pancakes

MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Author Topic: 70% don't reach the first payout  (Read 10181 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

« on: September 01, 2008, 13:06 »
0
I can't remember the exact percentage, but I'm not anymore among them.
I got my first payout email from Shutterstock today after three months. Dreamstime's payout on its way.
Thanks everyone for the amount of info I got from this forum: it's hard to explain how valuable this place has been for someone like me who picked up his first camera ever in february.
I already spent the money in a tripod. Thanks everyone again! :D


« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2008, 13:48 »
0
Congrats Fran!

But I'm not sure what you mean about the 70% !!

Do you mean not reaching it ever??

« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2008, 14:09 »
0
Congrats Fran!

But I'm not sure what you mean about the 70% !!

Do you mean not reaching it ever??

Yes, quitting before reaching the first payment. I read these statistics somewhere but I cant remember the exact number.

« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2008, 15:35 »
0
well that is probably true.  60% (or more) of the people that sign up probably don't ever upload a photo and then another 10% probably only upload 1 or 2

... and congrats! :)  exciting to get the first payout.

« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2008, 07:58 »
0
really??....that's interesting infor....never heard this one before....but its prob true....i get people sign up for stock under me and when i go to see their portfolio, a large majority of them dont have a portfolio...

michealo

« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2008, 08:49 »
0
A good few probably go exclusive at IS before reaching payouts at other sites too ...

« Reply #6 on: September 02, 2008, 09:04 »
0
A good few probably go exclusive at IS before reaching payouts at other sites too ...

I wasn't one of them with my whooping 30 sales in 4 months at IS :D

« Reply #7 on: September 02, 2008, 09:33 »
0
That sounds right. It may even be higher that 70% who don't reach the first payout.

I've just done a 'quick and dirty' survey of photographers I have referred to SS.

The average size of their portfolio - all of the ones who have been accepted - is 609 images.

However, if I take out the top 30% (in terms of portfolio size - and the largest portfolio of my referees contains over 5000 images) the average drops to 25 images per portfolio.

You're never going to reach a payout with only 25 images - and remember, that's the average.

Not a statistically accurate sample, I know, but gives an indication.

SS and the others must be laughing all the way to the bank. Although the majority of photographers/artists never reach payout level they still sell an image here and there. And all that money goes to the agency.

« Reply #8 on: September 02, 2008, 10:04 »
0
just curious, what are the payout terms?  Do you have to have a certain amount a sales before the agency cuts you a check?  Or a certain amount of money made?  What are the typical commision on sales?  Sorry, I am new here!

Jay
http://www.mycameraisbiggerthanyours.com

« Reply #9 on: September 02, 2008, 10:20 »
0
just curious, what are the payout terms?  Do you have to have a certain amount a sales before the agency cuts you a check?  Or a certain amount of money made?  What are the typical commision on sales?  Sorry, I am new here!

Jay
http://www.mycameraisbiggerthanyours.com


Practically all agencies have a minimum payout that goes from 75/100$ for the most estabilished ones (DT, SS, IS) to 30/50$ for the newer ones.

Once you reach the minimum amount you can request a payment that will be credited on PayPal or equivalent. Or you can ask a cheque to be sent.
On SS the payment can't be requested, but it's automatic on the 15th of the month after the one you reached the payout. In my case, for example, i reached a payout in August and I will see the money on my PayPal account by the 15th of September.

In general there is no commission (but others can be more precise than me here, I yet have to receive the first one).

Hope it helps.

« Reply #10 on: September 02, 2008, 10:22 »
0


RacePhoto

« Reply #12 on: September 02, 2008, 11:13 »
0

Yes, quitting before reaching the first payment. I read these statistics somewhere but I cant remember the exact number.

Sounds about right. There are some who never get accepted at IS or SS, and discover they can't just shoot snapshots and make a quick buck. I'd love to see the real number for people who start in stock and never reach a payout anywhere.

Look at some of the poles for amount made per month on site "X", number of photos.  Look at the numbers that reliable people put up here. Photographers making payout most every month, on most of their sites are a minority. How many people have the time and perseverance to get 1000 photo portfolios?  (designers do better with a much smaller offering)

It's difficult to take a survey of people who quit, because they won't see it.  ;)

Maybe one of the stock sites will someday say, yes we have 50,000 photographers, 300 are active, 100 get monthly payouts. The Average income is... the Median income is... Problem with Average is that a few people making $10,000 a month, throw the numbers way up, for the % that are making something closer to middle scale, which is the true average person.

