If I find 2021 I'll update. Not that this is high science, but it might be interesting to watch?

Site    Earnings Rating January 2020 vs 2022 January numbers

Shutterstock    73.7   51.6
AdobeStock      50.5   55.7 
iStock          23.9   26.6
IS exclusive    64.3   69
Pond5           14     10.1
Alamy           10.7   12.6
123RF           6.4    5.6
Dreamstime      4.6    4.9

If I find 2021 I'll update. Not that this is high science, but it might be interesting to watch?

Site    Earnings Rating January 2020 vs 2022 January numbers

Shutterstock    73.7   51.6
AdobeStock      50.5   55.7 
iStock          23.9   26.6
IS exclusive    64.3   69
Pond5           14     10.1
Alamy           10.7   12.6
123RF           6.4    5.6
Dreamstime      4.6    4.9

Pete, can you explain to others, especially the new people, exactly what those numbers mean?

We spoke about it once and I recall you said, its a percentage of $500.

So for example, AS 55.7 means the average month earnings of contributors who participated in the poll = $278.50 (500 x 55.7%)

Is that correct?

Hi Wilm :-)

Those numbers are too low for average revenue. There are some high earners on here.

Unless they have changed it in recent years, I am fairly sure its a percentage of $500.

Hopefully, Pete, Leaf or a Diamond member can confirm or explain.

The thing is, there is a lot of top earners, but there's probably also a loooooooooooooooooot more very low to no earners and beginning contributors inspired by the idea of big earnings and income by the likes of this (below) who shortly thereafter abandon their ports... that it drags down the average monthly earnings per contributor.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kqdwkm-A1k

Quote from: Annie on January 05, 2022, 18:32

Hi Wilm :-)

Those numbers are too low for average revenue. There are some high earners on here.

Unless they have changed it in recent years, I am fairly sure its a percentage of $500.

Hopefully, Pete, Leaf or a Diamond member can confirm or explain.

Hello Annie, 

I'm not so sure about that.

In 2019, shutterstock paid $US 164,000,000 to contributors. With the introduction of the new revenue structure, I expect it may have been just as much or even less in 2020.
(Unfortunately, shutterstock did not publish this figure in 2020. Then you could see how much the new revenue structure has cost us contributors).

In 2020, there were 1,600,000 contributors.

The numbers are in the 2019 and 2020 annual reports.

On average, each contributor earned US$100 per year from shutterstock. That's $8 a month.

Yes, that's true, Wilm. But I meant there's a lot of high earners here on the MSG forum - the people most likely to vote on this Microstock Poll, not all 1.6m contributors.

Pete, help! (lol)

Anyway, the top site was an arbitrary constant making year on year comparisons pointless in terms of absolute earnings.  It was orginally 100 for the top site so if the next site was 50 you knew people were typically making half as much on that site.

https://www.microstockgroup.com/site-related/why-is-the-shutterstock-ranking-not-100-anymore/

So in Pete�s example it shows people on average are making more similar amounts on SS and AS then they were in 2020 but not necessarily less at SS as an absolute number, unless the method changed again since 2012.

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on January 06, 2022, 06:24

Quote from: Annie on January 06, 2022, 05:08

Yes, that's true, Wilm. But I meant there's a lot of high earners here on the MSG forum - the people most likely to vote on this Microstock Poll, not all 1.6m contributors.

Pete, help! (lol)

I am really not sure if that's true. There's a couple, but I am always surprised by how often people who post here regularly and I assumed did this for a living (or even have blogs and channels devoted to the industry) say things like �I had an EL on SS so that made a big difference/ doubled my income for the month�.

There�s a lot of people who post enthusiastically because this is a hobby they are passionate about, rather than because they are big earners or pros. Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all but it can be misleading.

same with people not meeting the second level threshold at Alamy, which i would have expected would be a minimum for someone who took time to upload there for years. Even with 20% drop in gross fees, that still means they were making less than $150 a year before.  again nothing wrong,

True, true, true, we're sometimes playing different games at different levels and in a different business or some are working at a hobby. I'll answer for myself, as a hobbyist, Alamy last year =  $303.53 but with the dropping prices and commissions, I don't expect to have made the $250 needed to keep the 40% level. If I'm looking at my average earnings, and months Etc. I tend to discount the rare and occasional EL I might get on SS. It's not reliable and I agree, that some people who have big swings, are getting that, because of a big sale, that throws the averages and data off.

