I've been lurking in this forum for a while now, and it was very depressing lol.
It seems like the microstock market is a sinking ship, and I was really serious about starting to upload some of my art, but I don't know anymore.
Maybe people only post when they are unhappy and want to complain and successful people are silent lol. Can anyone tell some recent success story?

You can still make money if you make quality images/templates/illustrations.
I would say the majority cannot rely on this market to survive, it has become a 'side thing', especially when you compare how things were before.
You shouldn't be discouraged, but do other stuff on the side, maybe freelancing, YouTube etc.. (Which are saturated as well, but I think you have a bigger chance at succeeding and making good money).

I'll say what I posted in other thread:   First and foremost you must enjoy photography and not do it only for monetization purposes.  Otherwise you will just end up frustrated.  And yes, like others said, there is still $$ to be made; demand has not decreased. You only need different strategy;  expecting "sales" from micros that pay 10 cents or 15% only means devaluing your own work.

I've been lurking in this forum for a while now, and it was very depressing lol.
It seems like the microstock market is a sinking ship, and I was really serious about starting to upload some of my art, but I don't know anymore.
Maybe people only post when they are unhappy and want to complain and successful people are silent lol. Can anyone tell some recent success story?

Yes, it is as you write: There used to be more money to be made.

But to answer your question: Even if it's not as much for me as it used to be, there's still money coming in. I have hardly uploaded anything in the past two years, but it's still worth it. It's still an interesting extra income that I wouldn't want to miss.

What I can't judge, however, is whether it's worth it for someone who starts today. Because I am more than 10 years in and am therefore certainly an advantaged situation.

2006 = 1 million images
2009 = 6 million images
2010 = 10 million images
2012 = 20 million images
2014 = 40 million images
2016 = 80 million images
2017 = 160 million images
2020 = 320 million images
2021 = 340 million images

Holy cow!! Interesting history, Pete. Yeah, I started when it was only 20 million, and was told that there was too much competition back then. lol

2017 was interesting. That was the year that they decided to go for the biggest database. Lowered the acceptance rate from 7/10 to 1, lowered the review standard - and doubled their database!

Also around that time, cell phones started producing bigger and better cameras.

Now they have tightened up their review standards, a lot of people left or stopped uploading because of the 10c rates - and numbers have eased back a bit.


As for OP question: Yeah, money can still be made, but you've got to know what you are doing. Its a lot more than just: lets take a photo and upload it to see if it sells. I mean a person can, but I don't know how much money there is in just doing that.

I think there is still money on the table. Just depends on your expectations really. I have been in micro since 2005ish, mostly with food and minerals. Income steadily decreased over time and I stopped taking photos in 2018 for many reasons.

About a year and a half ago, I pulled all my work from every stock site (about 12k photos), then uploaded 6500 to Wirestock without any restrictions. Then I simply sat back and forgot about it. Doing it this way took away all my stressing, and interestingly, took away all the history of my images (best sellers, etc) since they are basically "new" with Wirestock.

So for a "new" contributor, I make anywhere between 0 and 80 dollars a day. If you average it out, maybe 6-8 bucks a day. That doesn't count the thousand or so I pulled with Instant pay.  Remember, I have done nothing in almost 4 years.

If you've already done all the work, its just free money. If you do the research and planning that some other successful people here do, you can make a lot more.

my portfolio: wirestock dot io/terry.davis1/portfolio

Nice mineral pics. (in a previous life I was a geologist). I have a few mineral images that never sold much, and a few rock pics that have sold a bit better but not well. I wonder if going the wirestock route was better or worse than just letting everything ride. Probably less work total with wirestock though.

I started in 2006, but really started uploading a little more seriously in 2007. For me, 2010 or whenever it was Istock/Getty changed was the end of them and 2012 was the high point overall. I quit SS when they went 10 cent and my income there dropped in half again. I still collect $ and upload from time to time but mostly images I am taking anyway or something I just see when I am out with my camera. I very rarely actually set up and take pics just for micro anymore.

I certainly wouldn't be getting into this if I was starting now although there is still money to be made. Demand is as high as ever, but nowhere near the supply. Not only are sales much less in number, but the compensation is much lower than it was in the 2008 or so to 2017 time period.

I think with the skills and work required to do well now you could do much better with something else.

It's fine. People have been saying the same thing since 2006. If you work hard there's still money to be made. The rate of growth of libraries is much smaller now than it was. They were doubling every year, now it isn�t even 10%. The older images aren�t getting any views anyway.

I still see steady income growth when I work consistently, only dropping off when I have to work less for long periods due to personal circumstances. But I am protective of my work and don't give away images, especially my latest work, to low paying sites.

