Quote from: mike123 on November 20, 2025, 09:29
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).

We get a percentage of what the buyer paid. If they pay less, we get less. Nothing has changed, there's no drop in commission.

Quote from: Diana Herrmann on December 02, 2025, 12:50
Nothing has changed, there's no drop in commission.

Thank you for repeating what I said 

Quote from: mike123 on December 02, 2025, 13:32

Quote from: Diana Herrmann on December 02, 2025, 12:50
Nothing has changed, there's no drop in commission.

Thank you for repeating what I said 

And what I've been writing as well. But it seems that some people, just can't understand commission is based on the price a customer pays vs credit amount, that we see.

Now that someone is complaining about Alamy and the 20% and how they got such a small amount for a good sale. Here's what Alamy tells us, because they are actually up front. They tell us what the customer actually paid. On the other hand, even Adobe and the other top places, list a credit, and never tell us the actual price, the buyer paid. We could be getting 10¢ from SSTK, for a subscription, that paid $289 and only downloaded ten images for the month. We don't know, they don't tell.

Only Alamy and I suppose, FAA and the POD sites, show us, the actual buyers transaction and how much. The rest, throw some spare change on the ground, so we can fight and grovel, for the tiny credits. Once we see how little 20% is, of the actual sale, it makes people unhappy. But if you get, just for an example, 15% from iStock, that's just an amount. We don't see that someone bought our work for $65 and we just got $9.75 

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 02, 2025, 19:50

Quote from: mike123 on December 02, 2025, 13:32

Quote from: Diana Herrmann on December 02, 2025, 12:50
Nothing has changed, there's no drop in commission.

Thank you for repeating what I said 

And what I've been writing as well. But it seems that some people, just can't understand commission is based on the price a customer pays vs credit amount, that we see.

Now that someone is complaining about Alamy and the 20% and how they got such a small amount for a good sale. Here's what Alamy tells us, because they are actually up front. They tell us what the customer actually paid. On the other hand, even Adobe and the other top places, list a credit, and never tell us the actual price, the buyer paid. We could be getting 10¢ from SSTK, for a subscription, that paid $289 and only downloaded ten images for the month. We don't know, they don't tell.

Only Alamy and I suppose, FAA and the POD sites, show us, the actual buyers transaction and how much. The rest, throw some spare change on the ground, so we can fight and grovel, for the tiny credits. Once we see how little 20% is, of the actual sale, it makes people unhappy. But if you get, just for an example, 15% from iStock, that's just an amount. We don't see that someone bought our work for $65 and we just got $9.75 

What you say in the last paragraph is not true - if you download iStock´s monthly Sales and royalty statement (PDF file), you can clearly see what each customer paid in the License Fee column.

As you know stock is not passive income. So when I stopped uploading this year, partly because of rejectiongate, partly because of private issues, I expected a quick and hard drop.

However, the winter season is usually my best, so I knew i would still see some kind of uptick after summer but overall was expecting the year to be really bad.

But then November25 ended up being 25%  less than November 24. This is much better than I expected, so I am really grateful.

Overall the year will probably be 30% less than 2024, but with 80% less uploads, again, that is not a bad result.

i have a long tail port and many of my files anyway get their first ever sales after 18 months. So am still benefitting from last years work.

Does this explanation help?

Next year, perhaps from June onwards, will be the first time in my life I can do stock fulltime.

Never had that opportunity, not even in the good old istock exclusive days.

So I am still optimistic for the overall opportunities in the industry.

And I don't think it matters much wether you do camera, or illustrations, or ai, or videos, or drones. Once you dig into collections and niches there is much content missing, you can spend the next 50 years creating and will never finish.

Because the majority of uploads are dulicates or personal hobby images and creators really interested in pleasing their personal customer group are very rare.

Quote from: cobalt on December 03, 2025, 12:22
As you know stock is not passive income. So when I stopped uploading this year, partly because of rejectiongate, partly because of private issues, I expected a quick and hard drop.

However, the winter season is usually my best, so I knew i would still see some kind of uptick after summer but overall was expecting the year to be really bad.

But then November25 ended up being 25%  less than November 24. This is much better than I expected, so I am really grateful.

Overall the year will probably be 30% less than 2024, but with 80% less uploads, again, that is not a bad result.

i have a long tail port and many of my files anyway get their first ever sales after 18 months. So am still benefitting from last years work.

Does this explanation help?

Next year, perhaps from June onwards, will be the first time in my life I can do stock fulltime.

Never had that opportunity, not even in the good old istock exclusive days.

So I am still optimistic for the overall opportunities in the industry.

And I don't think it matters much wether you do camera, or illustrations, or ai, or videos, or drones. Once you dig into collections and niches there is much content missing, you can spend the next 50 years creating and will never finish.

