...you need a reliable host partner with fast servers and competent service.

I just changed host and had a bit of fun on my blog telling the story of my webhost odissey. If you like to read it, maybe you'll find something useful 



Enjoy 2025: A WEBHOST ODISSEY (https://luisafumi-digitalart.com/blog/2025-a-webhosting-odissey/)

another excellent story!  i also started with html later backed by ASP but moved to  WordPress some years ago.  I've been lucky with IONOS (aka 1and1) - excellent 24 hr support I've been with them for over 20 years.

did that stone age computer run on MS-DOS?

and btw, one of my favorite phrases is 'avant la lettre' - but hadn't seen ante-litteram' before

Quote from: cascoly on September 14, 2025, 18:30
I've been lucky with IONOS (aka 1and1) - excellent 24 hr support I've been with them for over 20 years.

we need always advice, good to know!

Quote from: cascoly on September 14, 2025, 18:30
did that stone age computer run on MS-DOS?

Nooo, only SA-DOS (Stone-Age DOS)

Quote from: cascoly on September 14, 2025, 18:30
and btw, one of my favorite phrases is 'avant la lettre' - but hadn't seen ante-litteram' before

Hello !

Thank you for sharing this story.
I'm actually more about going to wordpress & woocommerce that I read.
I'm selfhosting a server, and trying to do something using a raspberry Pi, Yunohost and Peertube. That could be the way to go for not using a big server. More traffic means more sharing in peer2peer. And if you need more bandwitch and some stuff, you can still go for a VPS, make an other yunohost and share hosting like the top 100 view per clips. (I'm a videographer)

If I can do something like that, then it would be a killing concept from a good open source product I guess.

I don't know if something like that is online for photos. but could use Piwigo or similar.

So I don't know if that would be enough. But I would not sell 100 per day, that mean bandwith is not that important at the end. 

Quote from: CptCurk on December 03, 2025, 17:47
Hello !

Thank you for sharing this story.
I'm actually more about going to wordpress & woocommerce that I read.
I'm selfhosting a server, and trying to do something using a raspberry Pi, Yunohost and Peertube. That could be the way to go for not using a big server. More traffic means more sharing in peer2peer. And if you need more bandwitch and some stuff, you can still go for a VPS, make an other yunohost and share hosting like the top 100 view per clips. (I'm a videographer)

If I can do something like that, then it would be a killing concept from a good open source product I guess.

I don't know if something like that is online for photos. but could use Piwigo or similar.

So I don't know if that would be enough. But I would not sell 100 per day, that mean bandwith is not that important at the end. 

I use WP for my travel & photo blog - i have galleries for DL but very few sales, but the travel sections perform a lot better

my stock sales pay for a trip or 2, where i take more pix to attract more travel clients...

just back from 2 months travel - a transatlantic cruise, then took a group on an AmaWaterways Danube xmas market cruise; taking a small group for 5 weeks in India in Jan

now comes the fun of planning next year's trips & river cruises

Choosing a web hosting is the first thing needs to be done before building anything. I run my WP blog as well. As is the most reliable CMS, but I also run other 7 websites. On the same hosting company . Very happy with them. I did had the idea to build my own stock agency, But gave up..

I'm working on something ATM. Been a long time since I did anything web based. Been refreshing to get back in.

I guess, a hosting, it's important, but for video, we're speaking about 2 to 5Go per clip.
That would cost a lot for a paid service.
There is tones of system. But today, we have those fantastic technology for self-hosting which I think is the answer for an data owner (sociological & ecological issue).

It's like food. If you know what it means to grow or if you know the guy who grow vegetable, you'll likely do less throwing.

The only problem for me, it's how to manage the downloading / commercial process.

Quote from: CptCurk on December 03, 2025, 17:47
I'm actually more about going to wordpress & woocommerce that I read.

That's also my setup for my print shop . WP is a bit slow, but this is solvable through server side caching. I don't have to deal with videos though - I imagine it's much harder bandwidth-wise.

Payhip is a good site and worth looking at to sell your digital and physical products. They are a British site that offers a free account and only takes 5% commission when you make a sale.

