I have quite often thought about a simple criteria to know whether a given picture is successful or not, taking into account its whole life span.

I consider now that $100 is the average RPI I would like to achieve which corresponds more or less to a $2+ monthly revenue during 2 years and then a decreasing revenue during 3-4 more years. This is an average value.

A 1000 images portfolio should thus generate a $100'000 revenue spread over let's say 5-6 years... around $1500 per month.

I've now just read a comment on Lee Torrens blog from a traditional stock photgrapher:

" in the strong years 2003 � 2006 lifestyle RPI was generally considered to be around $250, with a good steady three years and then some fall off for the next several"

I'm just curious: what earnings do you expect on average from a single image during its life span? And what earnings do you expect from an image to be considered as a "top seller"? Do you already have at least one top seller in your portfolio?

For me : $100 / $1000 / Yes.

recently i got a new image that earned me over $100 in just 2 month, in SS only..
so i think these kind of image might possible to reach more than $1000 in quite short period

Do you think about your portfolio in this way? Or do you focus on the per image earnings?

Yes, I also think this way sometimes: it's a good method to know whether a given subject is a good seller.

Average "lifetime earnings", as you call it, is for me more a way to know how my portfolio perform as a whole: I do not bother too much for each and every image earnings, but the average value for my whole portfolio is a quick way to set your own goal.

I've also seen somewhere another metric for a portfolio as a whole: it was called the "Magic Number". Your magic number is N if N images in your portfolio have earned at least $N.

Magic = 10 --> 10 images with $10+ earnings
Magic = 100 --> 100 images with $100+ earnings

I think it is an interesting metric indeed as the higher your magic number is, the more difficult it is to progress: it is thus a challenge to increase your magic number whether you are a beginner or... Yuri Arcurs 

I compute myself my magic number for each agency: this is also a quick way to compare them.

Also, I'm a big fan of the microstock bestsellers site that you had put together.

I was not expecting that it would interest anybody... I don't have much time to imrpove it or even keep it up to date 

I'm sure you will perform a lot better with your own site 

I need magic day!

Every day is worse and worse, even for the weekend was better...

I refer to this metric as lifetime earnings but I think it's a great way to think about images in your portfolio. Another metric that I think would be useful is grouping a shoot together and looking at the lifetime earnings for the shoot and time to breakeven on a particular shoot as well.

Abso-smurf-ly!  Would be great.

Quote from: Rahul Pathak on January 13, 2009, 11:42

I refer to this metric as lifetime earnings but I think it's a great way to think about images in your portfolio. Another metric that I think would be useful is grouping a shoot together and looking at the lifetime earnings for the shoot and time to breakeven on a particular shoot as well.

Abso-smurf-ly!  Would be great.

Excellent smurf usage there...

Microstock imposes certain rules which will not allow to produce mind blowing photography, therefore you can't possibly expect high returns unless there are dodgy dealings going on. Which I think there are, anyway.

Mind-blowing photography != high returns (necessarily)

Hi Rahul,

 I have to say we have definitely steered away fro RPI and really are tracking per shoot now for quite some time.

Best,
AVAVA

Thanks for sharing that and it makes sense to me.

One big issue with RPI is that it is often calculated as an average (Total Earnings for the Month / Total Images) which obscures a lot of detail. If you could look at the individual sales curve for an image or a collection of images (a shoot), it might tell you a lot more.

That magic number is an interesting idea. I hadn't heard about it before.

On lookstat, couldn't you make it so that we could find out any numbers or graph whatever numbers we wanted. Just give a variable list and a code box and let us create our own stats and graph them. You could even have it to share stat formulas with eachother, or like have a list of top stat formulas

Just following up on this. It turns out that this is something we could do. Given what's on our plate, it won't happen for a while, but it's a cool idea.