MicrostockGroup
Microstock Footage Forum => General - Stock Video => Topic started by: stocker2011 on October 17, 2012, 16:25
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There has been a lot of talk about photo sales tanking recently and would like to know how the video side is doing for you all.
I have a relatively small cg port and my sales in istock, fotolia and P5 have all been tanking since the summer began and it doesn't look good for October either. So i was wondering how the rest of you are doing.
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I have no hard numbers but my gut says that the footage sales behave similar to the image sales.
Personally images didn't go down much for me (if any at all) but footage certainly didn't improve over the course of this year.
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i get 1-2 footage sales from pond5 on average; rar sales on SS but had 2 last month - never had a sale from 123, revo, clipcanvas or motionelements
so too few sales to notice any trend
on images though, this month is already my 4th BME
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My video sales on iStock for Sept and Oct have been good!
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Over the last few months, while my photo sales have been plummeting, my video sales have been well on the up. So they are averaging themselves out. iStock has been especially evident of this.
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I just have a small video portfolio and havenīt uploaded in a while. But my best sales are from Shutterstock, followed by istock, then pond5 and so far only one sale from fotolia.
SS seems to be going up the most. But with a small part it is hard to tell. I do like the results I am getting it is much better than I thought, because my videos are still very, very simple.
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I have almost 300 clips on line. So far Pond5 is clearly ahead of Shutterstock (SS better than last year) ClipCanvas and Revostock low sales, no sales at 123rf yet...
I do not upload to Fotolia because of subs and Istock because of low commissions
Overall slow progression compared to last year
(I use picworkflow to distribute my footages: http://www.picWorkflow.com/?by=207 (http://www.picWorkflow.com/?by=207))
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I've gone from averaging 1 sale a month with Pond5 to about 1 every other month. SS has picked up a little but still lags behind Pond5. It's hard to sell anything on the other sites. I also have a small portfolio and haven't uploaded much for a few months now.
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I have 350-400 clips in my port. Sales were steady to slightly increasing (as has the size of my port) until September, when there was a sudden, huge drop off at 2 of the 3 majors (IS and P5). SS was the lone holdout, providing a BME. But even with that, Sep was down about 1/3 from a normal month.
Oct is trending better, but still down from what had been "normal". Too much competition, methinks.
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Things have been slow the last six months with video sales for me....but sales have come back strong in the last five or six weeks. Pond5 and SS the best performers by far.
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It's been about a year since I started selling stock video, and I currently have about 300 clips per site online (IS more recently and fewer clips). Overall here are my approximations of the year to date:
SS: per/mo average: $150 (44% of sales)
IS: per/mo average: $37 (10.5% of sales)
Pond5: per/mo average: $90 (26% of sales)
Revo: per/mo average: $40 (11.5% of sales)
The rest is from a couple other sites that all make less than $10 per/mo each. Broke the $200 per month mark with Shutterstock for the last two months, I've seen a pretty steady rise there.
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Thank you very much for sharing your stats. I just started to upload again, but only have around 40-65 files on the different sites.
But my workflow is improving and I think from now on I will make weekly uploads, just like with photos. Iīll share my stats, when I have more info.
I still have absolutely no idea what kind of niche I will specialize in.
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I'm non-exclusive at istockvideo and my sales have dropped to the bottom recently. I used to do really well there a couple of years ago but I'm not holding out much hope anymore. Anyone else a suffering non-exclusive there?
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Istock has been on a steady decline for me as well. It's true that exclusives get a much higher presence on the first page, but video searches generally return so few pages that I would expect my files to be seen, so I don't think that's the issue. My guess is that the high prices compared to other sites is probably the problem. SS and Pond5 are growing steadily. That and the overall decline at IS probably means a trend downward on sales there will continue. Even with higher prices charged at IS, my earnings of the sale is the lowest of all 3 sites.
The other problem for me is the extremely long wait for approval, and the random nature of approvals. And the soviet era upload process makes it almost not worth the effort.
It's a shame, because they had such a head start on video, and such a high reputation that it was their market to lose. And that's what they did.
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Anyone else a suffering non-exclusive there?
I finally had my first sale of the month at iStock last week, and none since.
I've averaged 10 sales / month this year, with the worst month having 6.
So, yeah, definitely a suffering non-exclusive here.
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Here are my current results:
istock 144 dollars, 13 sales, average sales royalty: 11 USD
SS 132 dollars, 8 sales, average royalty: 16.5 USD
pond5 109 dollars, 5 sales, average royalty 22 USD
fotolia 7.35 credits (?), 3 sales, average royalty 2.45
No other sales from other sites. I am submitting to these three and also clipdealer and clipcanvas and am slowly starting to add revostock and 123rf.
