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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: aeonf on May 01, 2011, 02:01
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Another month another stat thread.
Our stats:
IS exclusives at 25%
Over 2,000 photos
370 sales + 2 EL's
BME - 1,120$
Up 15% from march 2011
Up 1,078% from march 2010
Things slowed down towards the end of the month, maybe because of easter ??
I wish they post the RC targets already... Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.
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Not a good month for me, especially not at Istock, where I was down 80 per cent compared to last April, 23 downloads the whole month. Doesn't encourage me to spend any time to increase my portfolio there. Istock comes in at the 4th spot for me, FT is still my best earner (though this month not by much), SS and DT were stable. On the other hand, I had a BME at 123rf.com (though at a very small scale). Not long and 123rf will perform better than IS for me.
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IS. indeependant. approx. 600 sales. 3 ELs. bad!! down 40% at least in dollars.
SS. FT and DT, are all way up with at least 30%
Getty and Alamy. RM and RF sales, also way up!
Too much of a coincidence with IS, way down and the others way up, third month in a row now.
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Hi, april was a good month except on Fotolia (again :-\). It was a very good month especially on SS where I had many enhanced downloads :D
So
Shutterstock: + 31%
(540 files)
Fotolia: - 39%
(280 files)
Dreamstime: + 2%
(150 files)
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Another BME for me in overall $$$ (IS exclusive) despite only adding a handful of images this month.
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Istock exclusive.
BMY for $$, because of 2 ELs. Better than April 2010 for $$$ - no ELs April 2010.
Dls down on March 2011, $$ up.
It would have been so much better had they not clawed back the EL exclusive bonus and I got my canister change bump.
DLS:
April 2011: 106
April 2010: 143
April 2009: 179
April 2008: 253 (sic!)
Anyone know why they've as good as stopped print advertising in relevant magazines? I was getting plenty of downloads back in the days when I saw iStock adverts everywhere. Seems odd to imagine they weren't cost effective. Couldn't they even have half-page adverts, if not the double page spreads they used to have?
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Istock exclusive.
BMY for $$, because of 2 ELs. Better than April 2010 for $$$ - no ELs April 2010.
Dls down on March 2011, $$ up.
It would have been so much better had they not clawed back the EL exclusive bonus and I got my canister change bump.
DLS:
April 2011: 106
April 2010: 143
April 2009: 179
April 2008: 253 (sic!)
Anyone know why they've as good as stopped print advertising in relevant magazines? I was getting plenty of downloads back in the days when I saw iStock adverts everywhere. Seems odd to imagine they weren't cost effective. Couldn't they even have half-page adverts, if not the double page spreads they used to have?
The entire advertising budget goes to Thinkstock.
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IS: 1/3 (33%) of a "normal" month :P - now where's that barfing smiley?
What made April bearable where good sales at DT and Panthermedia, also 123RF has exploded for me lately (in a good way)...
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March 2011 was first full month non-exclusive from DT
This month (April) 1/3 of last month; I have sunk like a rock, I have fallen and can't get up, I am circling the drain.
On a bright note, a couple sites got out of the "zero sale" toilets:
Mostphotos, the 3D Studio and Yay had their first sales this month
Still maintaining their "zero sale" toilet status:
123RF, Cutcaster, Featurepics, Panther, Pixmac
Added one new agency, Warmpicture, to early to put them on the charts
On SS, down by 2/3; number of images sold is only down 1/3 but lost on the EL sales this month
On DT, down by 1/2 over last month
IS: two sales totaling 0.35 cents. I did manage to get my total port. on IS over 100 this month so that is helpful, I will keep building my port so that there is even more images on IS that they are not buying.
Overall; based on recommendations of MSG and other sites, I have started reworking my raw files to give my images a bit more punch. I am reloading these files on SS first.
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Istock despite 4 ELs way down, to me they're just thievery disguised in a pathetic disgrace of a site.
Shutterstock and DT both decent BME despite barely uploading, i dont believe this is a coincidence either with iStock performing so bad.
