Pretty good week here too...

These rankings are pointless. I regularly hit an average of $1300 a month and usually hover around rank 10,000.

You are doing video, right?

But as you see many people find it useful and enjoy sharing stats. also on discord.

currently at weekly rank 2190. will add screenshot later.

About a sixth of my sales are from images. My portfolio is mixed real world images/video and AI images/video. But AI Video has eclipsed everything in terms of time in->money out. The main statistics I want to know are what the upper bounds are. Like are some portfolio's extremely lucrative...what are say, the earnings of the top 100 accounts, how many media do they host.  ie. is it worth it? When they just giving us numbers based on number of sales without earnings (aka. the one thing that matters), it's just bait.

If you browse various forums, then for a mostly image portfolio you will need to be in the top 700 weekly rank to make over 1000 dollars a month on Adobe.

For a mostly video port the data is different as you can see yourself.

I know people in the top 200 on Adobe and they make like 1500-4k a month, even in the top 100.

The top 10 ports are not individual artists but large professional teams. Some accounts have thousands of registered creators because it is a pooled account.

Overall the stock industry is not known for people getting rich.

If you read about the income of some people on Etsy or YouTube or other places, it is crazy what they can earn compared to stock.

A stock portfolio never goes viral, it does not "suddenly" take off.

It is a slow grind with lots of copycats snapping at your heels.

Apparently there are places on the internet where for a monthly fee you can see the actual download numbers and income for every single artist and every single file.

This makes it very easy for copycats to find lucrative ideas and copy them with ai or by camera.

I don't understand why Adobe allows our private income data to be available on the internet.

Many of my bestsellers now only have one season and then they get killed by copycats.

So If you want to build stock as a reliable income....I am not sure, don't give up your day job.

Over all agencies combined for amateurs a reliable 50-300 after 3-4 years is very realistic and doable.

For pros it is usually 200-1200 over all agencies combined, with 300-800 the most realistic.

It is an add on that helps pay the bills but very few people do it as a full time income.

current weekly rank is 2330, so last week was probably the best week of the year.

But since I am not uploading I consider myself lucky.

Very impressed you are doing so well with ai video. You must have great stuff.

My stock footage production is not about getting rich, it's a biproduct of my other endeavors and the margins are wide enough that it makes sense to do alongside other things. I've been selling stock footage since 2009 but only recently started messing around with Adobe stock and using AI to leverage, which is pretty fun.

Quote from: LithG on November 11, 2025, 08:19
My stock footage production is not about getting rich, it's a biproduct of my other endeavors and the margins are wide enough that it makes sense to do alongside other things. I've been selling stock footage since 2009 but only recently started messing around with Adobe stock and using AI to leverage, which is pretty fun.

That is the best way to do it.

We have been getting stock newbies in the last 2 years mostly being spurned on by very unrealistic earning expectations, usually promoted by some dubious ai YouTuber.

That I why I keep pointing this out and I also post links to Miro, Alex and Steve heap reports everywhere.

Also collecting any other real income blog or channel I can find.

The income results vary greatly by portfolio, but too many people are coming in with crazy ideas. Somebody sent me a message on discord, that he wanted to learn from me because I was supposedly earning 16k a month on Adobe.

No idea where he got that from.

But apparently my port is one of those being pushed to copy.

One of the reasons I publish weekly rank data, to help dispel the lies.

Recently .31 was the new low, but today I got a .30 custom license. Maybe not a sprint to the bottom, but the marathon or ultra in that direction continues. Numbers of sales seems to hold somewhat steady, $ slowly goes down.

same, got a 30c sale.  i thought the minimum was like 36 or something.

Enjoying my time in the sun. Just another 3 weeks until it all starts sliding down.

Still at around 40% less than last year, but with 80% less uploads and basically nothing since September, this is a very reasonable result.

All time rank is now 6260.

Having a pretty good week on Adobe too. Just as well as everywhere else is sloooooow.

One 0.28 and many 0.29

Got a 0.29$ today as well.
If I remember it correctly, last year Adobe went down to 0.27$ per download before Christmas, before rebounding in January (these royalties apparently depend on the overall amount of downloads through subscriptions).

It just sold for $0.26. I wonder how much lower it will go?

Or is it heading towards Shutterstock?

This week was probably my best rank on Adobe ever 

Having a fun week.

Still cruising up, inspite of not uploading. The year will be 30% less than 2024 but with 80% less uploads and basically nothing since September, I think this is a very fair result.

Curious if my port makes inside of the 1000 for one day this year. But otherwise it will start going down in around a week.

Quote from: cobalt on November 29, 2025, 17:25
Still cruising up, inspite of not uploading. The year will be 30% less than 2024 but with 80% less uploads and basically nothing since September, I think this is a very fair result.

Curious if my port makes inside of the 1000 for one day this year. But otherwise it will start going down in around a week.

Your sales and earnings always seem to take off coming into your winter months. Quite extraordinary the way I see it.

I've had a pretty good week too so no complaints here. Actually grateful Adobe is still doing well, and iStock a clear second place - other agencies (namely Shutterstock and Pond5) are hopeless.

