Author Topic: Earnings Comparison (Read 5689 times)

littleny · « **on:** January 18, 2011, 12:47 »

Im fairly new to stock photography and im trying to determine (besides trying to take terrific stock type photos) what makes a portfolio successful.
I have such a varied success from site to site.

Ive been on DT about 7 months. 142 approved and 28 sales.
Fotolio about 6 months. 115 approved and only 9 sales!
SS. 3 WEEKS. 59 approved and 51 sales. 51 is whopping for me lol.

so all three sites are in the Big 4. Im thinking possibly something in the algorithm vs my portfolio could be the key. I think i've gotten better at understanding what works and thats working in my favor at SS. Also wondering if over at Fotolia and DT i should go back and delete some of my older images that arent sellers and maybe arent up to par.
Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

robggs · « **Reply #1 on:** January 18, 2011, 12:53 »

If you uploaded the same photos to all three sites you might experience what I have:

Shutterstock - gives you lots of downloads
Dreamstime - wont satisfy you like SS (a moderate number of downloads)
Fotolia - wont satisfy you at all

But then that the nature of the Shutterstock beast. If you feed it...

At the end of 2010 I reviewed my 12 months as a submitter and decided to focus my efforts submitting to Istockphoto and Shutterstock. DT and FT were not worth the time and effort I put in.

littleny · « **Reply #2 on:** January 18, 2011, 15:14 »

Quote

If you uploaded the same photos to all three sites you might experience what I have:

* Shutterstock - gives you lots of downloads
* Dreamstime - wont satisfy you like SS (a moderate number of downloads)
* Fotolia - wont satisfy you at all

interesting and im curious to read others' experiences too.

wonder if going exclusive is a better option. Although i havent gotten around to applying at iS. i should

leaf · « **Reply #3 on:** January 18, 2011, 16:42 »

iStock has good sales and the worst commission (15% for new non exclusives). Fotolia seems to sell a small group of images many times. If you get one of your images into this 'selling set' then you will see good sales for those images, if your images don't get into that set, they will sit without views or sales. Dreamstime is better at getting their images rotated and the best images floating to the top. Shutterstock is this way as well. All the new images get priority search placement, then if they sell great they are kept at the top and if they don't sell well they sink to the bottom of the search results.

edit for spelling.

lisafx · « **Reply #4 on:** January 18, 2011, 17:12 »

^^ Well summed up.

I will just add that in addition to Shutterstock's search engine bias toward newer images, their subscription model results in customers checking the newest images through the queue often to try and fill their 25 images a day quota.

RT · « **Reply #5 on:** January 18, 2011, 17:49 »

Quote from: leaf on January 18, 2011, 16:42

Fotolia seems to sell a small group of images many times. If you get one of your images into this 'selling' set then you will see sales, if your images don't get into that set, they will set without view or sales.

That's probably the most accurate analogy I've ever seen about Fotolia and describes my own experience on the site precisely, I've yet to discover any one reason as to why a image is successful on that site whilst others aren't.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 18, 2011, 18:33 »

I have relative new experience on stock but my "best selllers" are almost the same at every agency

littleny · « **Reply #7 on:** January 18, 2011, 19:53 »

Quote

I will just add that in addition to Shutterstock's search engine bias toward newer images, their subscription model results in customers checking the newest images through the queue often to try and fill their 25 images a day quota.

this makes a lot of sense

djpadavona · « **Reply #8 on:** January 18, 2011, 20:56 »

Quote from: RT on January 18, 2011, 17:49

Quote from: leaf on January 18, 2011, 16:42
Fotolia seems to sell a small group of images many times. If you get one of your images into this 'selling' set then you will see sales, if your images don't get into that set, they will set without view or sales.

That's probably the most accurate analogy I've ever seen about Fotolia and describes my own experience on the site precisely, I've yet to discover any one reason as to why a image is successful on that site whilst others aren't.

Absolutely agree. FWIW GraphicLeftovers is beating Fotolia in January for my portfolio. $:-\$

MicrostockExp · « **Reply #9 on:** January 18, 2011, 23:06 »

I think it largely depends of the type of pictures you have on your portolio, difficult to predict a ranking.
For me, main earners are the Big5 with 1500 pics on line (except IS): Shutterstock,Fotolia,Istock,Dreamstime,Veer.

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Author Topic: Earnings Comparison (Read 5689 times)

littleny

robggs

littleny

leaf

lisafx

RT

luissantos84

littleny

djpadavona

MicrostockExp

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