Because the majority of uploads are dulicates or personal hobby images and creators really interested in pleasing their personal customer group are very rare.

No, it does not help. I admire your optimism. Always shoot for the stars. But I see you are contradicting yourself a lot of times just to make your narritive right. If things go right it's because you did a good effort, if things go wrong it's because you didn't work hard enough, your so called rejection gate, you go way over to new things like AI or have fantastic potential views on making videos or adding new agencies. But you are down for the year and nowhere near you thought you would be two years ago. Right?
So isn't microstock then a dead end in the long run or even in the short run that is?

I am running a webshop and I am not doing it full time.

This year I uploaded 80% less, starting around april with rejectiongate, but then private issues took over,

What is difficult to understand about that? No uploads, no sales. The only question is how much will your port drop.

january to April i had an increase in sales yoy of around 60%.

Then the surplus gradually tapered off.

I make more than 50% of total sales in the last 3 months, so it is difficult to predict the results for the year before then.

Now November came and it is not sas bad as expected, only 25% less than nov24 on Adobe.

So, basically not uploading for months but the port on Adobe held up better than expected. in my critical sales season.

Which maes me optiistic for the future.

What kind of result do you expect if you upload 80% less in one year??

A drastic increase in sales?

So the year is ending on a better result than expected which makes me optimistic longterm.

Next year I expect to be able to start uploading and regular production maybe by June,

But from then on I should be able to do stoc fulltime for the first time in my life, because I am no longer a family carer.

So, yes I am very optimistic.

If you expect to have regular stady sales without any uploads, then your port is performing miracles.

I wish I was that good, but I am not.

Without regular uploads my sales drop.

And yes, I keep trying new things. I spent two years doing mostly ai to learn about it but also because it was something I could do from home while fulfilling care duties.

Now I can go back to either working in the studio or organising other shootings outside of my home.

Again, not difficult to understand.

I will still do ai, but ai content is limited to selling on Adobe and I want to start activating other agencies with regular uploads-

And I want to make very strong focus on video.

I will keep sharing my results for those interested, but sadly sg is becoming the place filled with excuses, while those growing their income are now mostly elsewhere,

If leaving the industry is the easiest option, then those who see that as their best choice should do that.

I see a lot of opportunities and really look forward to be able to do stock fulltime.

But I am not planning a 6k a month income. 2-3k is more than fine for me. I only need money for myself and no longer have to pay another persons expenses, especially their healthcare costs.

Doing mostly ai for two years has taught me not to be scared of it. It is also not an easy to use tool, it has quite a steep learning curve.

I don't think creators must use ai to make money. You can spend the next 20 years focussing on all the missing content and just do camera work.

And at the moment the only place to make money with ai is on Adsobe anyway,

If I look at ports of people who keep telling me that there is no more money in stock, I usually see ports that are uploading the exact same things they always do. It might have been a niche 15 years ago, but now that theme is oversupploed. So of course sales drop.

All webshops of the world have to deal with trends and changing customer interest. doesn't matter if you sell wine, clothing, or media files.

It is never passive income, it always needs lots of research into customer interests and you always have to deal with new competition.

And sometimes you have to close an antire theme and start selling something new because a trend has ended or your competition does it better.

This can also happen to an online teashop.

You also have problems you cannot change, lie the drop in sales at Shutterstoc. Although I read that for some Shutterstock is now doing better than Adobe.

The only way to minimise those risks is to work with several agencies. Or maybe expand into your own print store as a new channel. On the Adobe is a discord there is a lady mostly doing journals and books and the content created is uploaded to Adobe as a second way to monetize her files.

I have never tried getting toin prints or merchandising. I have never tried to use my content for a youtube channel or some kind of influencer channel.

Maybe there are more things I can do with my content.

But first I really look forward to doing only stock for a few years.

The biggest risk for me is the falling dollar. Not sure how to deal with that yet.

Quote from: Injustice for all on June 21, 2025, 14:44

Quote from: alexandersr on June 20, 2025, 03:32

Quote from: Injustice for all on June 19, 2025, 15:24
things have picked up, 2 video sales yesterday and a few image sales...let's hope for the best!

Congratulation! Keep strong!

I have not sold an image this week! Well is not something strange to me!

Thank you!

May had been the worst month in years,then I had 2 sales in 10 days,so I decided to bring forward the plan I had already thought of and so I deleted 1350 contents in 24h,old contents that I would never have sold anyway,I also reduced some series of new contents (even if I don't have particularly large ones) and for now this is the result:

I know how you feel, it's depressing, I'm sorry, I hope things get better soon for you too...best wishes!

What ever happened to old Injustice for all? He was last active June.