That's why RPD isn't my favorite statistic, unless I only count sales that don't include the one "Big One" here and there. I like to see what's real, instead of the exceptions? Even RPI is flawed, as I could just delete the non-selling failures and have a great looking number, which is make believe.

Now about the poll and what I think I know. From memory, Leaf was using real numbers in the early years, and based everything off the top site as 100 and everything below was then a relative number. Later he changed it to 5 points for every dollar. If the sites shows 10 then you might expect to make $50 a month. Even that is not an exact number.

Before a number shows on the right, 50 people have to enter their data. If you hover over Canva right now, as an example, 12 people voted and the average is 16.8 that could change any time, but without 50 votes, you won't see that.

I'm not running down the poll but just going to point out some easy statistical flaws. It's on a volunteer basis. Right there, it's not impartial and only includes people who want to contribute. There's no cross checking for accuracy. If I liked Agency X and wanted to boost their appearance, I could put in double what I make. And if I didn't like Agency Z I could have $0 earnings every month, even if I had closed my account, because that's a way to get some revenge and make them look bad.

An agency that wanted to look good, like a new one, could have shills voting to make their earnings look great and attract new users.

While the poll is statistically flawed, it is relative, so assuming that aside from all the questions about data, most people are putting in real numbers, it's relative.

Another problem that someone above pointed out, people who come here are active and care. Whether that means someone like me who has a hobby and likes the extra income, or someone very serious who lives from their work. I don't take the poll, because I'd just bring the numbers down.  But lets look at who does? If the people here are serious and that's why they read here and maybe many more people who aren't don't come here... the poll will reflect numbers for active and more serious artists.

I have some past information which has aged off into time, but back when we could see what people were making on iStock, numbers and downloads, the poll here showed me that the poll here and the forum, represented the top 5% of all microstock contributors. That fits well with the 100 million people who joined and never sold one image or the 60 million who signed up and never did much, maybe never made payout, or the hobby people like myself who keep contributing in small numbers, year after year.

The poll isn't what someone can expect, and isn't what someone new will make, it is what someone who's serious and has been established for some time, might make.

For a hopefully fair example of that, right now 61 people voted that they make around $30 a month on DT. That's the top people with good collections, maybe thousands of images. Not what someone new will make after a few years. Not me, and not the average person, but the top people.

Old fun, I dropped this. Here's the most recent version (I think?) Some of these places are gone. Something else is that less and less have the 50 votes. Look at how the numbers have been dropping for earnings at some of them.



I hope that answered some questions and I hope if I missed something or have something wrong, that someone will correct that.

Yes, that's true, Wilm. But I meant there's a lot of high earners here on the MSG forum - the people most likely to vote on this Microstock Poll, not all 1.6m contributors.

Pete, help! (lol)

Another old one. Not mine, it was from someone who was data crawling SS somehow.



If this is correct, under 10% in 2016 had 1 or more images. Same source, in 2018 - 17877 contributors had over 1,000 images.

111,418 is a new member # registered in 2008 of the 128,623 total contributors registered at the end of the year.

A new Artist just uploaded image #2,101,861,852 (of her 5 images) she's contributor #319,430,041

Assuming that the numbers are continuous, that's how many contributors now.  319,430,041  ?

Quote from: ouatedeP on January 06, 2022, 06:54

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on January 06, 2022, 06:24

Quote from: Annie on January 06, 2022, 05:08

Yes, that's true, Wilm. But I meant there's a lot of high earners here on the MSG forum - the people most likely to vote on this Microstock Poll, not all 1.6m contributors.

Pete, help! (lol)

I am really not sure if that's true. There's a couple, but I am always surprised by how often people who post here regularly and I assumed did this for a living (or even have blogs and channels devoted to the industry) say things like �I had an EL on SS so that made a big difference/ doubled my income for the month�.

