The microstock industry no longer worth doing full time to make an okay living in the West coast of the U.S. With the minimum wage ranging from $18 to $22 hour that is $37,000 to $46,000 a year plus vacation and benefits on these jobs.
What percentage of microstock folks make at least $37,000 a year? I would venture to say less than 20% of us. So, on a min wage job you (basically no skills required) you make more. Yet, many of us are masters (highly skilled) on processing images and videos.
Adobe is our fading star now and the pay will only get lower so why bother to do this business. And min wage will continue to go up. Wouldn't this be nice if our pay went up each year!
Good-bye microstock ---it was a fun ride back in the heyday...
As a full-time contributor, I've been reflecting on this as well. While I'm still making a decent income this year, earnings have dropped nearly 50% compared to last year. Looking ahead, it's hard to justify the return on investment. The older I get, the more I value my time, and I'd rather spend it in ways that feel more worthwhile.
wishing you the best going forward
I was never a full timer, but for a while with increased work I saw a nice increase in income and I think my best years it was over 50% of my total income (which was very low). Now I still dabble, but it is as much to stay "active" and be able to deduct any camera and computer equipment I need and hopefully not get downgraded by the algorithms as inactive (if that is even a thing). I hope the glide path is shallow, but any hope of significant income is long gone. Fortunately, I am not counting on it to keep me fed or housed. If I wanted to make more money there are better ways to spend my time now.
It does seem that stock is one of the few things that just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper every year, not to mention our cut of the smaller pie also is shrinking. Sure, there are unfilled niches, but most of them are way out on the long tail and won't return much for the effort of filling them.
Yeah, it's wiser to abandon the sinking ship if you're a full-time earner in stock photography. I bet that currently there are even fewer than 1%, who earn over $40k/year in this industry.
Now that Adobe has introduced the Unlimited Plan, it's only a matter of time before the stock photo industry is completely buried beneath the earth.
I'm glad I never worked full-time in this perversely masochistic industry and only ever earned pocket money from it.
For pocket money — $400 to $500 a month as a min wage Job — it's just barely worth it as long as you outsource image generation, keywording, and descriptions entirely to AI.
Whish you good luck on your further path!
Good luck! I am still trying to get back in, although the Adobe weird declines are a downer.
I don't have to actively do anything, that's why it's called passive income. I've done minimal work with microstock over the last five years, and it's still performing decently. I've never relied entirely on microstock income, it was a side hobby, even though I could manage to live solely off it.
I've also come to the same conclusion that the juice isn't worth the squeeze (microstock).
But it does bring me a little bit of joy/hope that my remaining portfolio may be able to earn me I estimate $15k-20k in the next 5-7 years without me doing absolutely any work. Obviously more if I upload more but I just can't be so bothered to shoot for micros these days and blogged about it to death.
Just for scale, my best year as a part timer was $50k. Now I make about $10k with 3x the number of images and video. I gave up shooting in the studio for MS last year.
I have been full time for many years, pre micro stock. Long story short it is no longer worth the time or effort to produce new content in a serious way. I now consider myself to be an "incidental" stock photographer. I no longer take any effort to go and shoot. In some ways it is frustrating as this is what I have done for my career, and it's been very financially rewarding. Just the other day where I live we had amazing weather and I couldn't have been bothered to go and shoot. Who in their right mind would go and shoot for a dime a download.
Quote from: Andrej.S. on August 26, 2025, 22:22...— it's just barely worth it as long as you outsource image generation, keywording, and descriptions entirely to AI. ..
i dont do much AI gen, but using AI for captions & tags has really accelerated my workflow at about a penny per image. i can now do hundreds with just a few minutes setup. about 20% require some post PS work, & i still manually process 5 bracketed images for HDR
my best years were the mid-teens, but there was a drop of about 20% in 2019 but that's been stable since then
so i'll keep at it for awhile since the most boring parts are now handled by AI & it still pays for some of my travel - organizing an India trip in Jan and collecting pax for an 11 day Egypt / Nile cruise in may
I had this bad month last 6 years ago...when I started mickrostock. Truly disaster...
I haven't contributed to stock since SS brought in the 10c commissions so, obviously, make nothing. That said, I reckon it's far easier for buyers to make an AI prompt to produce something that totally meets a need than to find something that broadly fits on a saturated stock site.
Quote from: heywoody on August 30, 2025, 23:18
I haven't contributed to stock since SS brought in the 10c commissions so, obviously, make nothing. That said, I reckon it's far easier for buyers to make an AI prompt to produce something that totally meets a need than to find something that broadly fits on a saturated stock site.
Completely agree.
Quote from: heywoody on August 30, 2025, 23:18
I haven't contributed to stock since SS brought in the 10c commissions so, obviously, make nothing. That said, I reckon it's far easier for buyers to make an AI prompt to produce something that totally meets a need than to find something that broadly fits on a saturated stock site.
That's why perhaps editorials will become increasingly premium.
Quote from: gameover on August 31, 2025, 14:17
Quote from: heywoody on August 30, 2025, 23:18
I haven't contributed to stock since SS brought in the 10c commissions so, obviously, make nothing. That said, I reckon it's far easier for buyers to make an AI prompt to produce something that totally meets a need than to find something that broadly fits on a saturated stock site.
Completely agree.
I don't know, except for very simple scenarios like; "a young man looking at the camera", making AI prompts can be tedious and time consuming....not to mention weeding out all the anomalies.
Quote from: heywoody on August 30, 2025, 23:18
I haven't contributed to stock since SS brought in the 10c commissions so, obviously, make nothing. That said, I reckon it's far easier for buyers to make an AI prompt to produce something that totally meets a need than to find something that broadly fits on a saturated stock site.
I have been doing ai for over 2 years. I find it extremely difficult to get exactly what I want and can easily waste an afternoon and still be frustrated.
The customers can also all go and just take pics with their mobile phone, yet they buy unbelievably simple things from me.
So, since we mostly sell time, I think it is much faster to browse a few thousand files, download what you like and perhaps then amend that image with ai.
In that combination, I think ai is very useful.
But browsing thousands of images on an agency is always much faster then trying to create this much variety with prompting.
And the prompted files need to be edited for flaws.
Personally, I am still confident.
The Adobe too similar decline is driving me nuts. I spend a lot of time finding missing content and then it gets declined while millions of endless copies of everything keep marching through the door.
...
Quote from: Big Money on August 26, 2025, 13:43
The microstock industry no longer worth doing full time to make an okay living in the West coast of the U.S. With the minimum wage ranging from $18 to $22 hour that is $37,000 to $46,000 a year plus vacation and benefits on these jobs.
What percentage of microstock folks make at least $37,000 a year? I would venture to say less than 20% of us. So, on a min wage job you (basically no skills required) you make more. Yet, many of us are masters (highly skilled) on processing images and videos.
Adobe is our fading star now and the pay will only get lower so why bother to do this business. And min wage will continue to go up. Wouldn't this be nice if our pay went up each year!
Good-bye microstock ---it was a fun ride back in the heyday...
I am so sorry to hear that. Yes, it was a fun ride :-)
On a lighter note - wishing everyone happiness and success in whatever you choose to do.
Cheers!