MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: stockeiro on February 07, 2016, 20:56
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I saw thousands of posts here on the forum, but it is rare for people to talk about their incomes, because afraid to say?
As I said, I have 75 photos in SS, they render me only an average of $ 3.00 or $ 5.00 per month.
And you, how many photos have and what your monthly income?
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it is a pointless question as one can have 500 images and another has 5000 and the other 50000
and they might earn the same monthly.
only thing you will need to do is to stop trying to figure out how much we make,
and concentrate on producing as many new work as you can each week.
in another thread, top seller sean locke said this when someone asks how many do you need to make money, his answer was,
"1 very good photo or 10,000 bad photos".
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Most aren't going to say how much they make but you do need quantity in micro stock together with quality. One good image might make you decent money on macro stock but in this game volume together with quality is the formula if you are looking to make anything reasonable. There are a lot of contributors in Micro with FANTASTIC ports but their incomes are dwindling due to search shifts, collection volume, and price/commission cutting. I know one guy who has over 10,000 images and only makes $800 a month on SS. I make more than that on SS with far fewer images. So to ER's point, quality is important as is volume and keeping new content flowing. A wide variety is also wise. Large breadth portfolios generally help to withstand lulls in the business and also when search changes happen. For example I was making around $180 a month on Dreamtime then my income went in half over night. I emailed them and their response was that they changed the algorithm to make it more fair for new comers to spread the wealth. Shameful excuse for what amounts to income redistribution.
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No successful microstock person come here and say, hey check my portfolio, I'm making a load of money...Ninguem.....And, you can not tell how much money a person makes just by looking at their portfolio.
By the way this industry is extremely competitive...and there are more people struggling, making little money than people making a lot of money.
Now if you earn $5 per month with 75 images, you could do that math, as to how many photos do you need to make $500 or a thousand dollars.... That is the best way to figure out how much money you could be making.
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Very silly idea to talk about how much you make, share your niche markets if you have any etc. It's fine to help people and give advice, but it's also important to protect your livelihood against competitors. That means withholding information on your earnings is a good policy IMO.
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There is no right way to tell people your numbers. You can come across as bragging if you're doing well or just prying people to open up if you're not.
There is a strange dynamic here, because we're all competitors and nobody wants to disclose their secrets to success. The moment someone opens up too much, everyone will start using that information to improve their portfolios, which means competition for that person.
Only a newbie with low sales can come in here and innocently tell everyone their sales numbers without being judged too harshly.
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I saw thousands of posts here on the forum, but it is rare for people to talk about their incomes, because afraid to say?
As I said, I have 75 photos in SS, they render me only an average of $ 3.00 or $ 5.00 per month.
And you, how many photos have and what your monthly income?
Just one observation: >$1/photo/month is not uncommon (for SS alone). So, you could make much more than $3-$5/month with quality stuff.
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Just one observation: >$1/photo/month is not uncommon (for SS alone).
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$1/photo/month @ Shutterstock. I wish!
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$1/photo/month @ Shutterstock. I wish!
You forgot to quote: with quality stuff . I never said it is the rule. I only said it is not uncommon.
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I'll cough up. I earn less than $1,000,000/yr!
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I saw thousands of posts here on the forum, but it is rare for people to talk about their incomes, because afraid to say?
As I said, I have 75 photos in SS, they render me only an average of $ 3.00 or $ 5.00 per month.
And you, how many photos have and what your monthly income?
Just one observation: >$1/photo/month is not uncommon (for SS alone). So, you could make much more than $3-$5/month with quality stuff.
$1/photo/month @ Shutterstock. I wish!
You forgot to quote: with quality stuff . I never said it is the rule. I only said it is not uncommon.
yes, that is a good base , what zero talent says... red words quality
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Just one observation: >$1/photo/month is not uncommon (for SS alone). So, you could make much more than $3-$5/month with quality stuff.
Ummm.... No to the first sentence. Not for SS alone. Yes to the second.
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Just one observation: >$1/photo/month is not uncommon (for SS alone). So, you could make much more than $3-$5/month with quality stuff.
Ummm.... No to the first sentence. Not for SS alone. Yes to the second.
Well, I know a guy who knows a guy who makes more than $1/photo/month.
But you don't have to believe me, because I can't prove it to you, even if it is 100% certain.
Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
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What I will say is that in 2015 my income went rapidly downhill.
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Just one observation: >$1/photo/month is not uncommon (for SS alone). So, you could make much more than $3-$5/month with quality stuff.
Ummm.... No to the first sentence. Not for SS alone. Yes to the second.
Well, I know a guy who knows a guy who makes more than $1/photo/month.
But you don't have to believe me, because I can't prove it to you, even if it is 100% certain.
Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
I am not saying you don't "know a guy who knows a guy." You may even know another guy who knows a couple of guys who make $2/photo/month on SS. What I am saying it's not common.
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Just one observation: >$1/photo/month is not uncommon (for SS alone). So, you could make much more than $3-$5/month with quality stuff.
Ummm.... No to the first sentence. Not for SS alone. Yes to the second.
Well, I know a guy who knows a guy who makes more than $1/photo/month.
But you don't have to believe me, because I can't prove it to you, even if it is 100% certain.
Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
I am not saying you don't "know a guy who knows a guy." You may even know another guy who knows a couple of guys who make $2/photo/month on SS. What I am saying it's not common.
Alright, I should have phrased it better.
Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
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On average I earn about $2.50 per image per year.