I dont submit to FT; BigStock and Veer are only good for a couple of percents in my total; especially Veer has slowed down for me.
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Istock despite 4 ELs way down, to me they're just thievery disguised in a pathetic disgrace of a site.
Shutterstock and Dreamstime both decent BME despite barely uploading, i dont believe this is a coincidence either with iStock performing so bad.
I dont submit to Fotolia; BigStock and Veer are only good for a couple of percents in my total; especially Veer has slowed down for me.
I don't understand why, if a lot of people say that "IS...disguised in a pathetic disgrace", when I look on the right column I see that it's up and not so far from Shutterstock. (How you can understand I'm not english :D)
And, why, if a lot of people say that it was a good month on SS and not on IS, IS is up and SS is stationary ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
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Not a good month for me, especially not at Istock, where I was down 80 per cent compared to last April...
Look at the Istock April statistics thread: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=328242&page=3 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=328242&page=3)
For the first time in years so many contributors reports on -30% drop :o
Is somebody in HQ going to take responsibility for all these best match tweaks?
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April was a bad month for me, down 22% from March. iStock was a big chunk of that, down more than 50%, but Dreamstime and BigStock were down 25% each and Shutterstock and 123RF were each down 15%. Only Fotolia was up significantly, and that was after a poor showing in March. Things were going well for the first half of the month but fell apart as we got close to Easter. They still haven't recovered.
| | | | Year | Over Year |
| Shutterstock | 35.3% | -15.7% | | 28.1% | -.7% |
| iStockphoto | 13.8% | -53.1% | | 16.6% | -18.2% |
| 123RF | 12.4% | -14.8% | | 9.9% | +27.0% |
| Dreamstime | 10.6% | -26.3% | | 8.2% | -24.2% |
| Fotolia | 9.9% | +23.6% | | 11.4% | -5.1% |
| CanStock | 4.7% | 366.9% | | 3.2% | +112.8% |
| BigStockPhoto | 4.5% | -25.4% | | 4.6% | -26.0% |
| Veer | 4.4% | -6.3% | | 9.6% | +334.3% |
| StockXpert | 2.8% | +8.3% | | 1.6% | -79.1% |
| Deposit | .6% | -27.0 | | 1.2% | +3.6% |
| Zoonar | .4% | -91.5 | | 4.8% | |
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April was a bad month for me, down 22% from March. iStock was a big chunk of that, down more than 50%, but Dreamstime and BigStock were down 25% each and Shutterstock and 123RF were each down 15%. Only Fotolia was up significantly, and that was after a poor showing in March. Things were going well for the first half of the month but fell apart as we got close to Easter. They still haven't recovered.
| | | | Year | Over Year |
| Shutterstock | 35.3% | -15.7% | | 28.1% | -.7% |
| iStockphoto | 13.8% | -53.1% | | 16.6% | -18.2% |
| 123RF | 12.4% | -14.8% | | 9.9% | +27.0% |
| Dreamstime | 10.6% | -26.3% | | 8.2% | -24.2% |
| Fotolia | 9.9% | +23.6% | | 11.4% | -5.1% |
| CanStock | 4.7% | 366.9% | | 3.2% | +112.8% |
| BigStockPhoto | 4.5% | -25.4% | | 4.6% | -26.0% |
| Veer | 4.4% | -6.3% | | 9.6% | +334.3% |
| StockXpert | 2.8% | +8.3% | | 1.6% | -79.1% |
| Deposit | .6% | -27.0 | | 1.2% | +3.6% |
| Zoonar | .4% | -91.5 | | 4.8% | |
Ouch!! that IS drop is BIG!! bet it hurts.
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I ended up with a good month, especially at SS and Veer. DT started out strong but fizzled at the end (mostly level 0 and 1 sales plus subs for the second half?).
A few of the smaller players had some bigger sales (EL or partner?) at the very end to help out (123RF, BS) for BME there even if they are small.
