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Author Topic: Alamy review: the highest comissions in industry  (Read 9341 times)

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ribtoks

  • Founder of Xpiks
« on: October 26, 2021, 05:44 »
+1
Hello folks

Just published an Alamy review over in Xpiks blog: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/alamy-review/

What was your experience with Alamy? I'd also be genuinely interested if there's anything missing in the blogpost. Please let me know!


thijsdegraaf

« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2021, 05:55 »
+2
Hello folks

Just published an Alamy review over in Xpiks blog: https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/14814-ridiculous-payment-rates/?ct=1635245410

What was your experience with Alamy? I'd also be genuinely interested if there's anything missing in the blogpost. Please let me know!

When I look at the forum of Alamy, people complain about payments even under 0.10 cents!! and they have no idea how that works exactly. Forum: https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/14814-ridiculous-payment-rates/?ct=1635245410
I am a small earner and will go in 2022 to 20 percent (Silver). In fact, it's no longer worth it for me.

(Silver: After 1 year selling with us or from July 2022 for existing contributors youll move to Silver and a 20% commission rate if youve sold less than $250 gross on Alamy in the previous 12 months. Hitting $250 gross sales immediately moves you back up to Gold.)


« Last Edit: October 26, 2021, 16:11 by thijsdegraaf »

« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2021, 06:02 »
+5
? I'd also be genuinely interested if there's anything missing in the blogpost. Please let me know!
You're missing that Alamy is not the agency with the highest comissions in the indusry. I had commissions as low as 0.2$ with them, so even lower than the Shutterstock minimum and these small comissions for a few cents or few dollars are becoming more and more common.
Yes, big sales can happen, but so can they on other agencies as well.

« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2021, 06:09 »
0
I quit Alamy back in February '21 after not having one sale for 12 months and the last commission was around $3.

« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2021, 06:16 »
+5
Alamy is a shadow of its former self.

You get commisions as low as 10 cents and the occasional big sale is less frequent thant the occasional big sale on SS, for example. And sales in general are less frequent than what it use to be.

You are are two years too late with your article.  ;)

ribtoks

  • Founder of Xpiks
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2021, 06:29 »
0
I had commissions as low as 0.2$ with them, so even lower than the Shutterstock minimum and these small comissions for a few cents or few dollars are becoming more and more common.

Just curious, what were those commissions before? And are you still uploading?

ribtoks

  • Founder of Xpiks
« Reply #6 on: October 26, 2021, 06:31 »
0
You get commisions as low as 10 cents and the occasional big sale is less frequent thant the occasional big sale on SS, for example. And sales in general are less frequent than what it use to be.

What content are you talking about here? RF/RM, editorial/news, photo/illustration?

« Reply #7 on: October 26, 2021, 06:55 »
+2
You get commisions as low as 10 cents and the occasional big sale is less frequent thant the occasional big sale on SS, for example. And sales in general are less frequent than what it use to be.

What content are you talking about here? RF/RM, editorial/news, photo/illustration?

RF photos.
And believe me, I know what I'm talking about.
Looking at your sales graph, I can say that I make several times more than you, with a fraction of your port size.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2021, 10:21 by Zero Talent »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2021, 07:28 »
0
Big sales do get reported from Alamy (but remember, most people quote gross on their forum, unless they state otherwise), but it's a long time since I had a three-figure sale there, even gross. My biggest single sales for the past several years, as well as my highest overall annual and monthly sales for ever have been via iStock - even nowadays when iS is for me a small fraction of its former earnings. Different port on both, RM on Alamy. Some tiny-value RM sales on Alamy which are only slightly different from RF uses (maybe limited to 30 years, or 'web use only' - in fact as some of these sales would need ELs on iS, I'd earn more there.

« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2021, 10:37 »
+14
Your piece reads like PR from Alamy, not a review from a contributor's point of view.

I've been with them for a long time and will easily keep the Gold royalty rate, but Alamy (for me) is not only a shadow of its former self but a minor income producer. Admittedly I'm miffed this month that I started to see the sales that were 21 cents gross royalty - 8 cents for me! Even the "big" sales are now more likely to be $19.99  (gross sale). Whereas once the large sales were (gross) $250 or so, the last time I saw one of those was in May.

As far as I can see the acquisition by PA has done nothing for sales volume.