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 04, 2025, 09:09

Quote from: Injustice for all on June 21, 2025, 14:44

Quote from: alexandersr on June 20, 2025, 03:32

Quote from: Injustice for all on June 19, 2025, 15:24
things have picked up, 2 video sales yesterday and a few image sales...let's hope for the best!

Congratulation! Keep strong!

I have not sold an image this week! Well is not something strange to me!

Thank you!

May had been the worst month in years,then I had 2 sales in 10 days,so I decided to bring forward the plan I had already thought of and so I deleted 1350 contents in 24h,old contents that I would never have sold anyway,I also reduced some series of new contents (even if I don't have particularly large ones) and for now this is the result:

I know how you feel, it's depressing, I'm sorry, I hope things get better soon for you too...best wishes!

What ever happened to old Injustice for all? He was last active June.

He was complaining that Adobe did him injustice, had theories that there was a glass ceiling to his sales and that if things wouldn't get better he would stop with microstock. I think he finally did stop when all the deadlines he made for him self got reached over and over again without the improvement he was looking for.

Quote from: SimonSays on December 04, 2025, 19:47

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 04, 2025, 09:09
What ever happened to old Injustice for all? He was last active June.

He was complaining that Adobe did him injustice, had theories that there was a glass ceiling to his sales and that if things wouldn't get better he would stop with microstock. I think he finally did stop when all the deadlines he made for him self got reached over and over again without the improvement he was looking for.

"injustice"  AI prompt "artists" claim justice? 
Bye Bye!!! Ok, who's next?

Quote from: Yola on December 02, 2025, 20:07

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 02, 2025, 19:50

Quote from: mike123 on December 02, 2025, 13:32

Quote from: Diana Herrmann on December 02, 2025, 12:50
Nothing has changed, there's no drop in commission.

Thank you for repeating what I said 

And what I've been writing as well. But it seems that some people, just can't understand commission is based on the price a customer pays vs credit amount, that we see.

Now that someone is complaining about Alamy and the 20% and how they got such a small amount for a good sale. Here's what Alamy tells us, because they are actually up front. They tell us what the customer actually paid. On the other hand, even Adobe and the other top places, list a credit, and never tell us the actual price, the buyer paid. We could be getting 10¢ from SSTK, for a subscription, that paid $289 and only downloaded ten images for the month. We don't know, they don't tell.

Only Alamy and I suppose, FAA and the POD sites, show us, the actual buyers transaction and how much. The rest, throw some spare change on the ground, so we can fight and grovel, for the tiny credits. Once we see how little 20% is, of the actual sale, it makes people unhappy. But if you get, just for an example, 15% from iStock, that's just an amount. We don't see that someone bought our work for $65 and we just got $9.75 

What you say in the last paragraph is not true - if you download iStock´s monthly Sales and royalty statement (PDF file), you can clearly see what each customer paid in the License Fee column.

True for iStock and Getty and we get 15% or 20%.

Not for Connect: last month for example
Cost Per View Norway 0.15 varies 0.02
Price Per Image CALIFORNIA 0.21 varies 0.03
Fixed Usage Fee USA 58.55 varies 8.78
Price Per Image UK 0.01 varies 0.00
Rev Share Subscriber Based Australia 0.59 varies 0.09
Price Per Image ARIZONA 0.08 varies 0.01
Price Per Image Canada 0.01 varies 0.00

My point is, ADOBE and SSTK do not show us the selling price, we only see the commission. Alamy does and then people are upset at the small percentages compared to the actual sale price. I'm happy with Alamy.

And as long as I'm here, I don't have a weekly rank, no one does, just a vague "position" that's unreliable, we don't know what it means or how it's calculated. But the thread continues, on and on. It's like taking about the weather somewhere else, when you aren't there and don't know the specific location you're discussing.

What does weekly position actually mean? How is it calculated? Dollars, downloads, or something else. Please someone, can you tell me that?

i started microstock 2018, but with adobestock i started 2021 with super 9$ in that year. 2022 war 120$

microstock is not a passime income anymore. i almost doubled my earnings this year compared with 2024, but i also uploaded lots of content.

again, not passive income for me. 'active income', because for good results, you gotta be active. the 'rejectiongate' was a big problem, with 80-90% of my content being rejected (even drone timelapses, wich i had great aceptance before), but now things are '''''''''better'''''''''', with real content being over 90% approval rate for me. but sure, the rejectiongate made lots of people giving up.

also, now, newbies have only 200/weekly uploads, and people with 1k+ sales have about 1000 uploads/week.

the game have changed, so we also must change the workflow

I've had 2x slow sales / low earning weeks in a row. I suppose it is our summer here in this part of the world leading into Christmas.

How's everyone else doing this month?