... and then there is IS. They were pretty sad. (54% of April last year). In fact I made more in my 3rd full month there back in 2007 before my first best match shift.
From looking here it seems like IS is trying to keep the exclusives happy at the expense of the rest of us.
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Hi All,
Everything stayed right on track with the exception of Istock. They plummeted for me to the lowest month I have had there since last July. Even adding new content every week and this is the only agency to show a drop. A drop from March $1398 to this April at $943 and I have more images on their site than I did last month. Shutterstock, Fotolia, Dreamstime all stayed strong as well as the smaller guys on the list. Hopefully it was just a bad month on the search order for me.
Best,
Jonathan
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From looking here it seems like IS is trying to keep the exclusives happy at the expense of the rest of us.
If you check out the iStock April thread you'll find many exclusives are very unhappy.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=328242&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=328242&page=1)
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as expected (taking Easter holidays into account) slightly less than march - which was a very good month - but nothing to worry about
only IS is going down and down
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A reasonable month. If IS hadn't nosedived it would have been close to a record.
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From looking here it seems like IS is trying to keep the exclusives happy at the expense of the rest of us.
If you check out the iStock April thread you'll find many exclusives are very unhappy.
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=328242&page=1[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=328242&page=1[/url])
I skimmed through that forum a bit and I could have missed some but I only saw one non exclusive that was up - someone w/ under 250 DL total. There were plenty of exclusives reporting good months and BME. (and a lot that weren't happy, but I imagine any month there will be some people that are unhappy). It seems to me like they are shifting much of a shrinking pie to the exclusives, but the pie is still too small. I'd love to see an overview of their real stats.
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iStockPhoto:
Worst Royalties since Dec 2007.
57% down from Last April.
30% to 50% down from any month this past year.
I'm certainly not liking the iStock returns for Diamond Exclusives in the 250-300 rank.
Is somebody going to right this ship? Or is it done?
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Really bad month for me. Down 19% from March, and down 15% from last April. Of the four major sites, both Istock and Fotolia tanked for me. Shutterstock and Dreamstime both saw gains, but not nearly enough to compensate for the drops on IS and Fotolia. In (parentheses) is the % up or down from last year, for the top 4. The others are statistically insignificant, except for Alamy, which is not a micro, but I more than doubled my monthly income there since last year.
IStockphoto 30% (-34%)
Shutterstock 21% (+20%)
Dreamstime 16% (+2%)
Fotolia 16% (-37%)
BigStock 4%
123 3%
CanStockPhoto 2%
Alamy 7% (+113%)
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iStock Exclusive
Up 12% from last month
Up 64% from April last year
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Another month another stat thread.
Our stats:
IS exclusives at 25%
Over 2,000 photos
370 sales + 2 EL's
BME - 1,120$
Up 15% from march 2011
Up 1,078% from march 2010
Things slowed down towards the end of the month, maybe because of easter ??
I wish they post the RC targets already... Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.
Wow, u're getting almost exactly 4x more than I do/DL. I'm getting just 0,76$ out of 110 DLs+1EL (over 300 files). And yes I'm not exclusive, still at 15% because they still haven't posted new RC targets. Looks like you're getting a lot of large size DLs, I'm mostly getting XS and S lately (although most of my files are XXL+). Worse than March, but BME on SS, so I'm quite happy since I'm earning more over there anyway.
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I wish they post the RC targets already... Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.
Unless I'm wrong, if you hit a target for this year, your percentage will go up as soon as you hit the target.
The sometime-to-be-announced targets will affect our percentage for NEXT year.
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Istock exclusive.
Seems I have been lucky with the last best match shake at the end. BME again with 13% increase in DLs and 22% increase in $$. No ELs for 2 months which is strange.
Despite my numbers I canīt be happy. Reading this thread here and the april earnings thread from istock forum seems something is really wrong with istock. Seeing so many strong sellers report poor numbers is worrying and gives an idea of the situation. If revenues are going down I think we all know how the new RC targets are going to be. Bad news are always delayed in time. Here I am mentally prepared to go independent whenever numbers make sense to me.
