MicrostockGroup

Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: ichiro17 on May 31, 2006, 18:11

Title: The Month Of May
Post by: ichiro17 on May 31, 2006, 18:11
Here's the breakdown for the month:

Bigstock - 9%
Shutterstock - 4% (2 images)
Dreamstime - 42%
Fotolia - 8%
123RF - 37%

I just got into StockXpert...so hopefully if things hold up it will all change and I'll have some more data
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: Striker77s on May 31, 2006, 23:59
Here we go again.  My numbers tend to fluctuate quite a bit.  Of course I only have about 200 images out there.

BigStockPhoto           10%
Dreamstime               21%
Featurepics                6%
Fotolia                  11%
iStockPhoto               39%
StockXpert                  13%

I dropped 123rf as it wasn't producing enough to make it worth it.  And I can now re-submitting to shutterstock.

Mark
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: leaf on June 01, 2006, 01:10
Dreamstime   Istock   Canstock   Shutterstock   Bigstock   123 RF   Fotolia   StockXpert
19%   15%   2%   31%   7%9%   9%10%
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: leaf on June 01, 2006, 01:13
for me this month shutterstock got 10% less of the pie and everyone else went up about 2%.. I uploaded to less this month (which affects shutterstock very much, but the other less so, so nothing too surprising, everying in that sense basically stayed the same.  Stockxpert continues to be a bigseller, and dreamstime holds it's own as well.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: phildate on June 01, 2006, 03:59
This was a pretty typical month for me. In descending order:

IStockphoto: 30%
Dreamstime: 18%
Fotolia: 16%
Shutterstock: 16%
Bigstockphoto: 11%
123rf: 4%
StockXpert: 4% (but only started uploading mid-month)
Canstockphoto: 1%

I expect to see Dreamstime continue to strengthen it's position as more and more 'old' credits get used up and all print sales are for $1. Also looking forward to good things from StockXpert next month when my whole portfolio is uploaded. Also have incomplete portfolio at USPhotostock and Gimmestock but sales are negligible.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: leaf on June 01, 2006, 06:03
wow, it is pretty surprising how different everyones totals are
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: jlye on June 01, 2006, 08:06
For me :

Shutterstock 28%
IStockphoto: 23%
Dreamstime : 17%
Bigstock : 11%
Bigstock : 9%
123rf : 7%
Canstock 5%

Just started with StockXpert and SPM .. a few sales.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: ichiro17 on June 01, 2006, 10:28
I don't really expect my breakdown to stay that way.  I already got a sale on StockXpert and its been less than 24 hours.  123RF has picked up slightly again, and I have more to upload to StockXpert.  Shutterstock may be in the works, and that might join the list, and I might stop submitting to Featurepics and Fotolia for a bit until they pick up.  Maybe not Fotolia.  And Bigstock has picked up very slightly (I got 2 downloads in the last day)

So, what I'm trying to say is that my stats are probably off
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: CJPhoto on June 01, 2006, 14:11
26% shutterstock (http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=60535)
5%   fotolia (http://www.fotolia.co.uk/partner/39857)
4%   istockphoto (http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?refnum=Jakich)
23% dreamtime (http://www.dreamstime.com/res125558)
20% bigstockphoto (http://www.bigstockphoto.com/?refid=ip416bLuq1)
4%   123RF (http://www.123rf.com/src_cjphoto)
0%   Canstock (http://www.canstockphoto.com?r=16626)
13% StockXpert (http://www.stockxpert.com/?ref=CJPhoto)

THose are mine.  shutterstock (http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=60535) and bigstockphoto (http://www.bigstockphoto.com/?refid=ip416bLuq1) are higher than they should be due to each having $20 extended licenses which with my small portfolio has quite a distortionary effect.  Hopefully I will get a lot more next month.

dreamtime (http://www.dreamstime.com/res125558) is my pick for best site at the moment.  StockXpert (http://www.stockxpert.com/?ref=CJPhoto) is my up and coming recommendation.  istockphoto (http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?refnum=Jakich) is the one I need to do some work on.  I only submit there when I know I have a successful shot due to high rejections, as such I only have a very small portfolio there but it has a very good per picture payout rate (ie good sales - unfortunately they have a low payout ratio though).
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: madelaide on June 01, 2006, 19:06
Are those percentages in number of images sold or earnings?