No, forget it.

Hard to say without seeing your work and how much you're expecting to earn. The fact you mentioned art would already suggest you should be looking elsewhere like Zazzle, Redbubble, and the other bazillion POD/Art sites.

Return Per Image Per Month (RPIPM) on micro has fallen off a cliff. Back in the good old days I was earning $2 per image per month. So if I had a 1,000 image portfolio I would make $2,000 per month, 2,000 images would be $4,000, etc. Now I earn a small fraction of that and dont bother submitting new work because it would be an unprofitable waste of time. I've seen people posting here earning $100 per month from 10,000 images which is a 1 cent RPIPM. With no offense intended, that's an incredible amount of work for extremely low return. I'm sure some people do better than that but a small fraction.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 10, 2022, 11:09

2006 = 1 million images
2009 = 6 million images
2010 = 10 million images
2012 = 20 million images
2014 = 40 million images
2016 = 80 million images
2017 = 160 million images
2020 = 320 million images
2021 = 340 million images

Holy cow!! Interesting history, Pete. Yeah, I started when it was only 20 million, and was told that there was too much competition back then. lol

2017 was interesting. That was the year that they decided to go for the biggest database. Lowered the acceptance rate from 7/10 to 1, lowered the review standard - and doubled their database!

Also around that time, cell phones started producing bigger and better cameras.

Now they have tightened up their review standards, a lot of people left or stopped uploading because of the 10c rates - and numbers have eased back a bit.


As for OP question: Yeah, money can still be made, but you've got to know what you are doing. Its a lot more than just: lets take a photo and upload it to see if it sells. I mean a person can, but I don't know how much money there is in just doing that.

A number of people have pointed out that the number of images, (add in my tracking, doubling every two years), it was impossible to keep up with. Without all the in between numbers, in 2010 there were 10 million images on SS and many other had similar numbers. We could be found and see and there were not 100,000 of some subjects for the same search.

By 2020 there are 320 million. Maybe 32 times more competition doesn't seem huge, it's really not that kind of easy numbers. I see it as 10 million images and now 319 million MORE! Anything popular was over saturated with good images.

The demand is still going up, but once again, the growth of that demand was huge in the early years and now, demand is leveling off without the same rate of climb.

Another negative is, the expenses for the agencies have not really gone up during that time. We're the expense and the only way they can keep making more and more money is to pay us less.

I see it as, more competition, leveling off of demand and low commissions on less sales. Not much future in that for a starting artist. Not a great future for long time artists either, but I still get something back and I still have fun, so I stay with the top agencies.

Thank You

It could have been better with a third line, curved from the base, slowly arching up to the middle and only gradually increasing from that. That's a total assumption on my part, but lets say demand rose equally along with competition (supply), until 2016 at which time it leveled off. The competition keeps climbing at a higher rate.

That's an imaginary point where Supply / Demand / and value all intersected. It's there as Equilibrium. That point could have been 2012 or 2018, specifics don't matter. The graphic represents that at some time, everything was equal and working for us.

Ever since then, Value has dropped and Supply has skyrocketed and demand is slowing down, but still growing.

I don't think I've ever looked at it according to library size. I leave that to the corporations where it matters to them. For me, its like saying I can't sell a tube of toothpaste at Walmart because they have 3 million products on all the shelves.

I only ever looked at how many specific items there were to compete against within my niche. then comes the quality question, specificity (I shoot food and finding the exact image you need can still be a real challenge), and then useability. Not every image is used for an article for example.

For the OP, it is different for everyone according to their work ethic, talent, and subjects to see whether its worthwhile. Just my opinion, there is always more than one way to be successful here.

Quote from: mossback on April 10, 2022, 15:48

Nice graphic. It sums up the history very well.

Thank You

It could have been better with a third line, curved from the base, slowly arching up to the middle and only gradually increasing from that. That's a total assumption on my part, but lets say demand rose equally along with competition (supply), until 2016 at which time it leveled off. The competition keeps climbing at a higher rate.

That's an imaginary point where Supply / Demand / and value all intersected. It's there as Equilibrium. That point could have been 2012 or 2018, specifics don't matter. The graphic represents that at some time, everything was equal and working for us.

Ever since then, Value has dropped and Supply has skyrocketed and demand is slowing down, but still growing.

Understood on all counts.

I agree. I've always said, you are not competing with the whole database - you are only competing with those who share the same keywords as you.

If Annie agrees with me, then I know I'm on the right track. She is a real expert when it comes to this stuff, I am and always have been a hobbyist.