Good month. Buyers prefer real photos at Istock



Next month will be even better (downloads already 2 times more than last year), Istock rocks! (but well, working is needed).
Dear AI prompters, please don't try taking REAL photos that are more than snapshots! please, continue submitting thousands AI bullshits a month.
The machines need your lazy unskilled slavery, but not the buyers at Istock

Average month. Record number of sales, but a totally atrocious RPD of 0.38
At todayis20 pages 12 to 19 are sales under 10 cents. This is seriously depressing...

Quote from: Devotio777 on November 19, 2025, 19:07
Average month. Record number of sales, but a totally atrocious RPD of 0.38
At todayis20 pages 12 to 19 are sales under 10 cents. This is seriously depressing...

I'm surprised, I usually have around $1 RPD, even more this month ($1.09), and generally as much as at Adobe.

Best month ever for sales, but a shocking rpd of 45c (as an exclusive) because of the gazillions of 5c net sales to Amazon for "Alexa visual search".
Compared to last month: Sales: +189%   $$: -24%.
Shame on you, Getty.

Not a bad month, $2.95 rpd for video and 64 cents rpd for photos with total net earnings of $273.86. I note now that my iStock earnings are now more than Shutterstock for the year which has never happened before.

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on November 19, 2025, 19:19

Quote from: Devotio777 on November 19, 2025, 19:07
Average month. Record number of sales, but a totally atrocious RPD of 0.38
At todayis20 pages 12 to 19 are sales under 10 cents. This is seriously depressing...

I'm surprised, I usually have around $1 RPD, even more this month ($1.09), and generally as much as at Adobe.

You probably just have better content. This year I got over 1 dollar RPD only once at Istock, I am mostly in 0.5-0.7 range

Quote from: ShadySue on November 19, 2025, 20:20
Best month ever for sales, but a shocking rpd of 45c (as an exclusive) because of the gazillions of 5c net sales to Amazon for "Alexa visual search".
Compared to last month: Sales: +189%   $$: -24%.
Shame on you, Getty.

Same here. More sales (a lot for $0.0375, not exclusive) but rpd of $0.51 overall is quite low.

When I looked at the earnings details in PDF format, there was an additional $100.64 in "fixed usage fees" for connect sales.

Does anyone know what this is?

How do you find the total number of sales? I don't see it listed anywhere. I have to import the info into a spreadsheet.
When I look at the content statistics, the numbers are not accurate since they don't reflect the number of sales for each individual image. If I copy and paste the data into a spreadsheet, the totals from the statistics page and from the reports don't match exactly.
Is the total number of sales available anywhere?

Quote from: BT1976 on November 19, 2025, 21:08
When I looked at the earnings details in PDF format, there was an additional $100.64 in "fixed usage fees" for connect sales.

Does anyone know what this is?

Ooooh, you're right there is quite a big Connect amount this month.
I think it's a sort of 'pay per view', but I don't know the exact details.

Quote from: Mir on November 19, 2025, 21:24
How do you find the total number of sales? I don't see it listed anywhere. I have to import the info into a spreadsheet.
When I look at the content statistics, the numbers are not accurate since they don't reflect the number of sales for each individual image. If I copy and paste the data into a spreadsheet, the totals from the statistics page and from the reports don't match exactly.
Is the total number of sales available anywhere?

You can use either DeepMeta (v3 stays on your computer, v4 has better stats and is online) or TodayIs20.

On the iS site itself, you can see sales numbers from the Content Statistics page (via 'Uploads', obviously  ), but the total at the top is the number of files sold, you need to add on repeat sales, so if you had, for example a file which sold ten times, a file which sold 5 times and a file which sold once, that would show in Content Statistics as 3 sales.

Be aware that stats from different sources are often different. They have some smoke and mirrors explanation for this.

 
Almost same like last month...but one video sale surprised me $$...

Quote from: Devotio777 on November 19, 2025, 20:45

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on November 19, 2025, 19:19

Quote from: Devotio777 on November 19, 2025, 19:07
Average month. Record number of sales, but a totally atrocious RPD of 0.38
At todayis20 pages 12 to 19 are sales under 10 cents. This is seriously depressing...

I'm surprised, I usually have around $1 RPD, even more this month ($1.09), and generally as much as at Adobe.

You probably just have better content. This year I got over 1 dollar RPD only once at Istock, I am mostly in 0.5-0.7 range

That's not how it works.
The price is unrelated to the quality of the image, but rather to the discount the buyer has*.
You can see that looking at your own sales and how the same file can sell for many dollars and for a few cents ... in the same month.
*not dissing the OP's content.

Quote from: ShadySue on November 19, 2025, 21:35

Quote from: Devotio777 on November 19, 2025, 20:45

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on November 19, 2025, 19:19

Quote from: Devotio777 on November 19, 2025, 19:07
Average month. Record number of sales, but a totally atrocious RPD of 0.38
At todayis20 pages 12 to 19 are sales under 10 cents. This is seriously depressing...

I'm surprised, I usually have around $1 RPD, even more this month ($1.09), and generally as much as at Adobe.

You probably just have better content. This year I got over 1 dollar RPD only once at Istock, I am mostly in 0.5-0.7 range

That's not how it works.
The price is unrelated to the quality of the image, but rather to the discount the buyer has*.
You can see that looking at your own sales and how the same file can sell for many dollars and for a few cents ... in the same month.
*not dissing the OP's content.

I know, but his content may be better in this way: I noticed that many editorial photos of lets say company logos on building exterior almost always sell for a pittance... It is something easy to shoot for everyone, and usages of such image are rather limited. On the other hand, commercial cityscapes taken around sunset from some cool elevated spot are much harder to replicate, and potential usages extend to big wall-prints in corporate offices, magazines that are printed in high-volumes etc. resulting in a fact that such a cityscape sells on average for much higher price that the editorial photo I mentioned. At least thats the observation from my own port.

Down around 30% from last month

I was a bit surprised to see a $150 sale ($30) for me on istock for a video.

Royalties vary widely but remain on the low side in general.

slightly higher than my previous best month ever (april this year).  huge number of depressing 4c sales.  decent "connect" payout, still don't understand what that is.  definitely a good month but not growing very fast at all at the moment.

Interesting month. A lot better than the previous month.

The downloads increased almost three times. The earnings more than doubled.

So funny this industry. AS down, SS completely down, Pond5 nowhere and then there is a spike in Istock giving some hope that things are picking up. Only to discover that some company is scraping Istock/Gettys portfolio for AI and pay peanuts for their scraping just to fulfil legal issues.
I declare Microstock dead at this point. No need to resuscitate it.

Quote from: SimonSays on November 20, 2025, 19:00
So funny this industry. AS down, SS completely down, Pond5 nowhere and then there is a spike in Istock giving some hope that things are picking up. Only to discover that some company is scraping Istock/Gettys portfolio for AI and pay peanuts for their scraping just to fulfil legal issues.
I declare Microstock dead at this point. No need to resuscitate it.

It's definitely time for you to move on 

Surprising to see that I got a good jump compared to my previous month. Good Getty, you did well here.

Quote from: Artist on November 22, 2025, 02:59
Surprising to see that I got a good jump compared to my previous month. Good Getty, you did well here.

Something new is happening. Since last month, I've noticed an unusual pattern in my sales figures (they've doubled or even tripled), whether they are recent or old images. I wonder if they've categorized contributors based on the nature/quality of their work, this gives me the feeling that I've gained a new status. For the last years, I've never noticed anything like this.

They clearly state: "Our creative library is free from AI-generated content, so your searches only return safe, high-quality visuals you can trust".
It would therefore not be surprising if, backstage, they had taken steps to ensure this.
For example, favoring contributors who don't offer elsewhere a mix of AI-generated images and traditional photos. If I were in charge of content management for this platform, that's what I would do. 

I've read that contributors who don't use AI are being accused of using it and are getting banned, even when they provide proof that they didn't.

Quote from: Mir on November 22, 2025, 12:28
I've read that contributors who don't use AI are being accused of using it and are getting banned, even when they provide proof that they didn't.

I heard that some people said they knew that certain people had testified based on their experience of noises heard from well-informed people because they were neighbors of...
... That: Thieves and liars always play the victims when they are exposed.

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on November 22, 2025, 11:57

Quote from: Artist on November 22, 2025, 02:59
Surprising to see that I got a good jump compared to my previous month. Good Getty, you did well here.

Something new is happening. Since last month, I've noticed an unusual pattern in my sales figures (they've doubled or even tripled), whether they are recent or old images. I wonder if they've categorized contributors based on the nature/quality of their work, this gives me the feeling that I've gained a new status. For the last years, I've never noticed anything like this.

So you had loads of extra sales and they weren't the 5c ones to Amazon/Alexa?
I had 165 5c sales in October, and presumably many more of the same earlier this month.