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: phildate on June 01, 2006, 20:15
My %s are in terms of earnings not number of downloads. It's only the money I really care about!!
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: CJPhoto on June 02, 2006, 01:48
My %s are in terms of earnings not number of downloads. It's only the money I really care about!!

To quote Jerry McGuire - "show me the money".  IN the end number of downloads are irrelevant.  All that matters is earnings.  Places like shutterstock only pay a small amount but attract customers by giving them more DL.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: leaf on June 02, 2006, 05:52
yep same.. % in earnings.. download numbers are rather irrelevant.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: madelaide on June 02, 2006, 11:40
That's what I had imagined, but as ichiro wrote "2 images" in one of his percentages, I got confused.

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: madelaide on June 02, 2006, 15:52
I haven't made any statistics before.  Here it is.

Dreamstime: 43%
iStock: 31%
FeaturePics: 10%
BigStockPhoto, Fotolia, StockXpert: 16%

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: chellyar on June 02, 2006, 16:18
Istock: 48%
Shutterstock: 31%
Dreamstime: 12%
Fotolia: 9%

Just joined fotolia, it's looking quite good in terms of payout/effort.

I'm pretty slow at increasing my portfolio, but IS continues to consistently pay out, Dreamstime is my worst performer in terms of images online/payout/effort. SS is a bit stop-start for me, but definately worth the effort.   As always, this varies wildly between different photographers.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: Freezingpictures on June 02, 2006, 16:41
Do you guys had a general increase of earnings compared to last month? I only uploaded a few more pictures maybe 2-5% but had an increase of about 25% of income compared to April.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: chellyar on June 03, 2006, 01:02
Slightly better this May than April, but March was my best so far with Microstock.. 

I think there are quite a few too many variables in this to say things are getting better overall without a fairly big view of the industry.  Certainly the Microstock market is increasing, but I imagine the number of photographers getting into it is also increasing, so as for the slice each player will get your guess is as good as mine..

The same as all creative processes, the best will rise to the top and get the cream, while people with less skill or resources may drop by the wayside.  I'm happy to be somewhere in the middle. :-).

Cheers, Me.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: phildate on June 03, 2006, 05:33
My earnings were up approx 10% on April but it's difficult to compare certain months because I only really note monies transferred and some months I will get a payout from CS/123rf and other months I won't. This month I get a good payout from 123rf but not from CS whereas it was the other way around last month. It can get confusing so I don't really worry about it. The exchange rate seems to affect things more anyway and really losing out at the moment converting US$ to Singapore$  >:( current rate is about 1.53 whereas around December it was 1.7
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: fintastique on June 05, 2006, 08:53
I just noticed 123rf have recalculated their payments for May just to mess up everyone's calculation no doubt.

But seriously their subscription payments have varied as follows

March 22c
April   26c
May   27c

Nice to see they share the profits with the photographers and with the new credit system hopefully things can only get better.

A pity you need $100 and the payments are only once a month
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: ichiro17 on June 05, 2006, 08:59
Its good to see that they are giving more, and I made a few bucks more...but the site isn't that great in my opinion.  The sites that will survive are the ones that have a reputation for being strict on quality standards, like iStock, and Shutterstock, and Dreamstime, and StockXpert, and 123RF doesn't have that discipline.  I submitted photos that have not gotten accepted everywhere but they accepted them.  And another thing I've noticed is that if you sign up you get good downloads for a while then they stop...even though I keep uploading more photos that sell elsewhere fairly well.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: CJPhoto on June 05, 2006, 09:30
March 22c
April 26c
May 27c

Will have to recalcuate.  i didn't think it would increase as I saw they were selling cheap subscriptison to try to get sales up.  Weird, especially since they just extended the 50% payout rather than being on the propssed bottom rung of 30%.