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I wish they post the RC targets already... Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.
Unless I'm wrong, if you hit a target for this year, your percentage will go up as soon as you hit the target.
The sometime-to-be-announced targets will affect our percentage for NEXT year.
Not true, they'll get the missing earnings when RCs will be announced. I've read this on IS forum
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Really bad month for me. Down 19% from March, and down 15% from last April. Of the four major sites, both Istock and Fotolia tanked for me. Shutterstock and Dreamstime both saw gains, but not nearly enough to compensate for the drops on IS and Fotolia. In (parentheses) is the % up or down from last year, for the top 4. The others are statistically insignificant, except for Alamy, which is not a micro, but I more than doubled my monthly income there since last year.
IStockphoto 30% (-34%)
Shutterstock 21% (+20%)
Dreamstime 16% (+2%)
Fotolia 16% (-37%)
BigStock 4%
123 3%
CanStockPhoto 2%
Alamy 7% (+113%)
Fotolia tanked this month for me too, worst month there in a long, long time. Luckily ShutterStock picked up the slack
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I wish they post the RC targets already... Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.
Unless I'm wrong, if you hit a target for this year, your percentage will go up as soon as you hit the target.
The sometime-to-be-announced targets will affect our percentage for NEXT year.
Not true, they'll get the missing earnings when RCs will be announced. I've read this on IS forum
This is what I've read: official post by Roger Mexico, iStock's Spindoctor:
"As you meet each "Next Target" number, your chart will update with the next target and corresponding royalty rate. Once you reach the target for a royalty rate higher than your current percentage, you will immediately bump up to this new number and start earning this higher percentage."
Taken from the article:
http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=951 (http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=951)
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same as March, nice month, IS and DT down
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I can't believe how crappy Fotolia has become. They were not a subs site when I signed up. Now it seems that all they sell is subs and XS. Where the h*ll do they find these crappy customers or are they lying on their reporting? Even Shutterstock has a higher RPD!!! And they sell SUBS!!!
RPD FT
Jan 0.59
Feb 0.55
Mar 0.59
Apr 0.45
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Another month another stat thread.
Our stats:
IS exclusives at 25%
Over 2,000 photos
370 sales + 2 EL's
BME - 1,120$
Up 15% from march 2011
Up 1,078% from march 2010
Things slowed down towards the end of the month, maybe because of easter ??
I wish they post the RC targets already... Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.
Wow, u're getting almost exactly 4x more than I do/DL. I'm getting just 0,76$ out of 110 DLs+1EL (over 300 files). And yes I'm not exclusive, still at 15% because they still haven't posted new RC targets. Looks like you're getting a lot of large size DLs, I'm mostly getting XS and S lately (although most of my files are XXL+). Worse than March, but BME on Shutterstock, so I'm quite happy since I'm earning more over there anyway.
Not raelly. As an exclusive you forget that the prices of our XS and S images are much higher then yours (2 and 5 credits accordingly) so its not just the percentage its the higher price point.
RPD is steady at: 3$
Sue: you ARE wrong. it takes affect from the day you hit the target IN ADDITION to the fact that next year you begin from that royalty rate automatically.
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So who cares? I mean really? this move is to incorporate IS, with TS, i.e. selling pics for pennies. Why do you think everybody within Getty has been told to sign a new contract to allow their shots to go into TS? in a years time you will be the member of a giant based dustbin where shots are selling for 35c a piece.
So who cares abot the targets or the RC or good or bad month?? Bin-Laden is dead! much more interesting!
best.
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Very pleased with April, but not with Istock. Istock went down 28% from April 2010, but the other sites happily covered the loss. All sites went up, but the real credit should go to Shutterstock and Dreamstime. Dreamstime has become my no.3 now, taking IS's place. Fotolia went up in downloads, but down a bit in dollars due to missing EL's. Bottomline : 9% up compared to April 2010. I don't compare with March, because April is ALWAYS lower than March.
