Author Topic: Poll: How much do you earn from stock photography on average each month? (Read 6931 times)

JamoImages · « **on:** November 20, 2022, 03:46 »

I'm interested to know how much you guys earn on average from stock photography each month.

I'll include the results in my blog as I'm trying to revive it from dying completely by pushing out new content.

So I'm very grateful for your participation.

Thanks!

Reimar · « **Reply #1 on:** November 20, 2022, 09:25 »

I see no way to change my vote. I pushed $4-500 when it should be $6-700.

StanRohrer · « **Reply #2 on:** November 20, 2022, 15:23 »

This is only one data point in the life of a stock photographer. Kind of like "how long is a piece of rope"? The answers will not be very useful without more context. Maybe: how many images are available for sale? Which agencies? Dollars income Per Image Per Year? How many years/hours to accumulate the sellable library? Dollars of business expenses spent to acquire the images?

SpaceStockFootage · « **Reply #3 on:** November 20, 2022, 23:31 »

Yeah, earnings per month, per image/video would be a good one. Just how much you earn can be skewed considerably by how long people have been doing it, whether they're full time, part time, how big a portfolio they have etc etc.

mike123 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 21, 2022, 06:40 »

Also maybe clarify if you only mean microstock or also other channels like selling through own website

JamoImages · « **Reply #5 on:** November 22, 2022, 00:31 »

Quote from: Reimar on November 20, 2022, 09:25

I see no way to change my vote. I pushed $4-500 when it should be $6-700.

don't worry about it

Thanks for your vote!

JamoImages · « **Reply #6 on:** November 22, 2022, 00:36 »

Quote from: mike123 on November 21, 2022, 06:40

Also maybe clarify if you only mean microstock or also other channels like selling through own website

I was thinking of microstock mainly but it doesn't matter really at this point. Maybe later I do more specific polls.

JamoImages · « **Reply #7 on:** November 22, 2022, 00:40 »

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on November 20, 2022, 23:31

Yeah, earnings per month, per image/video would be a good one. Just how much you earn can be skewed considerably by how long people have been doing it, whether they're full time, part time, how big a portfolio they have etc etc.

I agree, RPI would be much better but not perfect either.

JamoImages · « **Reply #8 on:** November 22, 2022, 00:45 »

Quote from: StanRohrer on November 20, 2022, 15:23

This is only one data point in the life of a stock photographer. Kind of like "how long is a piece of rope"? The answers will not be very useful without more context. Maybe: how many images are available for sale? Which agencies? Dollars income Per Image Per Year? How many years/hours to accumulate the sellable library? Dollars of business expenses spent to acquire the images?

I totally agree with you but to make a perfect poll would need the answers to be individualized which is not possible with a simple poll like this.

Braznyc · « **Reply #9 on:** November 22, 2022, 07:43 »

The poll is not about "how you make money" it's about "how much money you make".
People complain about everything.

cascoly · « **Reply #10 on:** November 22, 2022, 13:05 »

i don't vote in polls where the results aren't shown

Lina · « **Reply #11 on:** November 22, 2022, 13:10 »

Quote from: cascoly on November 22, 2022, 13:05

i don't vote in polls where the results aren't shown

After you vote, results will be there.

suz7 · « **Reply #12 on:** November 22, 2022, 14:29 »

It was quite interesting to see the results, thanks for this

Pacesetter · « **Reply #13 on:** November 22, 2022, 14:57 »

Depends on the time period as well. For me the last five months is way more than the last 12 months given relative big increase in port size.

Annie2022 · « **Reply #14 on:** November 22, 2022, 15:55 »

Its interesting that there is as many people here on $2,000+ as there is on $100-$200.

Zero Talent · « **Reply #15 on:** November 22, 2022, 16:12 »

Quote from: Annie2022 on November 22, 2022, 15:55

Its interesting that there is as many people here on $2,000+ as there is on $100-$200.

That's because the scale is not uniform, Annie.
If the poll would use regular intervals, and the number of voters would be much higher, I belive the graph may end up looking like a poisson distribution.
There might be some logic to that, since, overall, microstock sales may follow a poisson arrival process (just a hypothesis).

Big Toe · « **Reply #16 on:** November 22, 2022, 16:42 »

Quote from: Zero Talent on November 22, 2022, 16:12

Quote from: Annie2022 on November 22, 2022, 15:55
Its interesting that there is as many people here on $2,000+ as there is on $100-$200.

That's because the scale is not uniform, Annie.
If the poll would use regular intervals, and the number of voters would be much higher, I belive the graph may end up looking like a poisson distribution.
There might be some logic to that, since, overall, microstock sales may follow a poisson arrival process (just a hypothesis).

You are of course right that the size of the brackets influence the picture we get. For example, the bracket 1000-1500 ist five times as large as the bracket 900-1000, so it is not surprising that there are more people in it.

Is it still remarkable, though, that about 30% of the voters earn more than $1000 on average. So for a lot of people the money from microstock is still a significant part of their income.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #17 on:** November 23, 2022, 03:24 »

Quote from: Big Toe on November 22, 2022, 16:42

...
Is it still remarkable, though, that about 30% of the voters earn more than $1000 on average. So for a lot of people the money from microstock is still a significant part of their income.

Correct for the people that voted, for contributors overall; maybe, maybe not. There’s selection bias, we are on a microstock forum so the people here are invested enough to at least be frequenting an industry forum. Also quite an old one that doesn’t get much promotion, a lot of newer contributors are on Facebook pages I think. Not sure this poll shows us anything much.