What impresses me with pond5 is that you can set your own prices and if the quality is good customers will pay the 80 dollars I am asking for a file.
fotolia and ss have unbelievably fast review systems, fotolia sometimes inspects files in 30 minutes. However they reject a lot, much more than istock and Shutterstock. And the returns so far are very low.
SS has an excellent upload system, very good sales for such a tiny portfolio.
istock has an extremly slow and cumbersome upload sytem. Feels like the stone age. Months of inspection time. Sales should be much higher, considering that I have an active port with customers hitting my portfolio daily.
I have around 40-70 files on the different sites, so I am not uploading enough. But that I get sales at all with such a tiny portfolio is amazing. there must be a real need for video out there. Nobody would notice me if I only had 40 images online.
So I am very optimistic for my video future and also bought some expensive gear on photokina in September.
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Thanks for sharing your results. Your experiences are pretty much the same as my own in dealing with these different agencies. I have also had the 30 minute review time from fotolia which i found amazing but as you quite rightly stated their rejections are strange.
I would also pursue the 123, revo, clipdealer they all bring in an occasional sale from time to time for me and i have a small port of around 170. A year ago i gave up on clipcanvas through lack of sales although as always your own personal experience may be different.
My biggest disappointment for 2012 was P5, they were such a good earner up until summer and then my sales literally went off a cliff. I believe this is because of the global crisis but also their Achilles heel is that they accept almost anything and a lot of contributors take advantage of this and upload a tonne of crap. And also they have recently added photos and 3d models which also is flooding the search IMO.
Anyway, i have lots more ideas for videos in 2013, its just finding the time to make them.
Good luck.
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Here are my results for January:
I earned a total of 118 dollars, Best Month Ever in video.
Pond5: 2 sales, 64 Dollars in total
Shutterstock: 3 sales: 52 Dollars in total
Fotolia: 1 sale 2.60 Dollars
istock: ZERO, not a single sale although I had the free video of the month.
I havenīt uploaded anything new, will now focus uploading to Shutterstock, Pond5 and Fotolia.
Everywhere else, when I have the time.
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Istock really can't justify the low commissions for video when they sell less than Pond5. I removed most of my clips when my commission was cut from 20% to 15%. With their low sales volume, they should be paying 60% but that's never going to happen :)
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Istock video upload is a pain for earning peanuts, 15% commission is insulting, hopefully customers are smart and video selling at Istock are very rare for me last year.
Here is the social and economic model of Istock, fotolia and other greedy agencies like deposit photo and photodune:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement)
About video, I'm earning between 100 and 200$ /month with around 150 video.
Pond 5 is great but sales are lower than shutterstock since 6 months.
Be careful with fotolia, don't forget to uncheck "include video in subscription plan" in your profile to avoid low commissions and to respect the video stock market. If one day Fotolia delete this option, I will delete my video files immediately.
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Video sales on all sites.... Maybe this thread is out of this topic but I see you have experience about video and sales and you can help me. My grandfather was a good amateur filmmaker at the begining of last century. I have more tham one hour of footage showing urban cityscapes and costumary people (apart of glass plates and stereoscopy photos ). Which site do you think is better to offer it? Will be better to offering in a single batch? Thank you for your comments! and good sales!
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several thousand clips spanning three accounts on all the main sites.
Consistently on all three accounts, January on istock was down 50% to 75% from January of last year. And last year was down 25% from two years before that ('10). This is all while continually adding content. They're dying and good riddance. I've been disgusted with them from the beginning. They did this to themselves.
Overall, though, my sales are still up for the year. Revostock sales keep growing. They're my favorite site - they do everything right. My AE templates do well there too.
Pond5 is the number-one earner, followed by shutter, then revo, then istock, clipcanvas, fotolia, and clipdealer.
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I've been doing very well on the video side, which I detail on my blog at, the www.stockvideoseller.com (http://www.stockvideoseller.com). The continious sellers are listed in income order: Pond5, Shutterstock, iStockphoto, ClipCanvas and coming up a poor last is Revostock. Revostock has taken a long dive over the last few years. I attribute this to their attempt to focus in the market as a AE and graphics house, probably a good choice. I don't sell that, so the big drop makes sense. I probably will cease submitting there in the near future, as the results are so poor relative to the effort. The big change has been the rise of ClipCanvas in sales. There as been a lot of improvement in the site - it has always incredible ease of submission - which is what intially attracted me. Since last year lots of backend improvements in repricing, adding boxes for titles and descriptions, etc. They ALWAYS answer my email, very unusual and impressive. Sales are up there.
