Sorry, my mistake on ss. Thought it was all subs. And yes, they might be king of the hill on subs, but as you said because prices work out so low for buyers. To imagine though being paid 25 cents a download though. Eeks, it's a tough pill to swallow for contributors.

You are years out of date. The lowest payment I have had for several years on SS is 38c. Quite recently I had a 5c sale on IS (ancient credits apparently) and sub-30c sales are quite common there but nowhere else.

Quote from: 123XXX on January 07, 2011, 23:16

Sorry, my mistake on ss. Thought it was all subs. And yes, they might be king of the hill on subs, but as you said because prices work out so low for buyers. To imagine though being paid 25 cents a download though. Eeks, it's a tough pill to swallow for contributors.

You are years out of date. The lowest payment I have had for several years on SS is 38c. Quite recently I had a 5c sale on IS (ancient credits apparently) and sub-30c sales are quite common there but nowhere else.

We're not all as great and wonderful as you gostwyck and you always point out that most people don't make 25c. Well yes we do. Many people still make 25c a download and the next group makes 33c a download. Not all that many have $10,000 in sales or make the 38c.

Now about the question that people won't answer, but keep hedging around. With two quotes for background:

Actually, You can buy a pack of 5 images for $49 - use within one year.

Ah lets see if my math is right that's about $10 an image and we get 25 cents?

... and, if they go to Shutterstock for example, all 14M images are the same price and available in just two sizes. For example they've got access to Yuri's entire 38K portfolio, including all the best-sellers at maximum size, for just $9. On Istock those cost nearly $40. The site never goes down and the Search works too.

OK $9 an image on and we get what? 25c, 33c, 38c

I just want to know for all the people who are shouting that they won't work for 20% on IS or ThinkStock or in my case a crummy 15% on IS.

What's the percentage on SS?

Using the above numbers SS pays around 5% on those sales, if they give someone 38c for a $9 sale.

Please someone tell me, what percentage does SS pay? 

Actually RacePhoto, I think there might be one error in your calculation. I think contributors get about 15-20% per download on those $49 pay per download packs, but I could be wrong. I think the 25-38 cents is only on monthly sub downloads.

Either way though, I think probably 90% or more of SS downloads are monthly sub based and so you could still only be earning 25 cents on that XXXL shot used for an ad billboard.

I don't understand how you reach those figures, Racephoto. The pay per download credits at SS give $2.85 or $1.84 (I can't remember what the two pricing levels represent, I'm sure someone will enlighten me). $2.85 is similar to the return on a large sale on iStock, and if the packages are selling at $9.80 per download that is a 29% return for the artist.

Sure, they could print a billboard from a 25c image if you choose to upload files that big to Shutterstock - but that is your choice, you could upload very small sizes to SS which would pay even less than 25c commission on iS.

In reality, the return for billboard use at any micro is too little.

I make $1.87 or $2.70 on on-demand downloads on SS. And my subs mostly make $.36 each. And with occasional ELs, it pushes the overall average up a tiny bit more. Yes, beginners start out low, but at least a person has a chance of increasing those amounts. At Thinkstock, you make what you make. The end.

and sub-30c sales are quite common there but nowhere else.

I can swallow 20c for an XS image much easier than a 70c (like in DT lever 3-4) for an XXL one.

Sorry, Pete, you know I love you, but this .25/DL argument you keep making about sales at SS is really a straw man.  

Honestly, I don't know why you are still at .25.  Anyone who takes microstock even remotely seriously will move to the .33 level quickly.  It only takes $500 in sales to get there.  That's only 5.5 sales a day for a year if you only get sub sales. Not a difficult goal, surely?

And as has been pointed out, that ignores the PPD sales, which range from .81 (sm size, beginner) to 2.84 (lg. size, high rank).  Not to mention the ELs, which are pretty common and net $28 for everyone, regardless of rank.  

If you are still only making .25 per sale at SS, and aren't even close to moving up (?!) after several years, the fault is not with Shutterstock.  Sorry to say.

OK I've been outed at my own game. Poor attempt at a troll, I'll be forced to leave that to professionals.

On Demand is $1.88 which I'll assume is one of the $9 or $10 packs and that means 18.8% roughly. Still not 25 cents which would be about 4%. Subs we don't know, because we don't have a clue if the person pays $249 and downloads one file, or $249 and downloads 750 files. Only SS and the Taxman know the answer to that question.

As for the 25c part, I'm still there because I have 270 rather average and dull images up on SS and have nearly stopped uploading. (feed the beast is real) I have nothing with a model in it. (I consider that important also) When I was sending in at least one image a month, the sales did go up. After two months of nothing, they dropped down to under five dollars a month again. Funny aside, IS I did stop uploading in May and the sales there are even, month after month. Kind of strange?