There�s a lot of people who post enthusiastically because this is a hobby they are passionate about, rather than because they are big earners or pros. Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all but it can be misleading.

same with people not meeting the second level threshold at Alamy, which i would have expected would be a minimum for someone who took time to upload there for years. Even with 20% drop in gross fees, that still means they were making less than $150 a year before.  again nothing wrong,

True, true, true, we're sometimes playing different games at different levels and in a different business or some are working at a hobby. I'll answer for myself, as a hobbyist, Alamy last year =  $303.53 but with the dropping prices and commissions, I don't expect to have made the $250 needed to keep the 40% level. If I'm looking at my average earnings, and months Etc. I tend to discount the rare and occasional EL I might get on SS. It's not reliable and I agree, that some people who have big swings, are getting that, because of a big sale, that throws the averages and data off.

That's why RPD isn't my favorite statistic, unless I only count sales that don't include the one "Big One" here and there. I like to see what's real, instead of the exceptions? Even RPI is flawed, as I could just delete the non-selling failures and have a great looking number, which is make believe.

Now about the poll and what I think I know. From memory, Leaf was using real numbers in the early years, and based everything off the top site as 100 and everything below was then a relative number. Later he changed it to 5 points for every dollar. If the sites shows 10 then you might expect to make $50 a month. Even that is not an exact number.

Before a number shows on the right, 50 people have to enter their data. If you hover over Canva right now, as an example, 12 people voted and the average is 16.8 that could change any time, but without 50 votes, you won't see that.

I'm not running down the poll but just going to point out some easy statistical flaws. It's on a volunteer basis. Right there, it's not impartial and only includes people who want to contribute. There's no cross checking for accuracy. If I liked Agency X and wanted to boost their appearance, I could put in double what I make. And if I didn't like Agency Z I could have $0 earnings every month, even if I had closed my account, because that's a way to get some revenge and make them look bad.

An agency that wanted to look good, like a new one, could have shills voting to make their earnings look great and attract new users.

While the poll is statistically flawed, it is relative, so assuming that aside from all the questions about data, most people are putting in real numbers, it's relative.

Another problem that someone above pointed out, people who come here are active and care. Whether that means someone like me who has a hobby and likes the extra income, or someone very serious who lives from their work. I don't take the poll, because I'd just bring the numbers down.  But lets look at who does? If the people here are serious and that's why they read here and maybe many more people who aren't don't come here... the poll will reflect numbers for active and more serious artists.

I have some past information which has aged off into time, but back when we could see what people were making on iStock, numbers and downloads, the poll here showed me that the poll here and the forum, represented the top 5% of all microstock contributors. That fits well with the 100 million people who joined and never sold one image or the 60 million who signed up and never did much, maybe never made payout, or the hobby people like myself who keep contributing in small numbers, year after year.

The poll isn't what someone can expect, and isn't what someone new will make, it is what someone who's serious and has been established for some time, might make.

For a hopefully fair example of that, right now 61 people voted that they make around $30 a month on DT. That's the top people with good collections, maybe thousands of images. Not what someone new will make after a few years. Not me, and not the average person, but the top people.

Old fun, I dropped this. Here's the most recent version (I think?) Some of these places are gone. Something else is that less and less have the 50 votes. Look at how the numbers have been dropping for earnings at some of them.



I hope that answered some questions and I hope if I missed something or have something wrong, that someone will correct that.

Thanks for your detailed response, Pete.

Of course, numbers can be cheated. And of course the numbers are not necessarily correct. Not today and not many years ago.

But from your screenshot, it still paints an interesting and sad picture.

The way it looks to me, there is only one agency left with a positive trend. And that is not a good omen for the microstock business.

Is it possible that in your table contributors were confused with paying users, Pete? The difference between 1.6 million and 190 K is just too big for me...

These are the numbers of contributors of Shutterstock through the years:

And in this link (https://content.shutterstock.com/investor-report/index.html#shutterstock-by-the-numbers) there is more useful information about what type of customers they have, number of images etc..

Is it possible that in your table contributors were confused with paying users, Pete? The difference between 1.6 million and 190 K is just too big for me...

I took the number from SS and the new members actual ID number. Of course if people sign up and leave, that number will be lower. But here it is again...

A new Artist just uploaded image #2,101,861,852 (of her 5 images) she's contributor #319,430,041
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Nina+Markevceva

319,430,041 people have opened contributor accounts.  No claim as to the actual number who still have an account or the actual number of images, such as Over One. That's why I used the people with 1,000 in 2018 as a fair representation of how many active artists the agency actually had. Some of those could have been dormant accounts, so none of this is perfect science or numbers, just approximate.

