There was an urging by an msg member over on the Alamy forum for people there to start polling here.

Yea, is this real? If someone said they only wanted to upload to three agencies, would Alamy be one of those three? Seems it was never close in the past??

Hi,
In the past Alamy was way down in the poll results...
This year all the sudden Alamy is almost going head to head with Shutterstock.
So does it mean people are making almost the same they make at Shutter?
What did change from past years???
 I am seeing Alamy 73, and Shutterstock 86.1.

I think many people here submit videos or videos and photos both. I shoot videos only and the offer to send them a hard drive via mail is kind a nice joke for me. I would have asked them if I had to use pigeon mail to get some real old school experience. So 73 is ok. 1873 is more correct for me.

I don't understand, why some people care so much for Poll results. It's your sales that matter, not anybody else's.

Recently some contributors reported 2000+ dollar sales. So 1000 dollar net per sale. Add this in the poll and voila.... already 1 reason why Alamy is climbing. Next to that it seems indeed that people came over here to vote.

In my case i have to admit that Alamy is the only Agency that is on the move. Blogs are updated regular. Forum is alive. Contributor tools are updated time to time with one of the biggest update coming soon.

For me also the only agency where the sales are growing every month. Others in general having half revenue with double port compared to last year. To be short i think it is very realistic to see Alamy on that position.

In general i see that people are making good money on Alamy. Yes their ports are large. Much larger then microstockers in general have BUT you should not forget that those Alamy big earners on the forum are mainly editorial shooters. Creating a editorial port goes in general much faster then a commercial one. Having 10.000 editorial photos instead of 2000 commercial ones is not a strange thing.

Mirco

I had deep faith in Microstock Poll but after Alamy taking 2nd position, I don't trust the poll results anymore. I've never received even a single sale on Alamy so how is this possible?

There was a low score for Alamy for years, unlike some of the agencies with no score. I'd think that if the high fliers could be bothered polling here, all would go up; however, if most people polled, all would go down.

The poll is only a bit of fun, with no real significance. E.g. nowadays I alternate whether I report Alamy or iS (exclusive) each month, as if I polled both, my iS score would go to indie rather than exclusive.

And after rising Alamy sales, though not necessarily $$s (last month more $$ than iS credits, but that's more about falling iS credit sales), this month so far not one Alamy sale. Plus I'm still waiting for over 20 unreported uses to be paid from one of their biggest customers, reported in early January. Still, that'll just be added to their sub for the month it's reported, so just less money for everyone that month. It's an iniquitous policy - we have to find our own unreported sales, go through hoops to report them all individually, in detail, on a form, rather than just accepting a search link, then wait for months for tiny payments. And now these buyers seem to have forced Alamy to sell RF editorial. 
One file has been used over 40 times by one site (but paid for fewer than 20); I bet you won't get 40x the RM price for RF.
Other than that, it would work well if buyers were honest. Even at UKNS prices, I've had repeat sales, adding up to a reasonable price. Currently, RF pricing on Alamy is by size of image, not by usage, so they could aggregate a huge number of prints with no EL. They might make different pricing for editorials (but I doubt it, as current RF imagery could be used millions of times for one sale, so why would this be different?)

Just today again a Alamy contributor showed a part of his sales from yesterday. He wanted to show all his distributor sales. It where 17 sales with a net total of 640 dollars for most editorial photos. This is 640 dollars net in 1 single day only distributors.

Such a performance can only come from an Agency that is doing very well. You just have to know what to sell. In the contributor case editorial.

As I understand the chart at the right of the MSG page is a 3 month moving average. The graph is real month by month numbers.

Ok, then.
Alamy #2 was a clear abnormality 2 months ago. This abnormal position will still be reflected on the right side ranks for another month, while, in fact, Alamy is rather #4.

p.s.
and maybe this might even push ss to start bringing us back those once regular 28 to 102 single earnings in an effort to keep us from moving our new works to alamy, and any one else that works hard to reward their contributors elsewhere.

It's a complete myth that Alamy is doing well. I've been a contributor there for ten years and have thousands of photos. In comparison to my other agencies they are low grade performers. The poll is doctored. 

I dont get what is the advantage for the one that doctors Alamy up??? Then SS also could be doctored. All other agencies including low earners have chance to be doctored. Why only Alamy you think? For me it is simple. Alamy is doing well for many and those are voting here. There are here some people reporting alamy beating SS. If you dont get many sales then it is because you make typucal microstock photos or bad keywording. One thing is sure ... Alamy has great potential.