They offer these services:
- an attractive shop front that can be modified to your color and design choices
- sell your digital products, physical products, stock photography and videos
- add blogs and other features
- good marketing tools such as creating bundles, running sales, cross selling, offering discounts for other products at checkout.
- creating mailing lists

Paid accounts are available for high sales accounts:

- Free Plan: 5% transaction fee, no monthly fee.
- Plus Plan: 2% transaction fee, monthly fee.
- Pro Plan: 0% transaction fee, no monthly fee.

https://payhip.com/sell-stock-videos

The only thing you may have to do, which you would probably be doing anyway, is set up your own marketing campaigns on the social media and other platforms that suits your target audience. Payhip doesn't seem to have its own large buyer traffic - such as Etsy or Amazon - but you can sell there as well.   

My site: https://payhip.com/MillefloreImages


A couple of years ago I set up a Shopify store for my husband to sell his collectibles, but he got out because of their high costs. I'll be looking at setting up a Payhip store for him now too for his physical products. 

I found Shopify a very laborious site to set up with needed add-ons to get all the features you need - whereas Payhip was so much easier with all these features automatically built in.

Quote from: AM24 on December 04, 2025, 21:41
Payhip is a good site and worth looking at to sell your digital and physical products. They are a British site that offers a free account and only takes 5% commission when you make a sale.

They offer these services:
- an attractive shop front that can be modified to your color and design choices
- sell your digital products, physical products, stock photography and videos
- add blogs and other features
- good marketing tools such as creating bundles, running sales, cross selling, offering discounts for other products at checkout.
- creating mailing lists

Paid accounts are available for high sales accounts:

- Free Plan: 5% transaction fee, no monthly fee.
- Plus Plan: 2% transaction fee, monthly fee.
- Pro Plan: 0% transaction fee, no monthly fee.

https://payhip.com/sell-stock-videos

The only thing you may have to do, which you would probably be doing anyway, is set up your own marketing campaigns on the social media and other platforms that suits your target audience. Payhip doesn't seem to have its own large buyer traffic - such as Etsy or Amazon - but you can sell there as well.   

My site: https://payhip.com/MillefloreImages


A couple of years ago I set up a Shopify store for my husband to sell his collectibles, but he got out because of their high costs. I'll be looking at setting up a Payhip store for him now too for his physical products. 

I found Shopify a very laborious site to set up with needed add-ons to get all the features you need - whereas Payhip was so much easier with all these features automatically built in.

I could build my own digital marketplace site if I wanted too. I really hate to have a middle man taking a cut. Plus you advertise the side you are selling on. Basically double win for the website.

Quote from: Faustvasea on December 04, 2025, 22:38

Quote from: AM24 on December 04, 2025, 21:41
Payhip is a good site and worth looking at to sell your digital and physical products. They are a British site that offers a free account and only takes 5% commission when you make a sale.

They offer these services:
- an attractive shop front that can be modified to your color and design choices
- sell your digital products, physical products, stock photography and videos
- add blogs and other features
- good marketing tools such as creating bundles, running sales, cross selling, offering discounts for other products at checkout.
- creating mailing lists

Paid accounts are available for high sales accounts:

- Free Plan: 5% transaction fee, no monthly fee.
- Plus Plan: 2% transaction fee, monthly fee.
- Pro Plan: 0% transaction fee, no monthly fee.

https://payhip.com/sell-stock-videos

The only thing you may have to do, which you would probably be doing anyway, is set up your own marketing campaigns on the social media and other platforms that suits your target audience. Payhip doesn't seem to have its own large buyer traffic - such as Etsy or Amazon - but you can sell there as well.   

My site: https://payhip.com/MillefloreImages


A couple of years ago I set up a Shopify store for my husband to sell his collectibles, but he got out because of their high costs. I'll be looking at setting up a Payhip store for him now too for his physical products. 

I found Shopify a very laborious site to set up with needed add-ons to get all the features you need - whereas Payhip was so much easier with all these features automatically built in.

I could build my own digital marketplace site if I wanted too. I really hate to have a middle man taking a cut. Plus you advertise the side you are selling on. Basically double win for the website.

That's wonderful, Faustvasea!

But unfortunately, I can't. So this is a good alternative for people like me, with only 5% commission going to the marketplace. Especially compared to the fees I used to pay for selling digital products on sites such as Etsy - or my husband pays to eBay - this is a real bargain. Plus the more buyers go to the site, the more you build up their buyer traffic, so it can be a win-win for all.