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 12, 2025, 20:12
I've had 2x slow sales / low earning weeks in a row. I suppose it is our summer here in this part of the world leading into Christmas.

How's everyone else doing this month?

Too bad! 

Quote from: alexandersr on December 13, 2025, 00:40

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 12, 2025, 20:12
I've had 2x slow sales / low earning weeks in a row. I suppose it is our summer here in this part of the world leading into Christmas.

How's everyone else doing this month?

Too bad! 

I was hoping Cobalt might chime in and inspire us with her results which are typically very good at this time of year. 

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 13, 2025, 08:50

Quote from: alexandersr on December 13, 2025, 00:40

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 12, 2025, 20:12
I've had 2x slow sales / low earning weeks in a row. I suppose it is our summer here in this part of the world leading into Christmas.

How's everyone else doing this month?

Too bad! 

I was hoping Cobalt might chime in and inspire us with her results which are typically very good at this time of year. 

She's always optimistic, she lifts anyone's spirits. Unfortunately, those are my results; I have little to no Christmas material.

>What's your weekly ranking and how many images? <
Finally 0 / 0

Quote from: tätarätä on December 13, 2025, 16:59
>What's your weekly ranking and how many images? <
Finally 0 / 0

Sad!

Sorry for being absent

Today I abruptly jumped from 1510 to 1360

Same volume as last week, but I guess it is slowing down everywhere and so if I remain steady my boat gets lifted.

My lifetime rank currently is 6080.

I am very happy with my results because I uploaded 80% less.

Sadly many top selling files have been relentlessly copied this year so they died much faster than expected.

But since I built a mostly slow seller port with a long tail, it is ok.

Hope everyone has a great holiday time and that 2026 will be better for all of us.

Quote from: cobalt on December 20, 2025, 20:11
Sorry for being absent

Today I abruptly jumped from 1510 to 1360

Same volume as last week, but I guess it is slowing down everywhere and so if I remain steady my boat gets lifted.

My lifetime rank currently is 6080.

I am very happy with my results because I uploaded 80% less.

Sadly many top selling files have been relentlessly copied this year so they died much faster than expected.

But since I built a mostly slow seller port with a long tail, it is ok.

Hope everyone has a great holiday time and that 2026 will be better for all of us.

Wow, your earnings this week on Adobe Stock are more than I've earned in more than half a year. Congratulations!

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 28, 2024, 06:53
My position has plummeted to 21400 which is the lowest I've seen it this year and was more often below 10000 for most of 2024. My earnings for the week are > $57 which given the position is really not too bad. I just noticed too that my earnings on Adobe are actually 10.7% higher in Dec 2024 compared to Dec 2023 so wasn't a bad month after all. Also my overall combined earnings for the month is 10.8% higher in Dec 2024 compared to Dec 2023.   

Thought I would look back at how things were going last year compared to this year and while my position hadn't change much, my earnings this late December 2025 have sunk like led to the bottom of the ocean (see attached).

I also note we were discussing results last year while hardly anyone posting this year. Are others having a bad time this year compared to previous years? My total December earnings in 2024 were $1043 which is pretty good for a slow month but total December earnings in 2025 will be in the $700s and that's with monetizing an additional stock agency and a YouTube channel in 2025. Terrible earnings this month.     

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 29, 2025, 10:17
I also note we were discussing results last year while hardly anyone posting this year. Are others having a bad time this year compared to previous years?

Also noticed that: there's not much happening on this forum compared to previous years. Probably most of the contributors moved on to other/better income streams and spend less time on microstock.
Speaking for myself - my income from stock in Dec 2025 is probably at around 10% of total photo/video based income, while it was at around 50-75% just a couple of years ago.

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 29, 2025, 10:17

Quote from: Pacesetter on December 28, 2024, 06:53
My position has plummeted to 21400 which is the lowest I've seen it this year and was more often below 10000 for most of 2024. My earnings for the week are > $57 which given the position is really not too bad. I just noticed too that my earnings on Adobe are actually 10.7% higher in Dec 2024 compared to Dec 2023 so wasn't a bad month after all. Also my overall combined earnings for the month is 10.8% higher in Dec 2024 compared to Dec 2023.   

Thought I would look back at how things were going last year compared to this year and while my position hadn't change much, my earnings this late December 2025 have sunk like led to the bottom of the ocean (see attached).

I also note we were discussing results last year while hardly anyone posting this year. Are others having a bad time this year compared to previous years? My total December earnings in 2024 were $1043 which is pretty good for a slow month but total December earnings in 2025 will be in the $700s and that's with monetizing an additional stock agency and a YouTube channel in 2025. Terrible earnings this month.   

Sadly, much lower results on Adobe compared to last year, at the moment, even with increased production. Not sure what is going on.

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