Year of the Dog · « **Reply #18 on:** November 23, 2022, 08:22 »

Quote from: Big Toe on November 22, 2022, 16:42

Quote from: Zero Talent on November 22, 2022, 16:12
Quote from: Annie2022 on November 22, 2022, 15:55
Its interesting that there is as many people here on $2,000+ as there is on $100-$200.

That's because the scale is not uniform, Annie.
If the poll would use regular intervals, and the number of voters would be much higher, I belive the graph may end up looking like a poisson distribution.
There might be some logic to that, since, overall, microstock sales may follow a poisson arrival process (just a hypothesis).

You are of course right that the size of the brackets influence the picture we get. For example, the bracket 1000-1500 ist five times as large as the bracket 900-1000, so it is not surprising that there are more people in it.

Is it still remarkable, though, that about 30% of the voters earn more than $1000 on average. So for a lot of people the money from microstock is still a significant part of their income.

This is a Microstock forum, you should expect that the best people will be members here.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #19 on:** November 23, 2022, 12:37 »

Quote from: Year of the Dog on November 23, 2022, 08:22

This is a Microstock forum, you should expect that the best people will be members here.

I think that's a fact. Some of the best people in the world and the hardest working artists, come here to read and get ideas, or maybe discover what's in the news. That was true years ago. In the time, back when we could see iStock and earnings levels, based on the poll on the right, the top 5% of people who worked stock, visited here.

That was about ten years ago, and people have left, times have changed, but I don't think that top earning people have just vanished and from this poll so far, they are still here.

Maybe not writing, but reading.

Reminder. SS artists, also back when data could be found, only 10% of people who opened a SSTK account had over 1 image. And that's just image counts which doesn't always equal money, but 90% are non-starters. This poll, how much in an average month, includes video, photo and everything else. New markets, old collections.

$1,000 and up, per month, is a pretty good level of earning for anyone.

Just_to_inform_people2 · « **Reply #20 on:** November 23, 2022, 12:51 »

And then you have people that submit something that they are not. Most likely in the high brackets. So the results might be questionable, like the poll on the right of your screen. Can't imagine the Microstock world just consists of Adobe and Shutterstock while at least Istock/Getty's or Pond5 should have some slice of the pie, right?

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #21 on:** November 23, 2022, 13:29 »

Quote from: SVH on November 23, 2022, 12:51

And then you have people that submit something that they are not. Most likely in the high brackets. So the results might be questionable, like the poll on the right of your screen. Can't imagine the Microstock world just consists of Adobe and Shutterstock while at least Istock/Getty's or Pond5 should have some slice of the pie, right?

There are many variables and conditions, but as this is just one simple question, income and not about how that's achieved, fair enough to limit my conclusions to that?

What I see developing is an inverted bell curve, and it makes sense.

The results on the right are in order of earnings, even if we can't see all those numbers. That's interesting. Also iStock Exclusive has vanished from the poll. But what I find more interesting is Self Hosted beats all the agencies, except AS and SS. At least for 5 people it does.

Big Toe · « **Reply #22 on:** November 23, 2022, 14:44 »

Quote from: SVH on November 23, 2022, 12:51

And then you have people that submit something that they are not. Most likely in the high brackets. So the results might be questionable, like the poll on the right of your screen. Can't imagine the Microstock world just consists of Adobe and Shutterstock while at least Istock/Getty's or Pond5 should have some slice of the pie, right?

Why would anybody lie about their earnings in an anonymous poll? It may happen, but I don't think that many people do it.

And iStock and Pond5 do have their slice of the pie. For iStock the number is 23.3 and for Pond5 8.6, as of now. The numbers are not currently displayed, because less than 50 poeple voted for these agencies. You can still see the number and also how many people voted for the agencies when you hover over the names with your mouse pointer.

Just_to_inform_people2 · « **Reply #23 on:** November 23, 2022, 15:14 »

Quote from: Big Toe on November 23, 2022, 14:44

Why would anybody lie about their earnings in an anonymous poll? It may happen, but I don't think that many people do it.

And iStock and Pond5 do have their slice of the pie. For iStock the number is 23.3 and for Pond5 8.6, as of now. The numbers are not currently displayed, because less than 50 poeple voted for these agencies. You can still see the number and also how many people voted for the agencies when you hover over the names with your mouse pointer.

Well that's more of psychological question isn't it? Maybe some people think it's not that anomynous, maybe some people tend to lie maybe some people like to exaggerate or maybe some people are just having a laugh with it.
Who doesn't lie in a job interview about their competencies?
The chance that people will pretend to have bigger sales then they actually have is greater then the people that will pretend they have less sales then they actually do.
And regarding the pole on the right, it surely doesn't represent the actual truth with this 50 people rule, if that is the case.

Just_to_inform_people2 · « **Reply #24 on:** November 23, 2022, 16:12 »

And Jarmo (or Jamo), like your work, very diverse.
I'll be heading to Hetta next year, with the kids, pretty up North in Finland. Hope to catch some amazing photos as I have seen in your port as well as the amazing Northern lights. I missed them in Iceland due to bad wheather or non-existence. I hope Finland will give me a bit of more luck and my camera won't freeze to death

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How much do you earn from stock photography on average each month?

Author Topic: Poll: How much do you earn from stock photography on average each month? (Read 6931 times)

JamoImages

Reimar

StanRohrer

SpaceStockFootage

mike123

JamoImages

JamoImages

JamoImages

JamoImages

Braznyc

cascoly

Lina

suz7

Pacesetter

Annie2022

Zero Talent

Big Toe

Justanotherphotographer

Year of the Dog

Uncle Pete

Just_to_inform_people2

Uncle Pete

Big Toe

Just_to_inform_people2

Just_to_inform_people2

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