Author Topic: Are "low Earner" microstocks worth uploading ? (Read 12183 times)

GoetzPhilippines · « **on:** June 06, 2015, 01:21 »

Hi all,
I am quite new in microstock business but even my portfolio is more like mainstream (landscape, holiday, travel) I made it already into the "big earners" with some dozens pictures.

I also learned that uploading and keywording to 12 agencies is a lot of work - so I will use picworkflow soon to reduce my workload.

There comes my question now - there are so many so called "low earner" sites in their portfolio that I ask myself if it's woth the effort registering to them and uploading there too. I would go from 12 to 40+ agencies - but how about my earnings?

I am focussed on landscape/tourism like fotos from the philippines - maybe in next year I can also look into specialising to get more content people look for - but I will maybe upload 200+ pictures a year.
So how about my workload compared to my earnings on those "low earners"?

Ok I can do it and then tell my experiences in 3 years

but maybe some of you already have done this and can advise me.

My goal is to earn maybe 250$/month in 3+ years from now.

MichaelJayFoto · « **Reply #1 on:** June 06, 2015, 01:50 »

Quote from: GoetzPhilippines on June 06, 2015, 01:21

Hi all,
I am quite new in microstock business but even my portfolio is more like mainstream (landscape, holiday, travel) I made it already into the "big earners" with some dozens pictures.

I also learned that uploading and keywording to 12 agencies is a lot of work - so I will use picworkflow soon to reduce my workload.

There comes my question now - there are so many so called "low earner" sites in their portfolio that I ask myself if it's woth the effort registering to them and uploading there too. I would go from 12 to 40+ agencies - but how about my earnings?

I am focussed on landscape/tourism like fotos from the philippines - maybe in next year I can also look into specialising to get more content people look for - but I will maybe upload 200+ pictures a year.
So how about my workload compared to my earnings on those "low earners"?

Ok I can do it and then tell my experiences in 3 years but maybe some of you already have done this and can advise me.

My goal is to earn maybe 250$/month in 3+ years from now.

I have between 2,000 and 3,000 images uploaded to 13 agencies. Of which three not even made a payout within a year after uploading. So in my opinion those agencies aren't worth uploading to.

Also comparing the royalties they are making, some of them provide around 1% or even less of my total royalties. So I would have to upload to 20 more agencies to make 20% (or less) more in royalties. Again, my personal assessment is it's not worth my time.

I plan to reduce the number of agencies in the mid term rather than find new ones.

Maximilian · « **Reply #2 on:** June 06, 2015, 03:19 »

Just upload daily or or each week to top tiers. Upload once a month or after 6months to all others.
So, please do not tell about much work for uploading. Go to bed or drink 4 coffee and after that your upload is done.
The most work is to create your photos and add keywords. All agencies read metadata.
If you say uploading is too hard work, you do this part of your job WRONG!

Microstock Poll Results:
Bigstock + Canstock + Veer = similar to 123rf earnings.
Wouldn`t you love to double your 123rf earnings? This is the way how you can do it. This is how i do it.
I have a payout at pixta, at colourbox and others. Why should i miss it. They do not get my best images but up to 80% of all my files.
But.. if you pay for MB uploading you should think twice about it

skyfish · « **Reply #3 on:** June 06, 2015, 03:28 »

Similar to Maximilian. Only last time i deleted images from such places like YAY. Other low earners don't deserve daily attention, but why not to collect what they finally generated?

Maximilian · « **Reply #4 on:** June 06, 2015, 03:30 »

Pierre · « **Reply #5 on:** June 06, 2015, 08:36 »

low earners are worthless unless they each make at least 5% of your earnings.

sgoodwin4813 · « **Reply #6 on:** June 06, 2015, 08:58 »

If you're already on 12 then that might be enough. Like others have said, if uploading is expensive then the low earners won't be worth it, but if it is free then it might be worth the small amount of extra effort. Nobody else can tell you what is best for you - whether your particular images will sell depends on many unknown factors. What I do is upload a few hundred images to a new agency and see what happens - if they get decent sales then they go on the regular upload list, if not then I might upload occasionally or probably will just stop.