Go to your landing page on SS/Dashboard, click Image Portfolio, what's the number after your name? "rid=###,### for example. Look at the list... total registered contributors. Your ID should match the year you joined?



If I found the right WILM 437578 you joined in 2012? Did I pass? 

My only claim is, account numbers assigned and I'm assuming they are consecutive and have been for years, and that one of the newest is, 319,430,041, so I've concluded that, that's how many people have signed up for an account. To be fair, Jon Oringer is account #81, so the number isn't precise.

Quote from: Wilm on January 07, 2022, 03:59

Is it possible that in your table contributors were confused with paying users, Pete? The difference between 1.6 million and 190 K is just too big for me...

I took the number from SS and the new members actual ID number. Of course if people sign up and leave, that number will be lower. But here it is again...

A new Artist just uploaded image #2,101,861,852 (of her 5 images) she's contributor #319,430,041
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Nina+Markevceva

319,430,041 people have opened contributor accounts.  No claim as to the actual number who still have an account or the actual number of images, such as Over One. That's why I used the people with 1,000 in 2018 as a fair representation of how many active artists the agency actually had. Some of those could have been dormant accounts, so none of this is perfect science or numbers, just approximate.

Go to your landing page on SS/Dashboard, click Image Portfolio, what's the number after your name? "rid=###,### for example. Look at the list... total registered contributors. Your ID should match the year you joined?



If I found the right WILM 437578 you joined in 2012? Did I pass? 

My only claim is, account numbers assigned and I'm assuming they are consecutive and have been for years, and that one of the newest is, 319,430,041, so I've concluded that, that's how many people have signed up for an account. To be fair, Jon Oringer is account #81, so the number isn't precise.

I started at shutterstock in the middle of November 2010, Pete.

And it was a great time that I will never forget!

I started at shutterstock in the middle of November 2010, Pete.

And it was a great time that I will never forget!

I forgot to account for members who had signed up and left in the number assumption. My year matched relatively well, but when the mass of new users coming in happened, the member number for a year, would no longer relate to the number of members. My Mistake.

Photo numbers are another issue. It used to be, when I started, every image was 3 away from the previous. So if I uploaded a batch of ten, they might be, 8651233, 8651236, 8651239 Etc. And those are actually my first three images and their numbers. So I assumed that it was always that way. Apparently not as Jo Ann said some of hers in later years are consecutive. There's no way to tell anymore, too many images, uploading too fast, all day and night.

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/sport-car-front-view-icon-vector-2101903084 2,101,901,084 is a vector,, new upload from a new contributor. Her latest is number 2102510725 ? What? two days and half a million new uploads?


If the every third image numbering thing is active, then 700,272,929 images have been assigned a number on the system. Just for comparison, a photo, #2,100,818,788 was my latest upload.


That says nothing about passing or still being here, just that that many images have been uploaded.

Same goes for member numbers. It doesn't mean there are 319,430,041 contributors, just that that many have applied. And it's just as possible that those IDs aren't consecutive?

WavebreakMedia joined 2006 - ID 76219
Voyagerix Joined 2008 - ID 175351
Andris Torms Joined 2010 - ID 660631
phonchai Joined 2017 - ID  175645076
Nina Markevceva 2021 - ID 319430041

The numbers in that graphic I posted were people with at least 1 image, or Not Zero images, not the number of total contributors on those years.

it's common to use non-consecutive numbers in order to keep actual numbers secret & that may account for the artificially high # assigned to contributors - it's difficult to imagine 300 million, even if only for those who applied

meanwhile SS website says

1,000,000,000+ image downloads
       1,000,000+ image contributors
   300,000,000+ images

and they have little incentive to under-report those approximate numbers

I really can't see anything conclusive except that's what the numbers are on the images and the accounts.

Let things settle and think again.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 08, 2022, 14:59

I really can't see anything conclusive except that's what the numbers are on the images and the accounts.

Let things settle and think again.

OK, thought about the information and my conclusions and interesting comments from others, please tell me?

A simple conclusion is, a boatload of competition coming in from everywhere by the thousands from thousands of people. I mean what valid conclusions can I make about the real number of contributors or the real number of images that have been uploaded?

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 10, 2022, 09:48

OK, thought about the information and my conclusions and interesting comments from others, please tell me?