I suppose if you add all the $0 in the average, it starts to throw it all down to the lower side, which isn't fair either.

A real good measure might be if you could get the data only for people who got at least one payout during a calendar year, and then showed their totals for that year in a chart. Hypothetical, 1000 artists got at least one monthly payout and their individual total commission for the year averaged?

That way you have active members of the group and can see what the market is actually doing on a broad view.

It may discourage some starters, (and save them and the agencies the time) when they see that the average income is lower than some very active, hard working and successful people, make it appear.

« Reply #13 on: September 02, 2008, 12:12 »
0
It may discourage some starters, (and save them and the agencies the time) when they see that the average income is lower than some very active, hard working and successful people, make it appear.


That's a very good point. Stock for a new starter is everything but profitable. It's a time and resource sink. Return per hour "worked" is incredibly low and when you factor out costs it's stock is actually a pretty big loss. But... I find it an incredibly effective way to improve my skills: it gives motivation, goals, very objective measures of your improvement (acceptance ratios, earnings per month, RPM, RPI) when these values are tracked.

So, overall, it's been a great experience for me so far. I will never make it my profession, as I stated before, cause I love my real profession and I don't want to quit it, but it's a great way to use my spare time. I hope to keep it up.

RacePhoto

« Reply #14 on: September 02, 2008, 21:20 »
0
It may discourage some starters, (and save them and the agencies the time) when they see that the average income is lower than some very active, hard working and successful people, make it appear.


That's a very good point. Stock for a new starter is everything but profitable. It's a time and resource sink. Return per hour "worked" is incredibly low and when you factor out costs it's stock is actually a pretty big loss. But... I find it an incredibly effective way to improve my skills: it gives motivation, goals, very objective measures of your improvement (acceptance ratios, earnings per month, RPM, RPI) when these values are tracked.

So, overall, it's been a great experience for me so far. I will never make it my profession, as I stated before, cause I love my real profession and I don't want to quit it, but it's a great way to use my spare time. I hope to keep it up.

Winter I'm doing stock, Summer I'll stick with racing. But you made a good point that I must agree with.

Submitting to IS and SS has made me more aware of smaller details that I didn't used to watch out for. Not that I take snapshots, but MicroStock demands so much and they are reviewed more carefully, so it has been a good learning experience. Maybe I should say wake up call, to be more critical of myself?  ;D

Heck I did an isolation of something about ten years ago, on film, haven't had the need until now. Good lighting and practice sessions, taking notes, until I got it right.

There are many good lessons for someone to learn by trying their hand at Micro. I just think that the effort and time and rejection, for small pay, may convince many people to drop out, before the first payout.

I find the challenge to produce quality images more interesting and the drive for myself, more than the money. Yes everyone can use money, but if the photos are good, the money will follow.

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #15 on: September 02, 2008, 22:00 »
0
I'm sure quite a few people bail on microstock after they realize the incredible amount of effort and commitment that's required to make peanuts. It's a second full time job that makes less than minimum wage for a while.

After a year at this of working over 20 hours a week on average I'm now making in a month what I normally charge my day job clients for two hours of billable work. That's a pretty horrendous return.

But, the biggest difference is that if I stop doing billable work at my day job I don't make money. With stock I still make money which is why I'm looking at building my portfolio to a few thousand images.

« Reply #16 on: September 02, 2008, 22:17 »
0
All part of the micro stock business plans. Just like something like 80% of credit card "miles" are never redeemed and a huge percent of gift certificates are never used.

I think that setting a too high redemption amount is counter productive. Much better in my opinion would to have a very low threshold at the beginning to reinforce the earning power of the contributor in order to generate a faster upload pace. Each payment would be an incentive.

I can remember my first Shutterstock sale. It was just minutes after the upload. Talk about reinforcement! I couldn't wait to upload more. After a few weeks seeing the fast action I actually thought that their marketing planned that Shutterstock was purchasing newbie images AS A MARKETING TOOL. I don't think that anymore but I still think it would be an effective tool for them.