Interesting to note, from some of the other threads similar to this topic, some sellers having marginal success at Fotolia and ClipDealer - although the numbers each month see very close to the minimum payout.
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What I'm seeing is promising or at least hopeful returns from SS and P5 and even the occasional sale from iS for videos but Revostock has left the building. I haven't had a sale there for 2 months. That's pretty darn bad when compared to other sites. Actually it's pathetic.
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The continious sellers are listed in income order: Pond5, Shutterstock, iStockphoto, ClipCanvas and coming up a poor last is Revostock.
You're going to have to explain how in earth you're doing so well with Pond5....20 clips since mid October and not even a view!! let alone a sale!! My best is SS followed by IStock. Pond5 is a total waste of time as far as I'm concerned. Good for you but its beyond me how P5 could be a best seller. No audience. No sales.
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Pond 5 is good for video,
almost zero for photos.
My 2 cents
View statistics is not updated - ever
I have, for example, several sold files but 0 views.
Pond 5 is OK just keep uploading and be optimistic.
Feeling when You see another 40$ for one sold footage is :)
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View statistics is not updated - ever
I have, for example, several sold files but 0 views.
Interesting. Thanks. But why bother featuring views if it isn't an accurate stat? Odd. And your sales. Are they bargain basement prices? $10 a clip or do you have a wide range?
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My clips are min 80 $ (with people),
and min 40 $ w/o people.
Images min 10$.
No. of views: who cares.
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No. of views: who cares.
Me. Number of views tells me I'm using the correct search words and the agency is significant enough to attract a large number of buyers. And like I said, why feature it if it's inaccurate? It's got to be a deterrent to contributors who, unlike you, have had limited success selling on P5 and are under the assumption that no one looks at their clips.
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The continious sellers are listed in income order: Pond5, Shutterstock, iStockphoto, ClipCanvas and coming up a poor last is Revostock.
You're going to have to explain how in earth you're doing so well with Pond5....20 clips since mid October and not even a view!! let alone a sale!! My best is SS followed by IStock. Pond5 is a total waste of time as far as I'm concerned. Good for you but its beyond me how P5 could be a best seller. No audience. No sales.
Pond5 is the best by far for me. Some clips take a year or two to sell. I think to see regular sales, you probably need 500 clips now. It used to be easier but lots more people are doing video now.
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Pond5 is the best by far for me. Some clips take a year or two to sell. I think to see regular sales, you probably need 500 clips now. It used to be easier but lots more people are doing video now.
Sharpvid, Your prices are way too low.
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Pond5 is by far the my most consistent seller followed closely by SS. Revostock has a lot of bluster but very few sales...for me the only other one worth mentioning is the occasional sale on Clipdealer. Clipcanvas was quite good six months ago but has fallen away sharply. I also agree there are a lot of new people doing video contributing to lower sales.
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iStock video sales dipped Dec and Jan, but this month seem to be going well.
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Pond5 is the best by far for me. Some clips take a year or two to sell. I think to see regular sales, you probably need 500 clips now. It used to be easier but lots more people are doing video now.
Sharpvid, Your prices are way too low.
If I had a highly commercial portfolio, I'd price them higher but I don't think my clips are in high demand. As Pond5 pay 50% commission, they don't need to be priced as high as the sites that pay 15 to 30%.
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Pond5 is the best by far for me. Some clips take a year or two to sell. I think to see regular sales, you probably need 500 clips now. It used to be easier but lots more people are doing video now.
Sharpvid, Your prices are way too low.
If I had a highly commercial portfolio, I'd price them higher but I don't think my clips are in high demand. As Pond5 pay 50% commission, they don't need to be priced as high as the sites that pay 15 to 30%.
It doesn't need to be highly commercial to ask a decent price for your work. Early on I put some of my "simple and not too commercial clips" up for $10. They sold and later I re-priced them to $75 and they still sold. Except now of course for every sale I get 7.5X the amount per sale. I would say $30 to $40 should be the minimum for all HD clips 5 sec on longer. .i.e. all clips. You may not get as many sales but you will get more money in pocket and you will keep prices strong so that you can get the appropriate value out of your more commercial work. Don't kid yourself. Lot's of my clips are barely considered commercial but still sell for $50 to $75.
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View statistics is not updated - ever
My apologies for sounding like a broken record but I've got to get this off my chest.
NUMBER of VIEWS is information essential to a contributor and even more so with an agency like Pond5.
If I have 100 views and 1 sale within a given period of time, isn't it telling me that I could try lowering the price of the clip to gain more sales? In other words, I drop my price by $10 and in the next equal period of time I have 250 views and 10 sales it's telling me that I increased traffic thereby adding sales by dropping the price a certain percentage.
