I'm a designer, and from my experience and conversations with other designers, there is still quite a bit of reluctance to even try microstock. The good news for us is that there is a huge untapped pool of potential new buyers. The bad news is that many might never try microstock, or hold out as long as possible.

The general reasoning I've heard is that they are comfortable with the big companies, they have accounts with them to simplify accounting procedures, and they actually prefer the high prices because they can pass on the costs to the client with a higher mark-up. For many designers, using microstock actually costs them money, since that 25% mark-up on an image purchase is a lot less when the image only costs $10.

I think designers and studios need to rethink image purchasing if they are ever to become regular microstock customers. Those that are used to getting clients to foot the bill for images, and are used to adding on their own mark-up charges, need to think of microstock as a new way of buying images, and not as a loss. They can still get those added costs out of clients if they want to by charging a "stock image fee" (or some other term) per image used. This can be done even in subscription situations. Buy a yearly subscription at SS or wherever, and charge clients flat fees of say $50 per stock image used in projects. For most people that will more than cover the cost of the subscription plus the usual mark-up.

Designers need to look at microstock as a new system, thinking in terms of how they can use it to increase productivity and profits, and not as a detriment to their old image buying systems.

...If an ad space in a magazine costs - let's say $10,000 - paying $1,000 for an image isn't really that much. It's lot better combination than $10,000 ad space and a $5 image...

If the image fits the ad, who cares how much it cost?

Microstock has always been about low prices, high sales volume. It always makes me laugh when people show up with this tired old "You could get so much more per image," routine. We all knew what the prices were when we signed up, and if those prices aren't good for you, maybe microstock isn't the right business for you.

(is there a way to delete a message on this forum?)

helix7, are you saying everyone that pays for a high-end RM image are "wrong" ?

Not at all. There's a place for high-priced imagery, and your reasoning for using RM images are sound. My argument was with your mathematics claim, and it just makes more sense to spend more on an image if the budget supports it. If an image fits a project, who cares if that image happens to be a $5 image? If you're worried about a competitor using the same image, then of course RM is a better way to go. But it sounded more like you were saying that high-priced images just fit high-budget projects better, based on price alone.

I'm a designer, and from my experience and conversations with other designers, there is still quite a bit of reluctance to even try microstock. The good news for us is that there is a huge untapped pool of potential new buyers. The bad news is that many might never try microstock, or hold out as long as possible.

Your bad news is actually a pretty good news to me
I hope those designers will never try microstocks.  I have all my "niche" images with macro and now macro is 60% of my stock income.  There is a variety of pictures on Alamy for instance that you won't ever find in micros, because those micros decided that the pictures were not stock worthy, LOL. 

And the logical trend is the same for pretty much all successful photographers with micros...they move to macro sooner or later.

Andres is a good example.  So if your friends designer are looking for a good agency, please send them to Alamy or Photoshelter ;-)