« Reply #17 on: September 02, 2008, 22:52 »
0
70% I am not surprised at all.  makes a mockey of 100000 etc photographer claims.

re: hourly wage,  but a good image will still be selling in a year or two.  everytime it is sells your hourly wage goes up, even 2 years later.  Eventually you get to the point where the hourly wage ends up big (I hope :)) 

« Reply #18 on: September 03, 2008, 13:09 »
0
I can remember my first Shutterstock sale. It was just minutes after the upload. Talk about reinforcement! I couldn't wait to upload more. After a few weeks seeing the fast action I actually thought that their marketing planned that Shutterstock was purchasing newbie images AS A MARKETING TOOL. I don't think that anymore but I still think it would be an effective tool for them.

From what I could understand they simply "cheat" newbies up in popular searches. And I'm pretty sure they do it as a marketing tool to make newbies upload more.
It worked on me. See!
I still have to make per month as much as I did in the first 2 weeks I joined. I finally managed to do it, but they cheated on me. And they won. I can't stop uploading :)

« Reply #19 on: September 03, 2008, 13:31 »
0
they dont put new people at the top of the searches, they put new images at the top of the searches.  Everyone gets good downloads on their recently uploaded images.

RacePhoto

« Reply #20 on: September 11, 2008, 11:44 »
0
Congrats Fran!

But I'm not sure what you mean about the 70% !!

Do you mean not reaching it ever??

Yes, quitting before reaching the first payment. I read these statistics somewhere but I cant remember the exact number.

Just found a site that tracked a selected group of Aprox. 300 new users over about two years, at DT and 85% have under 100 photos. It also looked like 80% have never reached a payout. This is very rough data on my part, but it did relate to this thread, so I found it interesting.

What I see in this limited sample is that people start out, upload some photos and move on to something else. About 80% of the people also never got accepted at SS, so their upload count there would be zero.

70-80% of the people who start in Micro, never reaching payout on any site, sounds like a reasonable guess.

« Reply #21 on: September 11, 2008, 13:49 »
0
That sounds right. It may even be higher that 70% who don't reach the first payout.

I've just done a 'quick and dirty' survey of photographers I have referred to SS.

The average size of their portfolio - all of the ones who have been accepted - is 609 images.

However, if I take out the top 30% (in terms of portfolio size - and the largest portfolio of my referees contains over 5000 images) the average drops to 25 images per portfolio.

You're never going to reach a payout with only 25 images - and remember, that's the average.

Not a statistically accurate sample, I know, but gives an indication.

SS and the others must be laughing all the way to the bank. Although the majority of photographers/artists never reach payout level they still sell an image here and there. And all that money goes to the agency.

Above posts about % of contributors who don't reach payout sounds on target.
Just wanted to mention that, though I'm very small beans in this business, I qualified for first payout ($75) at SS in 1 or 2 months when I had portfolio of about 25 pix (now it's, wow, doubled). One strong referral helps, too.  :)

« Reply #22 on: September 11, 2008, 19:35 »
0
I see a business idea!

Get them all to put them into your own name, and then give them 50 / 50 cut. Better than what they are getting now.

« Reply #23 on: September 11, 2008, 22:53 »
0
I see a business idea!

Get them all to put them into your own name, and then give them 50 / 50 cut. Better than what they are getting now.

LOL!  just don't forget to factor in covering taxes first  ;)

« Reply #24 on: September 15, 2008, 01:51 »
0
Its pretty obvious to most that microstock isn't a way to get rich quickly. On the other hand there are a growing number of contributors who are making regular payouts. On my estimates there would be at least 1500 contributors making it to a monthly payout on the major sites. You have to remember that this isn't from casually uploading a handful of images every now and then, it comes from a regular and systematic approach that starts to resemble normal work.


 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
8 Replies
3355 Views
Last post February 09, 2015, 23:17
by YadaYadaYada
11 Replies
6229 Views
Last post December 14, 2011, 03:23
by leaf
3 Replies
3249 Views
Last post September 14, 2015, 14:10
by ShadySue
15 Replies
7909 Views
Last post May 15, 2018, 16:55
by MarcvsTvllivs
3 Replies
7446 Views
Last post May 25, 2021, 06:37
by JustAnImage

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors