What if you go exclusive with DT and next month they plotz and SS booms?  I suppose it all boils down to money.  Are you in this for the money or for the fun of it? 

Yes that's the risk.  Or DT could just go crazy and start rejecting everything I submit.   I'm currently thinking about DT exclusivity because my (tiny) sales there are increasing, and they're not increasing at SS, and SS has just now started rejecting a lot of stuff for weird reasons, while DT continues to accept almost all of what I submit.   But exclusivity is a decision I could easily end up regretting.

Hi Pseudo,
I like DT's admins more than the admins at IStock, or Fotolia or even SS (SS admins are good though, I like them too).
I remember you had a few arguments on DT's forums and I understand why you might feel differently.

I was arguing a point, providing an opinion.  They argued and threatened to revoke my forum privileges because they didn't like my opinon, which I don't give a crap about since writing in there doesn't achieve anything anyway.  It's beside the point though because before that, despite me recommending them and saying they were one of my favourites, I still aways discouraged exclusivity.  I never let emotions drive me to make a financial decision.  Becoming exclusive is a massive risk... anywhere.  Sales are too volatile and they're only going to get worse over time.  You could be one of the people that are doing great at this moment and advise lirch to become exclusive based on that, yet next month, you might be one of the exclusives in here or on the DT forums scratching your head wondering why your sales have suddenly dropped or why most of your sales are now sub sales. 

Furthermore at DT there are more restrictions on becoming exclusive.  If your sales at DT drop and you want to sell prints of your photography or whatever of your illustrations, or sell RM to make up the losses, you can't at Dreamstime. 

It's such a risky and personal decision that I don't think anyone should offer advice on it.  My only advice is that if you rely on the income at DT to survive and to feed your family, and you can't survive a massive drop in sales when things go bad, then don't even consider it.

I've only been a part of this crazy game for about 8 months. I had applied at IS a couple years ago and was rejected so I gave up. I discovered DT last year and decided to give it a try. I knew nothing about microstock, and was just happy to sell a few images on DT. All of my uploads to DT were exclusive and I was an exclusive contributor at DT for a few months.

After getting more involved and discovering sites like this one, I decided to try uploading at other sites. I tried Shutterstock and wasn't accepted, after my 30 days, I tried again and was rejected again. In the meantime I uploaded to CanStock and BigStock and had a little success. On my third attempt I was accepted at SS (Using mostly files that were rejected the first two times I applied).

After 8 months on DT, my small portfolio has just hit the level for my first payout. After under a month at SS, I have earned the same amount.

I can never see going back to being exclusive.