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iStock exclusive
Compared to March, (which looking at it now actually wasn't too bad).
Downloads down a massive 40%
$$ "Only" down around 25%
Holidays obviously factor into this, as (in the UK at least) we had Easter, the Royal Wedding, and Spring BH all around the end of the month.
It looks to me as if the new best match with the heavy bias towards V&A files has had a bad effect on pretty well anyone with a large PF. As usual most of the people reporting increases are relatively new, and / or have smaller PFs.
At least the "V&A effect" seems to be lessening, which is good news. Lets hope they come up with the option to exclude those files from the search soon.
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I wish they post the RC targets already... Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.
Unless I'm wrong, if you hit a target for this year, your percentage will go up as soon as you hit the target.
The sometime-to-be-announced targets will affect our percentage for NEXT year.
Not true, they'll get the missing earnings when RCs will be announced. I've read this on IS forum
This is what I've read: official post by Roger Mexico, iStock's Spindoctor:
"As you meet each "Next Target" number, your chart will update with the next target and corresponding royalty rate. Once you reach the target for a royalty rate higher than your current percentage, you will immediately bump up to this new number and start earning this higher percentage."
Taken from the article:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=951[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=951[/url])
Indeed, they would, but they can't since the new RC targets aren't out yet. Check out this topic ;) http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=324402&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=324402&page=1)
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It gives me some hope when I hear IS has plummeted to many others as well. Even this is bad for my earnings, I somehow enjoy IS getting hit badly - they have asked for it a long time and now they got it.
IS has dropped almost 50% from march. The last time earnings at IS was this bad was in february 2009.
Shutterstock had a good month, really close to BME
Dreamstime has been weak for a long time, but april 2010 was the best month since June 2009
Fotolia was pretty weak in april
I don't quite follow the small agencies, but I noticed that 123rf (BME!) and Veer are up!
Even with the positive signs from Shutterstock and Dreamstime, April was horrible.
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Things seem to go the way depicted in my avatar :)
(I just hope the other sites would compensate for the losses)
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I am non-exclusive, started in mid 2008, and have nearly 2,000 images on most sites.
My April was pretty much as I expected based on trends of the past few years. March hits a high point, but April can't keep the pace due to Easter and Spring Break.
March was my BME, and April fell 15% from March. But this April beat April 2010 by 85%. The thing I care most about is that I'm still above my growth goal line that I plotted 3 years ago, driven by my daily RPI which has slowly grown (currently at 12.5 cents a day versus about 10 cents when I started).
As for specific sites, they performed for me in this order...
1. SS (down just a few percent from March, very encouraging)
2. FT (down about 20% from March, when it was my top earner)
3. IS (down about 30% from March)
4. DT (down about 25% from March)
And "the others" held extremely well from March, performing in this order...
5. CanStockPhoto
6. BigStock
7. 123
8. DP
9. GL
I no longer submit to the "bottom of the barrel" sites, but I still track them, as pathetic as the sales are:
10. Veer
11. Fresh
12. Crestock
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I'm an IS exclusive, vectors mostly contributor. My portfolio has 632 files. April 2011 was down 10 percent from March 2011. April 2011 beat April 2010 by 25 percent.
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Just a horrible month. There were a few good days here and there, but some were so awful that the hole was too deep for the good days to fill.
26% down on March 2011 (which was itself 12% down on March 2010; IOW not a barn burner) in both $$ and dowloads. Compared to April 2010, DLs down 31% and $$ down 22%
I realize that I have a lot of company looking at the stats thread on IS, but I can't figure out from that if overall the site is tanking or if there's a group of silently celebrating contributors who are experiencing great sales.
I had thought I'd wait out 2011 before deciding about dropping the crown; I have been hoping that things would turn around - that IS couldn't be that self destructive.
Even given the bank holiday in the UK today, today's sales have been like a bad weekend day and I am once again seriously thinking about whether it makes any sense to wait longer for IS to pull out of its nose dive.
