Hello everyone, this is my first post on these forums.

I'm yet to learn about how things go around here so if I am putting this new topic in the wrong place, do let me know.

Here is my dilemma:

I've been exclusive with iStock since 2006 and have, in the past, made a huge amount of money with them. Well, things are grinding to a halt these days and iStock exclusivity does not attract me anymore, especially since all of my images are in the "signature/exclusive" collection, which means that buyers who purchase an essentials subscription don't even get to download any of my images.

Have any of you been in my situation and decided to terminate exclusivity with iStock, then uploaded images to say, Shutterstock and had a net increase in revenue?

How much income % do I stand to lose by ending exclusivity with iStock?

Thanks for your time and I look forward to your responses.

How much income % do I stand to lose by ending exclusivity with iStock?

No one can make a good prediction. If you are going down from 40% to 19%, you would lose half of the credit royalties; apparently these days, images don't change collection, so your images would (probably?) stay in the Signature collection at 3 credits. If that wasn't the case, you'd not only cut the royalties in half but also get that half based on only 1 instead of 3 credits. You will also lose more than half of your royalties from subscriptions (from 0.75 and 2.50 down to 0.28 per download). You will also lose the income from GI Sales. New images will go into the Essentials collection at a lower price point but might get more downloads compared to older images. New images will also go in the partner program, another way to make a few more downloads but most of them for 0.28 each.

As you can see, it is rather complicated. And it doesn't help much not knowing how much you are going to earn on other sites as well.

My personal journey that way began three and a half years ago. It took me only six months to get back to the same amount of royalties I have made at iStock as an exclusive in 2012. But I must say that I already had seen a steep decline in sales from 2010 to 2012, so I was already "at the bottom". Since I started distributing my images in 2013, most libraries have doubled their size, so I keep fighting against more and more competition everywhere. Uploading takes quite a bit more time as I upload to eight agencies actively now (though not even close to eight times what you are used to at iStock, that is by far the most time consuming upload process). Also, you have to start at other agencies from scratch, working your way up in the ranking, search positions, royalty levels. It's not plain and simple to start elsewhere, it takes time, a lot of time.

For me things worked out pretty well but mostly because becoming non-exclusive required me to not just upload my existing portfolio to Shutterstock, Fotolia and others but also improve my photography and find new and higher priced outlets for the images that just don't do well in microstock. If your plan is to just spread all your images across as many agencies as possible, I have my doubts if you would make significant returns.

Is important see your portfolio quality. The average earnings of independient with average stock images is about 0,50 $ RPI per month (people do more or less) If you are making less be independient. Only High Quality images have sense to be exclusives... isolated tomatoes or cliche people on white not, there is a lot cheaper.

If you are independient any time try Stocksy first. Them Shutter, Fotolia and Creative market.

I agree on this advice. I have been on both sides and from my experience I would say that only Shutterstock and Adobe (Fotolia) can give you real revenue streams. The poll results on the right mirror my results. When I went independent I joined many micros and only S and F were acceptable earners( Deposit Bigstock and Canstock are not worth the time and hassle, I never went with Dreamstime because the 6 month policy. Pond 5 is great if you do video. Envato and 123Rf not too bad but far from the leaders.)

If you can join Stocksy Offset any of the macro (like Alamy )and any of the  distributors ( Blend Cultura Image Source etc) I would say that this will no doubt beat the bad income nowadays from the Getty/Istock team. If you will only rely on the micros I am not sure about it. In my case they didn't reach exclusivity levels. That 248 is there for a reason......

Let's also not forget that I believe the RC system is due a major revamp or replacement before the year is out. This could could have major impact one way or the other.

Apart from anything else, do you remember when this was fun? It was a great community and sales pinged in regularly.

It was fun when there was community, special treatment, and seemingly endless potential. To me it felt like I was part of something special. They had a line that said something like "go ahead and quit your day job" and for a while things were so good it actually seemed totally doable.

When I first started I had no expectations other than to give it a try and see if I could make money. The money started rolling in. I decided to give IS exclusive a try and the money really started rolling in. Then I got accepted to Getty's early IS program and for a few months I had over $10 RPIPM. I felt like I had got into something life changing.

Then shortly later in 2009 the fun stopped and the reality of business set in. They started making changes and everybody knows the story. The Disney magic was gone and the stats I kept track of showed things were headed downward and that at some point the exclusive crown would turn into an anchor. That happened probably in 2012 but like a bad relationship I hung on hoping it would improve but it didn't. I started working on Plan B. Glad I did.

The fun part for me these days is seeing growth in direct sales. I'm glad micro gave me the learning experience but the fun there is long gone.

Thanks everyone for your input.

You will never get a clear answer. One says yes and other no. So you have to decide yourself.