It is misleading to say that sales are posted in real time - a customer download and use doesn't count as a sale, so you can (and I have) founded uses of my images that weren't yet shown as sales. It's only when the customer reports the use to Alamy (or a contributor chases them up to find out why a use of an image, credited to Alamy, hasn't shown up in the sales list) that it's a sale and posted. And they also have a policy (as I found out when chasing up a sale that hadn't cleared after 6 months or so) that they don't pay contributors until an invoice is fully paid by the client, so for the "large" customers, that can mean really long delays in contributors receiving their money.

« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2021, 12:51 »
+10
You are not mentioning some of the minuses:
- you can only opt out in April out of Distributor sales
- A refund is not just a rare occurrence. It happens quite often, usually with  high value sales.
- you can't opt out of Affiliate sales (are you an affiliate?)
- Distributor sales can sometimes be reported after 6 months (what's up with "the sale that is posted in your Dashboard in real-time" mention ??? )
- Alamy waits for the clients to report their downloads, and I once found that they completely missed one of my sales. There were probably also other.
- If you want a list of all the downloads of your photos, to see what sale has not appeared in your sales report, they can't provide it
- When Alamy changed the commission structure, if one of your sales was reported with delay, after the new commission went into effect, even if the download and use by the client happened before the change, you only received the reduced commission. When asked about this, they said that a purchase is not considered made when the client is downloading or even using the photo  ???

Maybe I forgot some of the other issues...but the sales there have been very low in the past months (or maybe they just haven't recognized them as sales yet!), so I stopped caring about it as you certainly can't get anywhere with their contributor support.

« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2021, 13:10 »
+1
Yeah, that is not what one would normally call a review.

From my perspective, Alamy has both pros and cons, which I won't go over.  I've been there since 2006.  I joined SS and AS two years ago with the same portfolio.  While Alamy does remain my highest earner of the three, it's pretty close.  AS is next highest with only 9000 rather than 12000 images.  SS has been falling off and is the least profitable.

« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2021, 14:02 »
+1
As others have said above - Alamy is a shadow of its former self (as are SS and IS and pretty much every other place).

When I started their claim to have the highest commissions in the industry might have been true at 60% of often pretty good prices. Then 50% (40% with distributor sales) now 40% and as low as <24% for distributor sales - and soon the silver contributors will really get screwed. Fortunately I have enough sales that I won't fall to that point.

I already have more sales this year than all last year, but significantly less income both gross and especially my take. Those sub $2 (gross) sales really don't add up much.

If you wanted to be write a more useful article you could explain how Alamy search works, and how their odd reporting of sales and accounting works. I am not sure anyone knows how the search really works though, and this includes the people that run it.

SVH

« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2021, 14:31 »
+3
Even if they would give 90% then still 90% of nothing is still nothing. I, personally, have better "luck" with Adobe Stock (especially), SS and iStock. Alamy is the same to me as Dreamstime. Nothing ever happens (but in your dreams :))
I would assume both will dissapear shortly unless they sell really different photo's then I have submitted to them.

« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2021, 14:41 »
+4
Please update your blog with such examples of "high comissions":
« Last Edit: October 26, 2021, 14:48 by Zero Talent »

SVH

« Reply #15 on: October 26, 2021, 15:01 »
+2
Just curious here, you say: "it takes up to a year to see your first sale".

Why is that? Your photo is worth while or it's not. Why should it take one year waiting time to see your first sale? I have my best sales within the first month for new photo's and then some pictures will keep on selling.

But in which world would the logic be that the same photo with Alamy does not get sold in the first year and then starts selling?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #16 on: October 26, 2021, 15:15 »
+3
Their 'chasing up' of undeclared sales is patchy at best, and you can wait months - even when it's an established client with an 'account manager' - and often needs repeated chasing up on your part, and you can lose out, e.g.:
1. Their current sale price is less than would have been the case when the photo was bought. Client pays lower price.
The client has gained by trying to cheat. Instead, they should be charged the full 'rack rate', especially repeat offenders.

2. The client 'disappears' over the six months or more they have in credit and the money never comes.

3. The image was used when your rate was 50%, but not chased up, and even if you chased it up while your rate was still 50%, you'll still only get 40% if the payment is made after the date your rate changed.

