Not saying my RPI but for me Alamy was worse than micro and Getty has fallen over the past three years to almost the same as micro.

I do submit to all of these but find them hard to compare as so much more work goes into every picture I have on Getty/Corbis as I have on the rest. Also the editing is so much tighter if you can get fifty pictures from a bigger model-shoot to the Micros/Alamy you may just get two to Getty/Corbis and the rest of the shoot is blocked because of their heavy-handed exclusivity. I never calculated RPI but I know what I did earn from a certain portfolio a few years ago and what I earn now. Getty was a big moneymaker but they have dropped dramatically in the past years ( lets say from 100% to now 8% or so), Corbis is pretty constant for me. The RPI at Getty/Corbis is still higher than of the rest but as I said I'ts hard to compare.

thanks for the replies
..what do you mean by "private"... like the smaller boutique agencies?

thanks for the replies
..what do you mean by "private"... like the smaller boutique agencies?

Many commercial, dayrate photographers have established a direct/client contact, I have done it over a period of 20 years. As a side-service from assignment works, we offer pictures, etc for their annuals, profiles even advertising.

A sort of "private", RM outlet. Its difficult to explain really because this service is not internet-based. The classics of this are some of the Image-Bank photographers with private libraries of a 100K, pictures.

Ofcourse you always have to shoot an awful lot of stock, very high-res, since most are going to print and the most important, a really good client relationship.

Many times a picture in this business can easily fetch 1000 dollars and more, like a middle spread or something.

Surely everyones RM, cant be freefalling?? dont get it,  mine have gone up and by at least 20% and so has many friends of mine. Obviously it also depends on how many RM images you have and where they are placed.
I can say this much, of all my RM outlets, Getty, is the one that sells the least.

i've never heard anyone say getty sells less than alamy?
just curious.. ..that would be a first for my ears

I wasnt refering to Alamy, nor Corbis.

lagereek..well thats good news your RM RPI is going up;)

seriously its good news  - is it because your building your collections? or do you just have some great agencies that work well with you?

so far from the thread its getty / corbis
...sometimes other RM boutique agencies

than Microstock

than alamy

more or less from what i can gather;)

anyone else? ..super interesting thread

Hi All,

 I have seen my sales drop in RF Macro but that was in the past. My Macro RF has leveled out for all new work that is submitted. RM is still very strong, people that have been in  the market for a long period will tell you that the numbers have fallen a great deal over the past 6 years and they have but I look at percentage of return to cost of production rather than just the return. I see 800% return over 4 years at this point in Macro and I have seen Micro return 300% over the past three years.
 One difference is I pay more for each Macro shoot than a Micro so my returns are much higher in Macro than Micro. If I spend 50 dollars per shot for Macro and return $400 over 5 years that is considerably more than if I spend 15 dollars per image in Micro and then the cost of uploading and key wording adds another $5 to each image ( outsourced and not needed for Macro ) making production $20 dollars creating a much smaller percentage over the images life span.
  I can still produce more images in a day for Micro but not enough to offset the difference in return and I enjoy taking more time and creating strong images rather than what I create for Micro, the need to appeal to a mass audience also forces me to make images far more vanilla. In Macro I don't have to worry about the image being as vanilla so I have a lot more fun and creative freedom.
 The other thing we have accomplished this past year is to cut our Macro production in half to $25 an image running a much leaner machine while still being able to produce large amounts of pertinent content. When you have a minute you might want to look at the entire industries numbers and see where RM, RF and Micro fall in how much annual revenue they each make you might be surprised to see where RM sits in the order, especially when you consider the pie is being sliced by a much smaller group of photographers. Just my 2 cents.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi Slovenian,

 I submit to Spaces Images, Blend Images, Getty, Corbis, Cultura Images as well as 100 other sub agencies across the globe ( all of Spaces, Blend and Cultura Images distributors ). Multi distribution is the real life saver in for me, I don't have to worry about one company hurting my sales if they are suffering. I am in the process of shooting a lot of content for TAC so I can see the numbers there as well. That is this years R & D we will be shooting for the next several months and see where it is heading. Thanks for asking I am always happy to share info.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi Mike,

 For me it is about diversification more than anything. Most large companies that produce products have many different levels of quality in their product line to service all levels of buyers needs. The idea for me is to produce content at a price that fits the returns of the business model I am selling through. I spend more time or money producing RM than Micro because the buyer is looking for something special or unique.
 The other side of the coin is many buyers will pay for the right image no matter what the price, they have more at stake for their advertising than the difference between 1 dollar and 1,000 dollars over an image price and/or they want to know the history of the image they are purchasing. Sorry to be vague but the answer really depends on so many factors, quality, concept, agency representation, buyers needs, image history, multi distribution in RM, etc. I wish I could offer you a concrete answer but for me it is about having my eggs in all the baskets and to try to send our work where we will see our best returns from that content.

Cheers,
Jonathan