I wouldn't go that far.
never got an extended licence there out of 2500 downloads (I know this isn't a lot of DL compared to some but it's still 0% EL's) and they come in 3rd for earnings for me.
The collection is full of spam keywords which makes it hard to get exposure for your portfolio if you keyword properly. I imagine that spam keywords work the best on SS because with a subcription your more likely to just download an unrelated just because you saw it.
I wouldn't say they're "for sure the new leader" but everybody has different experiences with each of the agencies.

Glad it works for some

For me it's the only one that stands still or slides back, despite uploading.

And, in addition, it is hard to keep consistent quality when you're forced to upload min twice a week in order to keep your sales on a certain level. Personally I don't like such kind of policy.

Quote from: lagereek on December 19, 2008, 06:51

There is no doubt in my mind that SS has overtaken the role as THE agency to be with, everything just flows with an effortless ease and professionalism, ELs are often and plenty and with the right PF theres always money to be earnt.
Their search-engine is as good as can be. If theres one agency I would bet on to survive all crisis it would be SS.

I wonder what will happen if getty buys Shutterstock.

It will be the end of micro............

For me SS is performing well. The on demand sales are a relatively new feature which is bringing significant extra revenue.

While its true that there is a benefit from consistent uploads, it doesn't mean that your sales will drop to zero if you don't upload - they drop to a level and then stay relatively consistent.

I must confess however that DT is my favorite site at the moment. They seem to have the site well sorted, are logical and consistent in their reviewing, and importantly, sales continue to grow, both in total revenue, and RPD.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new IS best match, though somewhat fearful at the same time. I suspect this could be either make or break for non-exclusives there.

There are many good things about SS, and them being #1 in sales by a large margin for me are near the top of the list. They do however have some serious issues, #1 I think is spam. They are really bad in that regard, and don't appear to be concerned or doing something useful about it. (DT seems to be both, and IS seems to be concerned at least).
I think that SS is a bit of a lottery with similar pics, some get uploaded at a lucky time and get indexed early and get enough sales quickly to stay up in the search rankings, other very similar images don't, and never see the light of day. If you play long enough you are bound to get some winners, and at least it does appear that it is more of a random thing than who you are that makes an image take off. I am also not discounting that an image has to be good too, but there are a fairly large number of images that appear very high in the search that I think wouldn't ever get there if they were uploaded today. I like their fairly light touch on their forums, but there are some things they could do for contributors that would make things a lot easier for us that they haven't. (like some way to see how many DL and image has without wading through all the others looking for it, and a way to edit keywords more easily). I don't particularly care for the feed the beast need there, but it does help motivate me to make more images.

All sites have good and bad points, SS has more good for me these days.

I'd be very sorry to see SS get swallowed by a macro.

IS has been 2-3x SS earnings for a long time for me, SS has struggled to maintain the same monthly earnings, and has very slowly gone down since last year even with ppd and price increases.

But others have come up so DT has earned more each month for last 6 months, FT for the last 2 months. if the trend continues (that has been going for 12-18 months), StockXpert will overtake them about april / may making SS my 5th highest earner.

(thats not a complaint, it is what it is, different images / ports do differently on different sites)
Phil

I don't know but SS earns me about 3X more then all sites together , and that's enough for me to like them best.

Not to speak about the fact that I find them most constant in what they ask for , the way they review and reject and accept , to make it short they have constant standards.

Normally I do ok at Shutterstock, but this month I will be lucky to make the payout minimum. Sales here, for me, have been steadily declining, just like istock. I will take part of the blame as I have been kind of lazy and have not been uploading much.

SS was a clear leader for me at the beginning of the year but Fotolia has now caught up and overtaken by  a large %.   Fotolia now make me 3x more than IS which were my leaders for my first 3 years uploading. SS makes me double th earnings of IS.