Although your reasoning was pretty logical, the outcome cannot match reality. So probably the numbers are not incremental with one from day one. There is probably another logic in place at SS or maybe they switched the logic a few times when the numbers were getting greater or something entirely else.
You cannot have 1 out of every 22 people being registered as a contributor with SS. People under 18 are about 30% of the world population so that would mean 1 out of 17 even, for adults. I'm sure that SS would have liked that to be true

Just saying that on basis of the numbers you see you cannot deduct the number of contributors. And then again, they publish the numbers themself on their website. And they would sooner exaggerate the numbers then not. Same goes for the number of uploads.

Oh good, that's what I was saying also. They are just numbers and we can't tell the real value of these numbers. I know for the images that many are uploaded and many are rejected.

Imagine this, someone uploads 50 new images, all are rejected, they upload the same a couple days later and all are accepted. That's 100 numbers. Or someone like Richard said he did, on the SS forum, had uploaded the same images 6 times, until they were accepted. That plus I have evidence (using my photo uploads in a batch) that SS numbers every new image 3 away from the previous image. So easy? Divide the number by 3 and you get, how many photos have been uploaded to the system. Nothing to do with how many accepted.

As for user numbers, we don't know if they are continuous or not. Even if they are, and your point about the population of the world, so what? Are you saying it's impossible that all accounts are assigned a number from the same pool, and buyers as well as contributors each have a unique ID number? Now the "USER" ID doesn't look so impossible? Although if I was arguing your side, yes, highly unlikely.

Anyway, I do agree, any conclusions are of doubtful value for serious conclusions, and that's why I wrote, they are just numbers.

The only real numbers would be, 2018 December, 17877 artists had over 1,000 assets. And in 2016 there were 164,949 contributors with 1 or more assets. Oh and in April 2017, 100 accounts had 100,000 images or more which represented 15% of the entire collection.

We can only guess at how those numbers have grown?

Quote from: SVH on January 10, 2022, 13:33

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 10, 2022, 09:48

OK, thought about the information and my conclusions and interesting comments from others, please tell me?

Although your reasoning was pretty logical, the outcome cannot match reality. So probably the numbers are not incremental with one from day one. There is probably another logic in place at SS or maybe they switched the logic a few times when the numbers were getting greater or something entirely else.
You cannot have 1 out of every 22 people being registered as a contributor with SS. People under 18 are about 30% of the world population so that would mean 1 out of 17 even, for adults. I'm sure that SS would have liked that to be true

Just saying that on basis of the numbers you see you cannot deduct the number of contributors. And then again, they publish the numbers themself on their website. And they would sooner exaggerate the numbers then not. Same goes for the number of uploads.

Oh good, that's what I was saying also. They are just numbers and we can't tell the real value of these numbers. I know for the images that many are uploaded and many are rejected.

Imagine this, someone uploads 50 new images, all are rejected, they upload the same a couple days later and all are accepted. That's 100 numbers. Or someone like Richard said he did, on the SS forum, had uploaded the same images 6 times, until they were accepted. That plus I have evidence (using my photo uploads in a batch) that SS numbers every new image 3 away from the previous image. So easy? Divide the number by 3 and you get, how many photos have been uploaded to the system. Nothing to do with how many accepted.

As for user numbers, we don't know if they are continuous or not. Even if they are, and your point about the population of the world, so what? Are you saying it's impossible that all accounts are assigned a number from the same pool, and buyers as well as contributors each have a unique ID number? Now the "USER" ID doesn't look so impossible? Although if I was arguing your side, yes, highly unlikely.

Anyway, I do agree, any conclusions are of doubtful value for serious conclusions, and that's why I wrote, they are just numbers.

The only real numbers would be, 2018 December, 17877 artists had over 1,000 assets. And in 2016 there were 164,949 contributors with 1 or more assets. Oh and in April 2017, 100 accounts had 100,000 images or more which represented 15% of the entire collection.

We can only guess at how those numbers have grown?

Maybe the contributor numbers are assigned at the point of application - not acceptance. And every application has a new number, regardless of whether they have previously applied or not. And depending on the number of rejections, this could account for so many extra numbers.

But I agree with you, Pete. They are just numbers, and for others to focus on that is distracting and a somewhat waste of time.