i'm exclusive, but since way back in 2007, and I never submitted to any others, so my experience is irrelevant to you.

However, nowadays, the situation is very different. (If I were starting out now, I wouldn't bother.)

Consider this: your exclusive files will be 3x more expensive than indie files - are they 3x better? And even if they are 5x better, a proportion of buyers would satisfice with a cheaper image.
The search sometimes favours exclusives, but too often (speaking as an exclusive) favours indies.
Exclusive files are excluded totally from certain searches.
Your new files will not be mirrored onto Thinkstock, so if you sold a lot there, you'll probably lose out, though cheaper sales.

If you make high-end, often multiple-model files, your images might, or might not, be made Signature Plus. (The thread with images accepted/non-accepted for Sig+ is often perplexing [actually, not sure if that thread still exists]) On Getty, you might hit lucky and get a high price sale, of which you get only 20%, rather than your iStock percentage. Or you might get a buyer with a huge discount and get tiny value sales.

In the old days, the convenience of one agency and (in those days) avoiding subs was worth it for me and I know I personally wouldn't have done better as an indie, but most (not all) people who report are reporting falling sales.

As well as all that, they keep changing their policies, so you have no security - they ask for certain types of files, then decide they aren't taking them any more. For example, you can't now upload e.g. editorial Sports or Celebrity photos, even with permits now, and some people had a lot of pics deactivated.
Also, they don't keep promises, e.g. they promised that exclusive files would never be excluded from searches, they promised that exclusive files would always have priority in searches, they promised to mirror all exclusive editorial files on Getty, they promised that we would be 'grandfathered in' at our next incremental rate. All promises they have reneged on.

Look the numbers at the right of this page. If you contribute to the top 5 sites as non-exclusive you will make more money than as a single iS exclusive. Granted, we have no basis for knowing any accuracy of those numbers but it is a rough and wild comparison point - for lack of better. I've been exclusive at iS since about 2005 and am at 30%. My income is falling so fast that I have to consider jumping out. At 30%, my numbers are included in the right hand iS Exclusive total. You won't ever reach 30% with the structure as it is these days and the falling sales counts. You may never reach the relative exclusive number on the right since we don't know the mix of percentages by the reporters. But, you are certainly starting at the bottom rank.  if they didn't grandfather me based on better past sales years, I would no longer be at 30%. Today, you are likely better off to ignore iS and take the remaining of the top 5 or 6. There would be a whole lot less drama if you avoid iS.

I was an iStock exclusive a long time ago, so none of my experience is relevant to you, but while it was once a great place to sell, I don't see much of a future for the site. Based on the steady stream of exclusives who are leaving (with stories similar to Stan's) I can't see how you could make financial sense of such a decision.

Bear in mind that iStock's owner, Getty, is struggling with a massive debt burden left by two rounds of private equity owners. They have competition for large business customers from two other agencies (Adobe Stock and Shutterstock) and when the good news about revenue is that it isn't falling this year, you may want to think hard about selling exclusively through them. I have no clue what all the press releases about focusing on the consumer is - at least no clue how that will make them or contributors money. iStock used to have a healthy trade with small businesses - designers - but drove most of them away over several years of terrible decisions.

If you're thinking about exclusivity, stop uploading to DT so the 6 month lock will not be a problem (I think they still have this; at least check it out)

 And remember the Premium Access stuff, where they get a fee which we don't share, then the buyer buys files for a lower price out of which we get our percentage, so as a 30% exclusive, I can get as little as 11c (maybe less, I've tried to forget  )

I am sure Is is Ok for many of their top exclusives The trouble with IS however is that I am sure at one stage or another Getty will close them down. Istock is nothing but a thorn in the side of Getty and thats why they bought it from Bruce in the first place. Not for making good but to destroy!  and yes they have succeeded in that!

If you make quality images exclusivity can works. Signature + are well paid as subs and mirrowed in Getty (yes i know Getty is evil... but now exclusives with 1,5$- 2$ or RPI/month)

If you make average images... not.

Not to sound like a broken record but when adding up the numbers on the right please also bear in mind that the there's a certain level of bias built into how the poll works with regards to IStock exclusivity.

You have to have a certain level of sales before you become exclusive, so there will be low earners averaged into the non-IStock figures that wouldn't even be able to go exclusive (potentially a lot of them as most people fall into the low earner category in this industry, with a few people at the top making most of the money).

In other words the difference for a person who can become exclusive will be even more slanted towards non-exclusive=more money.

Quote from: MxR on April 27, 2017, 01:44

If you make quality images exclusivity can works. Signature + are well paid as subs and mirrowed in Getty (yes i know Getty is evil... but now exclusives with 1,5$- 2$ or RPI/month)

You are wrong with this. There is no price difference between an S or S+ subscription sale since the unification.

Look the signature+ minimun PPF 4,15 for s+ vs teh minimun ppf 0,75 essential or signature. 

One factor to consider is that the exclusives reporting earnings on the Poll Results table will almost all be long-term exclusives whose files/sales history may have benefited from that. If you are independent and switch to exclusive your files (and you) will have an existing history that may give them a poorer search position than files that have always been exclusive. So you might not get as much benefit from switching to exclusive as the poll suggests.
Another thing to remember is that there was at least one leading agency (can't remember which it was) that used not to allow people to return to it if they went istock exclusive and then wanted to go independent again. I don't know if that is still the case, but if so it might be a problem later on.
All this is speculative, of course. These days you'll struggle to find people who drop independence to become exclusive ... there are reasons for that.... so an informed response to your question will be equally hard to find.

People who left exclusive did so because they could make more with a variety of agencies after cuts, more cuts and changes at iStock. Add another reason why the numbers are slanted. The same happens at places like Deposit. People who stay are there because they have good numbers, people who left, did that because of low sales, earnings cuts and ethics. That makes the DP numbers look better, when it's actually a self selected grouping.

Sure Getty cares about owning IS, they are paying us a pittance 15% for work that they can sell for 85% return. Then they cut the editorial so only Getty can get that action. Getty has cash flow problems but is paying the minimum and would probably be happy if there were no indigent, idjet, oops, independent contributors. But of course for 15% they will promise to care about us, as they are picking our pockets and paying the minimum of the industry.

Right, there have been places in the past, if you leave, you can't come back DT was one. There has always been a revolving door and keeping track of the in and out was just a big problem for keeping records. Easier to say, you leave, you're out.

The new exclusive on IS doesn't require any level of sales, they changed that to anyone who wants, can be exclusive. Kind of like, one photo and you pass on SS. Open door isn't bad as it allows anyone who wants to enter the business at the level of their choice. https://workwithus.istockphoto.com/en Funny how this page has a grammar error. Also how the application review time is 30 days or more. They don't really seem very concerned.

I have done some serious thinking after taking part of all the knowledge and thoughts in this thread and trying to line up the pros and cons about going exclusive on IS. It seem to me I will be better of uploading images in the way I do to day in terms of income from sales.
But I�m pretty tired doing all the boring work....uploading.....keywords.....etc. etc....to different agencies.
I don�t think I ever will be a top producer of images that sell in thousands, so I would probably be comfortable in uploading to just one agency but a very poor exclusive contributor 

If you put your titles, descriptions, and keywords in the metadata once in photoshop or lightroom then you won't have to do it on each site.  I haven't uploaded anywhere in awhile, but istock always used to take as much time/effort to upload to as the next 6 or 7 sites combined. 

With the ESP upload do we still have to deal with the CV, disambiguation,  etc.?