provide a glimpse forward to the new year.

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2021/01/01/2020-year-end-review-good-bad-and-ugly/

Hope you find it an enjoyable read and useful for your own stock business.

Alex

Mimi the Cat · « **Reply #1 on:** January 01, 2021, 11:26 »

I had a 33.6% drop in shittystock sales however Alamy and Adobe were both up on previous years.

Alamy up by 10% and Adobe by 30%

Of the small agencies only Dreamstime showed any increase after a good few months before dropping back to their usual moribund state. The rest were crappy

Over all though none of the positive results outweighed the loss from shitterstock.

Commisioned work collapsed too no big surprise though

WD3 Photography · « **Reply #2 on:** January 01, 2021, 14:05 »

I've seen a 35.14% increase in my Shutterstock income this year.

A similar 34.87% increase in income from Adobe Stock.

My iStock income increased by a modest 11.79%.

Overall my stock photography income increased by 27.9% in 2020.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2021, 02:36 »

Quote from: Bad Robot on January 01, 2021, 11:26

I had a 33.6% drop in shittystock sales however Alamy and Adobe were both up on previous years.

Alamy up by 10% and Adobe by 30%

Of the small agencies only Dreamstime showed any increase after a good few months before dropping back to their usual moribund state. The rest were crappy

Over all though none of the positive results outweighed the loss from shitterstock.

Commisioned work collapsed too no big surprise though

I guess those of us in Microstock have done a lot better than those in event photography, commisoned work and other face to faces activities like training/workshops. My sales have fallen I suspect as much due to lack of motivation to try and beat the odds and the virus effects.

Firn · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2021, 03:06 »

My overall earnings increased from 2019 to 2020 by 73%, I earned more on Shutterstock in December 20 alone than I earned there during all of 2019.
But I don't think my numbers are very representative, as I only started doing microstock at the end of 2018, so my portfolio was rather small for at least the first half of 2019, so comparing 2019 and 2020 isn't really working well in my case.

However, just looking at 2020 I can say that on SS my earnings were rather steady with a slow rise during the first half of the year, then took a small fall when the new earning structure was introduced, but kept their overall "slow rising course" from there and then everything sky-rocketed for me starting in October.

On iStock my earnings have been rather steady through the whole year with a constant slow rising trend over the months as I kept expanding my portfolio.

Adobe has been the big disappointment for me. Like all other sites it started with a rising trend over the first months, had a really nice and promising peek in the middle of the year, then earnings fell significantly and for the last months of the year have been stagnating and I am basically back to where I was in January 2020.
I have the feeling that more than any other agency, Adobe has a problem promoting newly added content, because all my newly added season-related content that has been doing really well on other agencies (hundrets of sales on some images, multiple adds to the editor's choice collection on Dreamstime and so on...) had basically no sales there.

Dreamstime is also having a constant slow rise. Alamy stays the only agency where sales are so rare and inconsistent that it's impossible to see any trend at all and I only started submitting to Bigstock and Depositphotos a few months ago, so not enough images and numbers there to see a trend.

Anyka · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2021, 03:48 »

Here are the figures of an "oldie" :

Compared to 2019 :

DOWN :
CST -6%
IS -20%
SS -17% (I assume this is half sales decrease and half compensation decrease)
BIG -30%
123rf -32%
DP -12%

MINOR UP :
DST +9%
ADOBE +1%
AL +4%

BIG UP (due to the doubling of the March sales) : CANVA +180%

Bottom line : Canva saved the whole year. I ended up with a +4% in total (in dollars).
I did the numbers again, this time without the 8 month Canva upgrade (so only including the real rise in Canva sales) : Canva went up with 55% !
Without the Canva effect, the overall loss would have been -8%.
This is MUCH better than I expected and even hoped for, considering that I hardly put any effort in creating stock imagery or growing my port.
For my photo studio, Covid19 meant the closing of the studio during 2 lockdowns already (1,5 and 1 month), but the Belgian government is very supporting, so the studio did survive up till today.

steheap · « **Reply #6 on:** January 09, 2021, 09:50 »

I finally wrote my own Annual report on stock photography after battling with the loss of three hard drives in my PC - you should read the story on my blog immediately before the Annual report if you ever build your own PC from components. I learned a big big lesson! Anyway, here is the overall picture:

And here is the report: https://backyardsilver.com/annual-review-of-stock-photography-2020/
Steve

MGsouth · « **Reply #7 on:** January 09, 2021, 10:35 »

Thank you so much for your data and graph and I am impressed you have done so well over the years and grown your portfolio and sales. I always appreciate seeing what sells for people as sometimes it makes me rethink things like angles, topics and vantages.