The more information you have for each clip, the more effective you can be determining the true value and popularity of your clip. Some of you seem perfectly comfortable with Pie in the Sky Pricing but how do you know you've created optimum pricing?
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Pond5 is the best by far for me. Some clips take a year or two to sell. I think to see regular sales, you probably need 500 clips now. It used to be easier but lots more people are doing video now.
Sharpvid, Your prices are way too low.
If I had a highly commercial portfolio, I'd price them higher but I don't think my clips are in high demand. As Pond5 pay 50% commission, they don't need to be priced as high as the sites that pay 15 to 30%.
It doesn't need to be highly commercial to ask a decent price for your work. Early on I put some of my "simple and not too commercial clips" up for $10. They sold and later I re-priced them to $75 and they still sold. Except now of course for every sale I get 7.5X the amount per sale. I would say $30 to $40 should be the minimum for all HD clips 5 sec on longer. .i.e. all clips. You may not get as many sales but you will get more money in pocket and you will keep prices strong so that you can get the appropriate value out of your more commercial work. Don't kid yourself. Lot's of my clips are barely considered commercial but still sell for $50 to $75.
Are you looking at my stills priced at $10? My clips are more in the $30-$40 range.
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The more information you have for each clip, the more effective you can be determining the true value and popularity of your clip. Some of you seem perfectly comfortable with Pie in the Sky Pricing but how do you know you've created optimum pricing?
I don't think you ever have optimal ricing, perhaps pretty close is all you can hope for. Looking and buying aren't the same thing. I find the number of views varies drastically from image to image when compared to the number of sales. For me view count is not that relevant. I perhaps lets gives you an idea of the subject matter that buyers are interested in at any given time.
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I find the number of views varies drastically from image to image when compared to the number of sales.
Me too but more views tells me the subject matter interests buyers.
If I get 500 views in a short period of time of a 747 landing but few purchases it tells me the subject is sought after which will motivate me to go out and get more creative/wait for better lighting etc.
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I find the number of views varies drastically from image to image when compared to the number of sales.
Me too but more views tells me the subject matter interests buyers.
If I get 500 views in a short period of time of a 747 landing but few purchases it tells me the subject is sought after which will motivate me to go out and get more creative/wait for better lighting etc.
Excellent point. The one exception to this is of pretty girls. There are some genuinely "weird" people out there. I get huge numbers of hits on young girls and no sales.
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Pond5 is the best by far for me. Some clips take a year or two to sell. I think to see regular sales, you probably need 500 clips now. It used to be easier but lots more people are doing video now.
If I had a highly commercial portfolio, I'd price them higher but I don't think my clips are in high demand. As Pond5 pay 50% commission, they don't need to be priced as high as the sites that pay 15 to 30%.
It doesn't need to be highly commercial to ask a decent price for your work. Early on I put some of my "simple and not too commercial clips" up for $10. They sold and later I re-priced them to $75 and they still sold. Except now of course for every sale I get 7.5X the amount per sale. I would say $30 to $40 should be the minimum for all HD clips 5 sec on longer. .i.e. all clips. You may not get as many sales but you will get more money in pocket and you will keep prices strong so that you can get the appropriate value out of your more commercial work. Don't kid yourself. Lot's of my clips are barely considered commercial but still sell for $50 to $75.
Are you looking at my stills priced at $10? My clips are more in the $30-$40 range.
sharpshot, you should try pricing your clips starting at $50 and upwards, why not try it for a month and see how it goes then report back here with your findings. I used to price my clips (cg portfolio) at $50 and about a year ago increased them all to $60. I based this price upon the market prices from competitors which the majority price at around $60-80. Don't be afraid to do this as you are currently below the average price and an increase to $50 would still be low compared to other sites.
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FWIW I am going to up prices on better clips to $100 to $150. Can't see why not.
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I might raise the prices a bit on some clips, especially those that have already sold but I'm selling far more on Pond5 than the other sites that have higher prices, so I'm wary of raising them too much.
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I am starting to upload on Clipcanvas.
Upload is easy, their pages user friendly.
We will see, I will report.
Question for Clipcanvas "vets": Are sales recently really slow ?
THNXINADVANCE :)
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My personal experience with them is that i didn't get many sales at all to the point where i closed my account about 2 years ago. Of course they could of gained popularity since then but i wouldn't expect many sales because they are competing with sites like clipdealer.
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I might raise the prices a bit on some clips, especially those that have already sold but I'm selling far more on Pond5 than the other sites that have higher prices, so I'm wary of raising them too much.