Anyway, $500 would mean roughly 2000 sales! That may have been easier to achieve a couple of years ago, before there were ten million competing images and 50,000 competing photographers. Yes, one may expect an EL or OD now and then, which is also interesting because every year, I get less and less of those. I suspect others have found the same trend in sales on SS, that being more subs, less OD and even less EL. I'll reach $500 in 2013, maybe sooner with some more ELs, but those seem to be a thing of the past?

True ThinkStock is always gong to be 25c and it's also a sub site. People who don't like it don't have to sell there. A sub is a sub, no matter who is selling us out. ThinkStock or a site that pays 25c for uploads and then sells nothing for years. What's the difference?

I can hammer this point and I seem to be ignored. ThinkStock is not dependent on our photos or images and they don't really care if they get them or not. It is a site for a collection of old stale photos and all the defunct agencies that Getty has gobbled up. All the old photos in one place, one brand, under one easy subscription. It's a different market than micro. It's a warehouse sale of images, nothing more. The fact that they have my StockXpert leftovers and things that no other site would accept, might point to the level of quality that ThinkStock is offering. So if they can sell those images, that would otherwise be taking up space on my hard drive, and for sale nowhere else, better luck to them. ThinkStock gets nothing new from me.

Billboard or website, once someone pays me the crummy quarter, they can do what they want. The image is already out int the wild and RF for anyone, so size doesn't make the whole difference. EL does!

I know there isn't going to be an uprising of people admitting that they won't reach $500 in SS sales for two or three years, but we do exist. Moderately serious, don't even accuse me of that, I'm just having fun. Yes I'm very serious about the motorsport photos, I wish there was a place for them in Micro. I can do editorial on SS and get 25 cents (or whoopee 38c a shot) instead of what they are worth. It's not like everyone can go grab the shots from sports events? IS won't take them because their editorial doesn't include News and Sports. So part of the problem is that I'm not producing material that meets the demand of the market. My fault alone.

Say, what does SS get for an EL, I don't even know? All I know is I get $28.

ps I did get 5c for a CD backup in October. Lets hear it for that commission?

I couldn't agree more! When ss was doing a survey about improving submitter end, I tried to tell them - no one cares, it is good as it is, please focus more on advertising to more diverse audience. Alas! They spent the money on prettifying the submitter page. The key to micro stock is that indeed this is a product that everyone can afford. Your grade 6 child doing a school project. Your grandmother making a church poster. Your neighbor plumber putting his add into the local newspaper. But - every time we approach someone to ask permission to take pictures, they not only never heard of micro stock, most of them had no idea what stock photography was!
We are a Wallmart of photography business, and yet no one knows about us!

I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees the potential.

According to Rogermexico,
quote :
�New Royalty Structure

The new royalties will take effect his week. We posted the revised redeemed credit targets last friday�

So we will see the real effects of these cuts next week...

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=288642&page=1

Claude

So my point again, even though it seems a bit thick, is it can take almost 30,000 downloads to reach the level that some people claim is easy. I don't think that 10,000 a year is easy, let alone 10,000 a year for three years, with EL and OD, counted. That's three years to reach the 38c if someone gets 10,000 downloads a year.

EASY?

I think the point of it being easy is that it is relative to the other agencies. It is very easy to make the top tier at SS compared to the other agencies.

In reality there are ELs and ODs and they account for about a third of the earnings, so with hard work and reasonable ability it should be possible to get from newbie to top tier within two years. Of course, it's not "easy" but then $10,000 is a lot of money to most people. And at least length of service, effort and commitment gets rewarded with a pay rise, unlike at iStock where you get a pay cut for allegedly not being "productive" enough.

I love how all the people saying it's easy have their meters pinned on full ahead. Maybe easy for you Ladies and Gents, but for the common person, 30,000 downloads is a huge number for three years, even harder in two years? Considering the level of images now, competition, and somewhat leveling of the market, it's not as easy now as it was three years ago.

I'm not the one complaining about getting a quarter a download from SS or making extra money from leftovers on another site that pays me 25c. The argument has been that people are getting ripped off when they sell downloads, for 25 cents, and I say, many of us still do! But SS is OK, while the other site is horrible and greedy.

True there's no pay increase for ThinkStock in the long run. I don't care, because what they sell makes me nothing anywhere else.

wasn't the "easy" comments only about reaching the 33c level eg $500.

I agree that it's definitely easier reaching top level at SS compared to Istock.

At Istock for top level you required 1,250,000 credits last year.
If you average 10 credits per download (generous on my figures) and you'd need 125,000 downloads a year to stay at 20%. No that would be hard.  I doubt you could do it as an independent without a large team.

... top tier within two years. Of course, it's not "easy" but then $10,000 is a lot of money to most people....

10 000 in two years is a lot of money?? Not even in my country. That's less then minimal wage /month.