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Even given the bank holiday in the UK today, today's sales have been like a bad weekend day and I am once again seriously thinking about whether it makes any sense to wait longer for IS to pull out of its nose dive.
Well, I guess this explains it. Today has been AWFUL. IS looks like it will be about 75% down from last Monday, which was the Monday after Easter, likely an extended weekend for many people.
So, you're definitely not alone in thinking IS is tanking. My April vs. March numbers were disappointing, but the past week or two have been especially BRUTAL.
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I had thought I'd wait out 2011 before deciding about dropping the crown; I have been hoping that things would turn around - that IS couldn't be that self destructive.
Fear not, they're partying in London while iStock burns.
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(http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=3m&u=shutterstock.com&)
(http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=3m&u=istockphoto.com&)
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Just a horrible month. There were a few good days here and there, but some were so awful that the hole was too deep for the good days to fill.
26% down on March 2011 (which was itself 12% down on March 2010; IOW not a barn burner) in both $$ and dowloads. Compared to April 2010, DLs down 31% and $$ down 22%
I realize that I have a lot of company looking at the stats thread on IS, but I can't figure out from that if overall the site is tanking or if there's a group of silently celebrating contributors who are experiencing great sales.
I had thought I'd wait out 2011 before deciding about dropping the crown; I have been hoping that things would turn around - that IS couldn't be that self destructive.
Even given the bank holiday in the UK today, today's sales have been like a bad weekend day and I am once again seriously thinking about whether it makes any sense to wait longer for IS to pull out of its nose dive.
Sounds much like the month I had. The trouble is that even if and when things pick up, we can probably make a fair guess at what the future holds. Decreasing royalties (nobody thinks that the late release of next years RC levels is good news surely), and ever increasing pressure for sales from "preferred" content.
It's one thing them wanting to maximise their profits, and another when they are doing it at the expense of people who are already signed up, and believed all the stuff in the past about them valuing their exclusive members.
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Just a horrible month. There were a few good days here and there, but some were so awful that the hole was too deep for the good days to fill.
I really don't don't know why, but I always look for your analysis of the month on IS; I guess you are one of my fav. excl. IS contributors and I value your opinion; but also feel your pain for all the loss.
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The Good:
About $1500 total for the month.
SS: BME
DT: BME
FT: 2nd BME
The Bad: Veer at $0.00
The Ugly: iStock: downloads and $$ down about 40% from March, which was a good month. Biggest one month drop ever for iStock and down $100 from April 2010. Portfolio size is about 600 images. Amazingly, my SS earnings beat iStock's for the first time in the 4 years I've been doing microstock, and I have a smaller portfolio on SS!
The Gostwyck hypothesis may indeed be fact...
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As a recent independent diamond, my numbers are not great, but my non-istock income jumped from 18% to 29% of total micro income.
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but I can't figure out from that if overall the site is tanking or if there's a group of silently celebrating contributors who are experiencing great sales.
Possibly Getty, with it's wholly owned content? Maybe the handful of black diamonds who are up at the top of the most popular search terms with non-Vetta files mixed in with high-priced stuff? They might be getting a big boost from people looking for e.g. cheap "business" pictures who can only find a handful of normally priced stuff on a page. Some of the people with Vetta on the first page of important searches.
But I guess that every time a file sells for 55 credits, ten other five-credit sales don't happen as agencies try to balance their budgets. So, at best, it is redistributing the cash towards V/A. It is also very possible that the 55 credit sale means that 20 other five-credit sales don't happen, as buyers go elsewhere. Can iStock make more money on a lower turnover by pushing the remaining money heavily towards Agency files?
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Can iStock make more money on a lower turnover by pushing the remaining money heavily towards Agency files?
I can't see that happening. In their desperation to accelerate profits (before the impending sale) Istock have accidently crashed the car. They've tested the patience of buyers beyond their limits and lost the trust of contributors too. Things will never, ever be the same again. It's as simple as that.