4. Refunds can be made at least 18 months after the sale was made. Probably more.

5. You'd think misuses would be easier to chase up with RM files, but not, it seems, at Alamy.  :(

All the above have happened to me. I'm sure others can pitch in with other disadvantages.


« Reply #17 on: October 26, 2021, 15:41 »
+1
Your piece reads like PR from Alamy, not a review from a contributor's point of view.

Agree 100%  It looks like it was written by a shill rather than any kind of independent review.  A true review would cover the negatives as well.  Plus I'm not sure it's correct.  Doesn't Canva pay 35%?  That might work out to be higher than at Alamy.  A more balanced treatment would give your review more credibility.

My last sale there was for $245, netting me $83, but those are few and far between.  Still worth submitting there at least occasionally but that would change if I dropped below Gold.  I haven't experienced the really low-value sales so far.  After the SS debacle, I was planning to go all in on Alamy with exclusive content RM - at least then could be happy with higher returns for rare sales (which I can do since my income doesn't depend on stock).  However, they then took away any incentive to be exclusive so dropped that idea.

If you want more history of Alamy, I believe commissions there started at 60% for us, then went to 50% and now 40% - you should mention that in your history section.  The main problem at Alamy has always been a low volume of sales.  Of course they promised volume would increase with each commission cut but that panned out as well as it has at every other agency.  Most contributors I suspect are neutral on Alamy - happy with the higher rates (even though significantly decreased from in the recent past) but hard to get excited with the low sales volumes.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #18 on: October 26, 2021, 16:14 »
0
Just curious here, you say: "it takes up to a year to see your first sale".

Why is that? Your photo is worth while or it's not. Why should it take one year waiting time to see your first sale? I have my best sales within the first month for new photo's and then some pictures will keep on selling.

But in which world would the logic be that the same photo with Alamy does not get sold in the first year and then starts selling?

You don't get told about sales for at least six weeks, except for personal use, as far as I know and have been told. I don't sell Live News, but they have a wait of some weeks, but are more likely to have them seen & reported on publication.

You can't believe anything you read, and neither can I!
On Friday I had a photo zoomed and sold, and it was for an editorial website, so the above was duff gen.  ::)

I've had very few 'relatively fast notices of sales' from Alamy, i.e. hearing of them within a year of upload, even of files which went on to get repeat sales. 
« Last Edit: November 01, 2021, 07:08 by ShadySue »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #19 on: October 26, 2021, 16:24 »
+1
If you wanted to be write a more useful article you could explain how Alamy search works,
Pick me, pick me!

Any word or phrase in the caption or keywords can be combined with any other word or phrase in the caption or keywords and appear in a search.
Individual words can be taken from one comma-separated phrase and added to any other word from any other phrase. How high random word/phrase combinations appear in a search depends on the size of the search and the algorithm which is in use at the time.

« Last Edit: November 01, 2021, 04:55 by ShadySue »

« Reply #20 on: October 27, 2021, 05:06 »
+1
I know for sure of 2 images that I found by chance on websites for which I never saw any money, respectively were never displayed as download.
When I wanted to investigate the matter after a few months, the websites were no longer findable.
Since the images are hard to find anyway, the number of unpaid images is probably much higher.

« Reply #21 on: October 27, 2021, 07:09 »
+2
If I fall to Silver level in July 2022 I'll delete my portfolio immediately!
How the other agencies combined are making gross sales for hundreds of thousands in 12 months with the same portfolio, but Alamy can't?!

Brasilnut

  • Author Brutally Honest Guide to Microstock & Blog

« Reply #22 on: October 27, 2021, 07:23 »
+3
Certainly true that Alamy has one of the highest commissions in the industry, but suffice to say that they have one of the lowest sales volumes.

« Reply #23 on: October 27, 2021, 07:57 »
0
6 sales today 2 bucks apiece  ::)

Thats all I can say  :(

« Reply #24 on: October 27, 2021, 08:19 »
+4
I also think the OP missed how Alamy has transitioned from more of a mid stock company to micro stock.  What has changed are royalties....and how low they sell content for.they have gone down the toilet. What hasn't changed is the low sales volume. So looking at that combination alone gives you the high level "now and then" comparison.  They've taken commissions from 60% to 40% (less if through a distributor) and my guess is that they will come out with another adjustment to 30%. Why? Because they can and the industry proves it.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2021, 15:34 by Mantis »


 

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