I use to raise 1$ each time a clip is sold and it seems to work.
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Question for Clipcanvas "vets": Are sales recently really slow ?
THNXINADVANCE :)
Not a vet but have been there a while and based on their sales I am surprised to find out they are still in business. Sales are non existent. I stopped uploading a few months ago.
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Not really a "vet" either, I have only a small and very simple portfolio, but I have had 3 sales there over the last few months. So no, not dead yet. None recently though.
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Thnx to all.
I will report,
after 2 years maybe, if there are any sells.
;)
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clipcanvas very slow on my side did not have a sale yet this year, no sales at revostock also... So far the best for me are shutterstock and Pond5 this year
L
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If you are still interested in sales, not views, pricing, and review times, visit my blog targoszstock.blogspot.com (http://targoszstock.blogspot.com), where I share sales statistics. They are an interesting read, as five months ago I have dropped my is exclusivity.
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targosz,
Thanks for the post. Seeing that teeny little red bar for Revo makes me think it may be best left alone.
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Seeing that teeny little red bar for Revo makes me think it may be best left alone.
It is some income for close to no additional work. I have spare upload bandwith, I send them my csv, pretty much nothing else needs to be done.
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Thank you very much for sharing your results. It is very impressive that you have recovered most of your exclusive income in a few months. And seeing the desperate threads on istock I would presume you are probably already making more money than if you had stayed.
istock must be losing tons of video customers. In January I had the free video of the month but didnīt sell a single video. I havenīt sold any video in over three months on istock. But in January I sold 6 files on all the other sites, for my tiny portfolio it was a BME. And Feburary was slow or "normal" again, so I am sure it was istock customers that saw or downloaded my free file, but realized I am video independent and went looking for other files from the series on sites that are cheaper.
Very sad. The people from the istock video team (and the getty team as well) are just lovely. But obviously video is an unloved step child and not enough money and promotion is given to it.
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It is very impressive that you have recovered most of your exclusive income in a few months.
I have not recovered my exclusive income, I am making more. Fact. When thinking of my istockphoto income do not take august in to account. Some say it was istockphoto deliberately boosting my sales to make me regret dropping exclusivity ; )
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It is very impressive that you have recovered most of your exclusive income in a few months.
I have not recovered my exclusive income, I am making more. Fact. When thinking of my istockphoto income do not take august in to account. Some say it was istockphoto deliberately boosting my sales to make me regret dropping exclusivity ; )
Ha ha ha ha
Joke of the day
:D
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I know this is an old thread and all, but just wanted to know if there are some video contributors willing to expand their markets, specifically to Asian territories.
Our site MotionElements, just recently relaunched with a new UI and a renewed focus on the Asian markets.
We recently just introduced our selves on another thread:
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-video/grab-the-asian-market-with-motionelements-com/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-video/grab-the-asian-market-with-motionelements-com/)
I understand that a lot of you are wary of new video sites appearing and disappearing a few years (or even months) later. Rest assured that we have been in this business since 2008 we're still here serving the Asian market. I do agree that it takes some time and a considerable portfolio to increase your chances of doing well in stock video, and that takes a lot of effort.
At this point, what we can do for those that have little time is to make the initial setup easier. If there are any interested or if you have any concerns about MotionElements, do drop me a PM. I will be more than happy to help you out.
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Here are my current results:
istock 144 dollars, 13 sales, average sales royalty: 11 USD
SS 132 dollars, 8 sales, average royalty: 16.5 USD
pond5 109 dollars, 5 sales, average royalty 22 USD
fotolia 7.35 credits (?), 3 sales, average royalty 2.45
No other sales from other sites. I am submitting to these three and also clipdealer and clipcanvas and am slowly starting to add revostock and 123rf.
What impresses me with pond5 is that you can set your own prices and if the quality is good customers will pay the 80 dollars I am asking for a file.
fotolia and ss have unbelievably fast review systems, fotolia sometimes inspects files in 30 minutes. However they reject a lot, much more than istock and Shutterstock. And the returns so far are very low.
SS has an excellent upload system, very good sales for such a tiny portfolio.
istock has an extremly slow and cumbersome upload sytem. Feels like the stone age. Months of inspection time. Sales should be much higher, considering that I have an active port with customers hitting my portfolio daily.
I have around 40-70 files on the different sites, so I am not uploading enough. But that I get sales at all with such a tiny portfolio is amazing. there must be a real need for video out there. Nobody would notice me if I only had 40 images online.
So I am very optimistic for my video future and also bought some expensive gear on photokina in September.
You would be doing yourself a favour by deleting your Fotolia clips