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I have never noticed Agency files before last week, the prices are "insanely" high, why will the buyer go to those when there are tons of very good content and really similar of the same photographer at a very reasonable price comparing to Agency, I am not saying I am against that collection but it is weird if any of those got any sales (I have seen some with a few but might be placed "yesterday" after sales at other price)
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In their desperation to accelerate profits (before the impending sale) Istock have accidently crashed the car. They've tested the patience of buyers beyond their limits and lost the trust of contributors too. Things will never, ever be the same again. It's as simple as that.
I think you're right. We are beyond the point of no return.
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This was a good month +28%
(http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u97/hlehnerer/SalesStat/201104px550.jpg)
4 best: SS, CanStockPhoto, DT, 123RF
You can find my complete list at: http://stock.hlehnerer.com/SA.html (http://stock.hlehnerer.com/SA.html)
(http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u97/hlehnerer/SalesStat/201104Timeline550px.jpg)
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Zazzel? Never heart of it, I can't even google it up. Awesome jump last month.
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Zazzel? Never heart of it, I can't even google it up. Awesome jump last month.
Probably Zazzle.
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I'm not sure which of the traffic sites is the most accurate but Google Trends (http://trends.google.com/websites?q=istockphoto.com%2C+shutterstock.com%2C+fotolia.com%2C+dreamstime.com%2C+gettyimages.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) is showing a pretty significant traffic drop for Istock putting it barely above the other top sites.
For the people who are saying it's the worst month since 2009 that matches the traffic pattern.
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In their desperation to accelerate profits (before the impending sale) Istock have accidently crashed the car. They've tested the patience of buyers beyond their limits and lost the trust of contributors too. Things will never, ever be the same again. It's as simple as that.
I think you're right. We are beyond the point of no return.
Yes! very true! and thats the general feeling of some people very high up on the Getty ladder. Time to saddle up guys.
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Fotolia - last time I had so few sales was March 2008!!!!!! -50% earnings on april last year.
Dreamstime - BME
Shutterstock - best match since march last year
123rf - BME
BS - BME
IS - average month,not seeing the same recent drop as some but sales still less than a half what they were a couple of years ago.
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It's obvious the new best match (on IS) favours bronze exclusives heavily, so that gold+ exclusives (or those going for 30%+) wouldn't reach their goals. Kind of communistic, leveling the field. However, I don't think that's bad (I like some communistic ideas), but it would be good if the same would apply for non-exclusives. Because otherwise all of us that started within the last 2 years don't have a chance. A lot of ppl are saying they'd earn virtually nothing if it weren't for the old files. Not only not fair, but idiotic, to push forward old content, when most of the buyers want fresh, not something being posted on millions of billboards.
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Not good to say the least. I was down over 14% on April 2010 and 24% down from March 2011. Percentages as follows (with 2010);
Shutterstock - 35.4% (25.8 )
Istock - 26.7% (34.4)
Fotolia - 21.7% (24.3)
Dreamstime - 10.0% (10.3)
BigStock - 3.4% (2.8 )
In terms of $'s lost or gained over April 2010 per agency results were;
Shutterstock - +17.4%
Istock - -33.5%
Fotolia - -23.7%
Dreamstime - -17%
BigStock - +7%
My microstock earnings peaked in March 2010. Until that point the trend-line on the graph pointed inexorably upwards. Ever since it has been gradually going south with remarkable symmetry and current projections suggest that earnings may dwindle back to the point where they started (i.e. zero) about 5-6 years after they peaked.
I hope not obviously but is it possible that microstock could eventually prove to be a '10-year bubble'? By then images may be so plentiful that their value could be virtually worthless to the photographers. Supply is simply outstripping demand to such an extent that it is difficult (and painful) to predict what will happen.
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My microstock earnings peaked in March 2010. Until that point the trend-line on the graph inexorably upwards. Ever since it has been gradually going south with remarkable symmetry and current projections suggest that earnings may dwindle back to the point where they started (i.e. zero) about 5-6 years after they peaked.