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On average I earn about $2.50 per image per year.
From my observations, thats around todays average.
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I am pleased when I see the portfolios of the various posters to these forums.
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Ok, I'll play.
61 cents per photo per month across 6 agencies.
IS only has about half of the port since I stopped uploading new stuff to the greedy (bleep)s early last year.
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$1 per pic per year across 7 agencies. Still to get my port up on SS completely.
I earn about $50 a month with a small port of 300 odd images. Starting to increase this but guess it'll take time for the money to go up... If at all
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How do you calculate that?
If thats the sum of earnings from all agencies in 1 year, divided by numbers of files, then I got ~4.
If not, then I don't know.
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How do you calculate that?
If thats the sum of earnings from all agencies in 1 year, divided by numbers of files, then I got ~4.
If not, then I don't know.
Its complicated isn't it? - my number of images increases over the year and not all sites accept all my images so I don't bother.....my key stat is whether my earnings are increasing and how much time I'm spending/ I can't do anything on others results so I try and focus on improving my own. I used to work a lot with stats and I didn't start doing microstock to carry on.....
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As mentioned previously, total earnings per month can be misleading, based on how many items one has in their portfolio. I do videos rather than photos... space stuff surprisingly enough, and my best video gets me about $70 a month. My worst video makes me $0 a month! Average is probably $10 a month or so.
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Mean average over 2015 about $419.56 per month ~ Hi $544 lo $356
Mean average over 2014 about $268.70 per month
Mean average over 2013 about $63.25 per month
2012 $83.19 total
There you go :)
Don't know why stock types are so shy about figures ::)
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Mean average over 2015 about $419.56 per month ~ Hi $544 lo $356
Mean average over 2014 about $268.70 per month
Mean average over 2013 about $63.25 per month
2012 $83.19 total
There you go :)
Don't know why stock types are so shy about figures ::)
you went from 400% and then double again. good job!!!
but can you tell me if it was due to an increase in portfolio or same ???
did the pecentage increase with the increase in port or decrease...
just curious. no need for specific numbers, just like to know.
what i ask is that many of my colleagues report drop of income,
.. even the great yuri. so i am just curious if it's universal that stock income is dropping...
or just going to other ppl or spreading across the board
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Thats pretty awesome. How big is your port on an average?
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Mean average over 2015 about $419.56 per month ~ Hi $544 lo $356
Mean average over 2014 about $268.70 per month
Mean average over 2013 about $63.25 per month
2012 $83.19 total
There you go :)
Don't know why stock types are so shy about figures ::)
you went from 400% and then double again. good job!!!
but can you tell me if it was due to an increase in portfolio or same ???
did the pecentage increase with the increase in port or decrease...
just curious. no need for specific numbers, just like to know.
what i ask is that many of my colleagues report drop of income,
.. even the great yuri. so i am just curious if it's universal that stock income is dropping...
or just going to other ppl or spreading across the board
I started with about 10 or 20 images way back in 2009 and didn't really add any more until Q1 2013.
Since then it's been about 600 images per year so growth in earnings is no doubt due to increases in port size, however larger value sales ($60 to $100+) started appearing in 2014/2015 which helped.
However earnings increases have slowed down noticeably since Q3&4 2015 as it is obvious some agencies limit earnings.
SS has been flat with no growth for months now (almost a year)
Though Alamy is the agency that keeps getting better
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Thats pretty awesome. How big is your port on an average?
Depends which agency around 1700 or less some of the smaller agencies I didn't bother adding any more as sales stayed around $0 to $10 a month no matter how much I added.
One agency hasn't recorded a single sale in 5 years (600 images).
The agency with the most is currently at 2,300 images (and that is not SS)
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Thats pretty awesome. How big is your port on an average?
Depends which agency around 1700 or less some of the smaller agencies I didn't bother adding any more as sales stayed around $0 to $10 a month no matter how much I added.
One agency hasn't recorded a single sale in 5 years (600 images).
The agency with the most is currently at 2,300 images (and that is not SS)
thx for replying. your portfolio is small in comparision to all those i know with 17,000 , 70,000 imgs.etc
but extrapolation of your small portfolio is pretty remarkable.
ss is flat, i am surprised here, since many consider ss our top earner.
alamy good for you is also another surpriising discovery to me, since personally alamy was a non-starter for me even though i had 100% approval for a whole year during their inception to about a few years back, so i gave up on them.
good to know, it's not all the same for all of us... or perharps alamy has improved since i left them
for ss
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Thats pretty awesome. How big is your port on an average?
Depends which agency around 1700 or less some of the smaller agencies I didn't bother adding any more as sales stayed around $0 to $10 a month no matter how much I added.
One agency hasn't recorded a single sale in 5 years (600 images).
The agency with the most is currently at 2,300 images (and that is not SS)
thx for replying. your portfolio is small in comparision to all those i know with 17,000 , 70,000 imgs.etc
but extrapolation of your small portfolio is pretty remarkable.
ss is flat, i am surprised here, since many consider ss our top earner.
alamy good for you is also another surpriising discovery to me, since personally alamy was a non-starter for me even though i had 100% approval for a whole year during their inception to about a few years back, so i gave up on them.
good to know, it's not all the same for all of us... or perharps alamy has improved since i left them
for ss
It's not the size that counts but how you use it :D
I try and keep the quality good/high and keep my keywords comprehensive but relevant (no spamming)
400% increases ! You know I never looked at it that way but it does seem pretty good :)