Good luck! I hope you make lots of excellent sales 

I just want to add that marketplaces like Etsy, eBay and Amazon, that charge very high fees have very high direct buyer traffic** - so what you are paying for is that traffic in lieu of your own marketing - but you are tied to their rules, not yours. The choice is yours: own marketing or their traffic. I do a combination of both. (Sometimes the marketing is a bit exhausting and time-consuming, and I need a break.) Places like Payhip may provide a middle-solution.


** including the stock agencies with much, much higher 'fees' - i.e. their cut of your selling prices. 

So, yes, you are virtually paying for buyer traffic. So, the question to ask ourselves is, how much is that worth?

Quote from: AM24 on December 04, 2025, 23:06
But unfortunately, I can't. So this is a good alternative for people like me, with only 5% commission going to the marketplace. Especially compared to the fees I used to pay for selling digital products on sites such as Etsy - or my husband pays to eBay - this is a real bargain. Plus the more buyers go to the site, the more you build up their buyer traffic, so it can be a win-win for all.

Good luck! I hope you make lots of excellent sales 

Have you considered using WooCommerce (a WordPress plugin)? It's completely free to use unless you need very specific features that require paid extensions. In that case, the only real ongoing costs are your domain and hosting. I personally pay about 8 € per month, and there are even cheaper options available.

The downside of platforms like Payhip is that you don't truly own your shop. If they decide to raise their fees or, in a worst-case scenario, shut down, you'd have to rebuild everything somewhere else. With your own independent shop on a platform like Woocommerce, you stay in full control and can simply switch to a different hosting provider whenever you want.

Quote from: mike123 on December 05, 2025, 08:29

Quote from: AM24 on December 04, 2025, 23:06
But unfortunately, I can't. So this is a good alternative for people like me, with only 5% commission going to the marketplace. Especially compared to the fees I used to pay for selling digital products on sites such as Etsy - or my husband pays to eBay - this is a real bargain. Plus the more buyers go to the site, the more you build up their buyer traffic, so it can be a win-win for all.

Good luck! I hope you make lots of excellent sales 

Have you considered using WooCommerce (a WordPress plugin)? It's completely free to use unless you need very specific features that require paid extensions. In that case, the only real ongoing costs are your domain and hosting. I personally pay about 8 € per month, and there are even cheaper options available.

The downside of platforms like Payhip is that you don't truly own your shop. If they decide to raise their fees or, in a worst-case scenario, shut down, you'd have to rebuild everything somewhere else. With your own independent shop on a platform like Woocommerce, you stay in full control and can simply switch to a different hosting provider whenever you want.

Yes, that's nice, for people who can get WooCommerce to work. I spent hours and days and never got the shop working and never got the payments to work the way they should. WP makes changes and everything blows up, the apps don't work. That's the history.

For the possible shortcomings of Payhip, there is the benefit that it's easy and simple and can be embedded into my own website. I just started, so of course I'm optimistic. I'll give it a, looks nice now, lets wait and see? 

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 05, 2025, 17:47
Yes, that's nice, for people who can get WooCommerce to work. I spent hours and days and never got the shop working and never got the payments to work the way they should. WP makes changes and everything blows up, the apps don't work. That's the history.

Worked for me out of the box.. Maybe you should have asked someone for help. But yes, WP and WooCommerce are annoying if you want to do custom changes, though most people don't need that.

Quote from: mike123 on December 05, 2025, 17:54

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 05, 2025, 17:47
Yes, that's nice, for people who can get WooCommerce to work. I spent hours and days and never got the shop working and never got the payments to work the way they should. WP makes changes and everything blows up, the apps don't work. That's the history.

Worked for me out of the box.. Maybe you should have asked someone for help. But yes, WP and WooCommerce are annoying if you want to do custom changes, though most people don't need that.

I did ask, I even offered to pay. Seems that the only person interested wanted $900 and that's way out of line. 

I'm not a total computer dummy, but maybe I'm wrong. I ran a BBS, did the coding, I understand websites and write my own, using a text editor, not software. (yeah it's not that slick and fancy either) But when it came to WP, I couldn't even get the gallery to work. Adding commerce to that, was not encouraging. When I had other WP things, they would break and crash, at random, and the answer was, "Oh they upgraded WP, you have to re-write the code and repair it."

Other than "personal issues"  I do agree with you about the control and avoiding potential traps. Sure the first storefront on Payhip is free for just a tiny 5%. Once we're hooked, the price could change? Still, I'm in for now, it looks like fun.