Yes the holiday season is always being pulled up by very old images with a good track record. But this year I am surprised because many of my files have been relentlessly copied with ai. One disadvantage if people know who you are.

I wonder if Adobe gives a little extra promotion for the older files before they get copied?

So, I am very grateful for the money coming in, because I thought this season would be totally dead with no uploads.

And stock performer is telling me that Nov25 for Adobe will be around 25% less than Nov24, so it is a little better than expected. I really hope this will also be the case for December.

Another tiny uptick, inspite of the slower thanksgiving weekend.

This experience really motivates me to keep trying to do stock full time. By April, latest June, I should be free of my current issues and finally be able to give full attention to stock.

With so many experienced old timers leaving or retiring and the new crowd not that interested in learning about the customers or just how to use a camera, it could be an interesting time, where inspite of mass uploads actual competition is less.

But the copycats are a bigger problem than before ai.

Real camera video is very hard to copy though, so there is a good future in that, especially with editorial.

Another uptick inspite of no uploads. How high can it go?

November25 was 25% less than November24, but with 80% less uploads this year, I am very grateful for the sales.

"Yes the holiday season is always being pulled up by very old images with a good track record. But this year I am surprised because many of my files have been relentlessly copied with ai"

Which won't make any difference if more clients are using "Exclude AI" on the search filters. AI image fatigue and customers becoming wary or suspicious when presented with AI imagery has potential to become a thing. There are plenty of news articles o support this. Even Forbes ran with an article saying, "Half of consumers say AI Ads are a turnoff". AI is clever.... but, it could go from an efficient way to produce content for CEO's to a Marketing nightmare.

https://theconversation.com/a-backlash-against-ai-imagery-in-ads-may-have-begun-as-brands-promote-human-made-269276

I actually think customers are mostly using the filter for ,,undiscovered" files on Adobe. Because I am getting more first time sales than ever and that includes loads of ai.

I still have days where 90% of my sales on that day are just ai, so...I see no slowing down of ai sales.

But overall my camera content sells better than ai, but I believe that is mostly because my ai content is often experimental not not as well researched as camera content where I have 20 years experience.

Currently 45% of my incoe is from camera content even if at the moment the port is 70% ai. Next year it will be shifted to more camera content so the files can go everywhere.

Quote from: cobalt on December 01, 2025, 08:48
I actually think customers are mostly using the filter for ,,undiscovered" files on Adobe. Because I am getting more first time sales than ever and that includes loads of ai.

I still have days where 90% of my sales on that day are just ai, so...I see no slowing down of ai sales.

But overall my camera content sells better than ai, but I believe that is mostly because my ai content is often experimental not not as well researched as camera content where I have 20 years experience.

Currently 45% of my incoe is from camera content even if at the moment the port is 70% ai. Next year it will be shifted to more camera content so the files can go everywhere.

At Adobe, out of your 10 best-selling images ever, 6 are AI images 
Have a good day low cost level teacher.

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on December 01, 2025, 11:19

Quote from: cobalt on December 01, 2025, 08:48
I actually think customers are mostly using the filter for ,,undiscovered" files on Adobe. Because I am getting more first time sales than ever and that includes loads of ai.

I still have days where 90% of my sales on that day are just ai, so...I see no slowing down of ai sales.

But overall my camera content sells better than ai, but I believe that is mostly because my ai content is often experimental not not as well researched as camera content where I have 20 years experience.

Currently 45% of my incoe is from camera content even if at the moment the port is 70% ai. Next year it will be shifted to more camera content so the files can go everywhere.

At Adobe, out of your 10 best-selling images ever, 6 are AI images 
Have a good day low cost level teacher.

Doesn't change the fact that 45% of my income is currently from camera content. If you are using the scammer websites to check our individual sales to copy from us, I am sure you can also count up the real sales for results.

I have a long tail port and I know how to make money with every media type.

That includes also creating a few ai bestsellers. Which is good for me, because I really like the money.

Would be sad if I had no good selling ai files after two years of doing mostly ai.

Customers like to buy my work which puts me at currently weekly 1060 with hardly any uploads.

So, I am grateful to the customers and don't go around insulting them.

Next year my port will shift heavily back into camera and video, but you will keep whining about my portfolio even if I make it into the top 100 one day.

You could use that energy to actually create good content that sells and make money.

But you are just looking for an excuse for falling sales and want confirmation that now is the right time to leave the industry.

So please do.

Back to ignoring of trolls with low sales...

Quote from: cobalt on December 01, 2025, 05:54
Another uptick inspite of no uploads. How high can it go?

November25 was 25% less than November24, but with 80% less uploads this year, I am very grateful for the sales.

Getting confused sometimes of what you're saying. I have read posts from you telling it takes some years for photos to take off and sell but now you say you didn't upload much recently (this year) and you are thankful for the sales volume. Or do you mean that Adobe punishes you if you don't upload much and let's you sink and the quality or the marketability of your content is not a factor of the ranking of these photos?