Re them surviving, i think they have a good chance.  They are not so strict with quality now but once they get the numbers up, they can start cutting some out and start being stricter.  Supposedly SS are a lot stricter than they were a year ago - you can see just be the amount of people getting rejected first time around.
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: leaf on June 06, 2006, 03:31
i think shutterstock is pretty leniant still. They accept MASSIVE duplicates, and until only recently thye basically accepted everything you threw at them.  Now noise is a big thing for them, but they still accept a wide variety of images, tons of which istock doesn't accept (for me anyhow... lots of travel photography for example)

thanks for pointing out the 123RF recalculation.  That is good news.  :)
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: fintastique on June 06, 2006, 04:25
I think I started at the wrong time with a 30 photos/week limit at istock and after submitting about over 600 images to SS (that were accepted at either DT or FT) my acceptance rate is 52% so they are getting fussy. I actually went through an exercise for copying their rejection pages to Powerpoint to keep track what was rejected and why to try to fix the problem.

I would agree noise is a common complaint though i suspect its another way of saying no thanks duplicate. 

Cropping/framing is a major concern though I will start a nw thread on that one.

Shutterstock payaments??

I read somewhere the payments are sent on the 15th of the month but what is the last day that will contribute to this payment the 14th or much earlier??
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: leaf on June 06, 2006, 04:45
Earnings earned only up until the end of the last month will contribute to a payout.

Payouts have been sent anywhere between the 4th and the 14th
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: fintastique on June 06, 2006, 05:34
Darn - I suspected as much, a pity as I would have probably got to $75 by the 14th

Thanks

Steve
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: ichiro17 on June 06, 2006, 11:47
Fintastique,

In my opinion, I don't think you should really use Fotolia as a basis of whether SS would accept the same photos.  I have photos on Fotolia that wouldn't be accepted on Shutterstock in any conditions.  You're best best comparison companies are DT and probably iStock.

But then again, thats my opinion.  If you see differently, let me know
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: madelaide on June 12, 2007, 19:52
My 2007 numbers until May:

Site Jan Feb Mar Apr May
IS 32% 35% 25% 27% 29%
DT 13% 18% 23% 15% 19%
FT 18% 11% 10% 16% 9%
StockXpert 15% 14% 15% 9% 25%
CanStockPhoto 4% 6% 1% 2% 3%
BigStock 7% 2% 9% 4% 7%
123 4% 3% 4% 3% 4%
FP 5% <1% 14% 2% 0%
LO 1% 2% 3% 1.5% 2%
IV 0% 7% 0% 19% 0%
Scan 0% <1% 1% 0% 0%
CS <1% <1% <1% 1% 2%

BME at StockXpert.  Significant decrease at IS, some decrease at DT and FT.  First month with no sales at FP.

Overall earnings decreased in 20%, more than last month.

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: Karimala on June 13, 2007, 13:27
I just noticed this thread was started a year ago, but what the heck...these are my numbers from May 2007.

 Shutterstock (http://tinyurl.com/yfyvl3) = 40%, up 21% from previous BME (December), 1 EL (4 in March)
iStock (http://tinyurl.com/ydlu34) = 31%, down 12% from previous BME (March), 3 EL
Dreamstime (http://tinyurl.com/yeaq8d) = 12%, up 7% from previous BME (March)
StockXPert (http://tinyurl.com/ygyptx) = 6%, down 44% from previous BME (April)
BigStock (http://tinyurl.com/ymdyhz) = 5%, down 14% from previous BME (March)
123RF (http://tinyurl.com/2qxl89) = 3%, up 144% from previous BME (November), 1 EL
Fotolia (http://tinyurl.com/ynxzzc) = 3%, down 48% from previous BME (March), second lowest earnings per month in a year.

Overall BME by 6%

CanStockPhoto, LO, FP not tracked by percentage of sales (percentages limited to sites where I receive a payout at least every other month).

CanStock (http://www.canstockphoto.com?r=13485) = up 135% from previous BME (November); due in part to uploading 500+ photos and their discounted credits promo
LuckyOliver (http://tinyurl.com/ytdj7v) = up 14% from previous BME (March)
FeaturePics (http://www.featurepics.com/index052806.aspx) = down 98% from previous BME (February); no sales since March 1; earnings are from referrals only
Title: Re: The Month Of May
Post by: madelaide on June 13, 2007, 16:45
Karimala, my mistake!  I searched for this thread (as I expected it would have existed while I was away) and I didn't notice it was last year's!   ::) ::)

Leaf, should we restart it?

Regards,
Adelaide