Thanks Mike and Pete for your excellent feedback. I'll take both into consideration if my circumstances change.

For me now, though, I don't have the time or interest in spending a lot of time on the mechanics of setting up a site. I just need something quick and easy to create the listings I need. On Payhip, it takes me about 10 to 15 minutes to create a listing like this, with all the bells and whistles I need to promote my product, so that I can spend more time on creating content or promotion:

https://payhip.com/b/w9aIH

In the initial setup, no add-ons or plug-ins or extra apps to worry about. It was all there. Plus I can quickly run a sale, choose which products to cross-promote, add new categories, create coupons, set up bundles, offer discounts, give away freebies, etc, etc - at the push of the button. And as a friend just said to me, it deserves the 5% for handling the payments.

I do however highly value and respect all the comments above from all those much more technically literate than me, and just wanted to offer an alternative to those who need less fuss.

Thanks guys 

It is totally worth it to invest in your own website or through a hosting site.

However, it will take some time.

My website has now reached over 900,000 views, and I have regular sales. but it took me about 14 years.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 05, 2025, 18:08

Quote from: mike123 on December 05, 2025, 17:54

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 05, 2025, 17:47
Yes, that's nice, for people who can get WooCommerce to work. I spent hours and days and never got the shop working and never got the payments to work the way they should. WP makes changes and everything blows up, the apps don't work. That's the history.

Worked for me out of the box.. Maybe you should have asked someone for help. But yes, WP and WooCommerce are annoying if you want to do custom changes, though most people don't need that.

I did ask, I even offered to pay. Seems that the only person interested wanted $900 and that's way out of line. 

I'm not a total computer dummy, but maybe I'm wrong. I ran a BBS, did the coding, I understand websites and write my own, using a text editor, not software. (yeah it's not that slick and fancy either) But when it came to WP, I couldn't even get the gallery to work. Adding commerce to that, was not encouraging. When I had other WP things, they would break and crash, at random, and the answer was, "Oh they upgraded WP, you have to re-write the code and repair it."

Other than "personal issues"  I do agree with you about the control and avoiding potential traps. Sure the first storefront on Payhip is free for just a tiny 5%. Once we're hooked, the price could change? Still, I'm in for now, it looks like fun.

If you ever need a help, feel free to PM. I can help with no issues. I own 9 sites myself.  Building something basic is very easy.

Quote from: Orchidpoet on December 05, 2025, 19:12
It is totally worth it to invest in your own website or through a hosting site.

However, it will take some time.

My website has now reached over 900,000 views, and I have regular sales. but it took me about 14 years.

What are you selling on your website?

Quote from: Faustvasea on December 05, 2025, 21:24

Quote from: Orchidpoet on December 05, 2025, 19:12
It is totally worth it to invest in your own website or through a hosting site.

However, it will take some time.

My website has now reached over 900,000 views, and I have regular sales. but it took me about 14 years.

What are you selling on your website?

Photo prints.

Hello guys, great that the topic ios going further with new propositions like Payhip which looks great. It a great variant for peoples who doesn't wanna dig into the hosting.

As I said, I'm a videoguy. Managing BIG files. That payhip, if they host my file, can be great option, especially that they say, the host the files. But as said, you still give your creations to someone for them to sell it. Security issue there for me.

I would love to ask to those hosting there own files : how do you connect the download button to a storage place ? Are you using an S3 type drive ? VPS système or at home selfmade ?
That part has not been detailed yet.

I don't have anything on my side, just trying to be able to do it

Quote from: Orchidpoet on December 05, 2025, 19:12
It is totally worth it to invest in your own website or through a hosting site.

However, it will take some time.

My website has now reached over 900,000 views, and I have regular sales. but it took me about 14 years.

14 years is a good amount of time. You made a start at a nascent time. Demand is hugely competitive now.
But I am happy for you, can you tell, in these years does your own website gives liberty to quit microstock and focus on your own thing?

Quote from: Orchidpoet on December 06, 2025, 01:01

Quote from: Faustvasea on December 05, 2025, 21:24

Quote from: Orchidpoet on December 05, 2025, 19:12
It is totally worth it to invest in your own website or through a hosting site.

However, it will take some time.

My website has now reached over 900,000 views, and I have regular sales. but it took me about 14 years.

What are you selling on your website?

Photo prints.

Mine never took off. Still have views according to Google analytics. May I see your website ?