I hope not obviously but is it possible that microstock could eventually prove to be a '10-year bubble'? By then images may be so plentiful that their value could be virtually worthless to the photographers. Supply is simply outstripping demand to such an extent that it is difficult (and painful) to predict what will happen.
Surely there must be a point at which the return becomes so low that it will no longer attract quality contributors and the supply dries up? The designers will still be buying so that should lead to a more or less steady-stated division of the spoils between existing contributors? I think the graph will have a rapid rise to the peak, a limited period of equally rapid decline and then a long, flattish tail.
I seem to have peaked at Feb 2010.
Statistics on the rate of increase of active contributors at top sites and the rate of growth of collections would be interesting, if anybody has them.
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My microstock earnings peaked in March 2010. Until that point the trend-line on the graph inexorably upwards. Ever since it has been gradually going south with remarkable symmetry and current projections suggest that earnings may dwindle back to the point where they started (i.e. zero) about 5-6 years after they peaked.
I hope not obviously but is it possible that microstock could eventually prove to be a '10-year bubble'? By then images may be so plentiful that their value could be virtually worthless to the photographers. Supply is simply outstripping demand to such an extent that it is difficult (and painful) to predict what will happen.
Surely there must be a point at which the return becomes so low that it will no longer attract quality contributors and the supply dries up? The designers will still be buying so that should lead to a more or less steady-stated division of the spoils between existing contributors? I think the graph will have a rapid rise to the peak, a limited period of equally rapid decline and then a long, flattish tail.
I seem to have peaked at Feb 2010.
Statistics on the rate of increase of active contributors at top sites and the rate of growth of collections would be interesting, if anybody has them.
Good question. I haven't seen any statistics but if Istockcharts (http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/) is any indication, the top 50 contributors ranked by total downloads don't seem to be too active when looking at "New Files 30 Days".
There are a couple of people that submitted a few hundred images but the rest seem to be anywhere from inactive to somewhat active. Most sent under 100 images which isn't even close to their upload limits.
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Down 25% from last month but 18% compared to April 2010, I made a small report on my blog: http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/ (http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/)
Cheers
L
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Zazzel? Never heart of it, I can't even google it up. Awesome jump last month.
Probably Zazzle.
Thank you for pointing out that typo. I typed it only one time wrong in my excel sheet. Can't believe how often it shows up wrong because of it.
I know Zazzle is not a stock photography agency, but because many stock photographer have an account there too I include it in my statistic. The good thing with Zazzle is that only a few large orders can bring in a big profit.
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I know Zazzle is not a stock photography agency, but because many stock photographer have an account there too I include it in my statistic. The good thing with Zazzle is that only a few large orders can bring in a big profit.
I am glad you include it. It's good to know what other options are out there for selling our images. :)
I include Alamy in my stats too, even though it isn't a micro. Still good to see how it compares to the micros.
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I'm a bit late in posting this month, and I was very pleased to see another best month, with a particular strong showing from Shutterstock with six enhanced downloads and then a real surprise at the end of the month when I sold two images on Veer for $46 each. I don't fully understand their licensing but this appears to be for unlimited seats and unlimited reproduction. Veer has come from nowhere (average of $10 per month) to give me $169 in this one month. I am really glad I kept up the uploading to this site.
Here are my main graphs. As usual, I have expanded on the best selling images in the month on my blog: http://www.backyardsilver.com/2011/04/best-selling-images-in-april-2011/ (http://www.backyardsilver.com/2011/04/best-selling-images-in-april-2011/)
(http://www.backyardsilver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Earnings-per-site_Apr_2011.png)(http://www.backyardsilver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Files-on-line_Apr_2011.png)
Steve
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2nd BME with a 63% increase in sales over April 2010.
SS 36%
IS 25%
DT 16%
FT 7%
123Rf 5%
CanStockPhoto 4%
Veer 4%
BS 3%