Based on my experience, I would not bother with Crestock, Panthermedia, Cutcaster, YAY or Veer. The latter used to be good but nowadays has died unfortunately. GL no longer takes uploads so that's not an option. I like featurepics - sales are very slow, but they pay 50% and I do get the occasional payout. I've signed up for several others but could never be bothered to actually submit anything so have no practical experience.

PixelsAway · « **Reply #7 on:** June 06, 2015, 11:15 »

It depends on the size and performance of your portfolio.
With a large portfolio 1% of income is becoming quite significant.
If you are making a couple hundreds $ per month uploading to low earners is not worth it.

stockastic · « **Reply #8 on:** June 06, 2015, 19:10 »

In the past, many of us gave our images to 'low earners' because they were new, and we hoped they'd grow into serious competition to the big agencies while holding some sort of line on price. That didn't happen - the small agencies stayed small, didn't differentiate themselves in meaningful ways, and in fact competed mainly on price. Some of them are now the worst offenders, with deceptive giveaway programs and shadowy 'partner' networks.

trek · « **Reply #9 on:** June 06, 2015, 20:19 »

Quote from: stockastic on June 06, 2015, 19:10

In the past, many of us gave our images to 'low earners' because they were new, and we hoped they'd grow into meaningful competition to the big agencies while holding some sort of line on price. That didn't happen - the small agencies stayed small, didn't differentiate themselves in meaningful ways, and in fact competed mainly on price. Some of them are now the worst offenders, with deceptive giveaway programs and shadowy 'partner' networks.

I agree with the above and have come to view non earners to be loose ends. Some of those loose ends have dozens of dubious "partner sites" with bizarre pricing, account/copyright names removed, insufficient thumb nails... and more. I've begun removing material from sites that fit that description.

PixelBytes · « **Reply #10 on:** June 06, 2015, 22:17 »

I say if you have less than 5-10k images it is a waste of time uploading to the little sites. You may never make payout, but if you do have a few sales, they end up keeping 100% if you don't get to payout. Even if you have big strong port some sites will only earn maybe $50-100 per year. Not worth the time uploading.

Nikovsk · « **Reply #11 on:** June 07, 2015, 04:15 »

robhainer · « **Reply #12 on:** June 07, 2015, 11:20 »

I think Bigstock and Canstock are. Personally, I don't know why Bigstock is under low earners. I do better than than Istock, Dreamstime and 123RF. It's No. 3 for me behind Shutterstock and Fotolia.

tickstock · « **Reply #13 on:** June 07, 2015, 14:25 »

I wouldn't consider contributing to a site that I didn't expect to make a payout every month. RM or sites that pay $100's per sale would be different but none of the microstock sites. There is no way the effort is worth it to get a payout once a year.

Tror · « **Reply #14 on:** June 07, 2015, 15:37 »

Quote from: tickstock on June 07, 2015, 14:25

I wouldn't consider contributing to a site that I didn't expect to make a payout every month. RM or sites that pay $100's per sale would be different but none of the microstock sites. There is no way the effort is worth it to get a payout once a year.

Yes it is. Some of those sites got very successful (e.g. Canva) and WE HAVE TO STRENGTHEN COMPETITION.

Stock Wife · « **Reply #15 on:** June 07, 2015, 17:02 »

Quote from: tickstock on June 07, 2015, 14:25

I wouldn't consider contributing to a site that I didn't expect to make a payout every month. RM or sites that pay $100's per sale would be different but none of the microstock sites. There is no way the effort is worth it to get a payout once a year.

If we only submitted to places we would definitely get monthly payouts, we'd submit nowhere.

I think it matters how much you intend to submit over the next year and several years. Of course you can't predict how the industry or your interests in it will change but why invest time and energy submitting to only a few places and then realize you've been leaving money on the table all this time? If uploading is low cost (in money and time away from something else you need to do), cut back; if not, take the risk.

FWIW, we are on all sites with numbers on the survey. In 13 months, we've had (or have now earned) payouts from 7 of them. Of course, SS payouts are frequent but still not definitely every month. Pond5 payouts are nearly monthly but they have a low threshold. Otherwise, we haven't yet qualified for more than one payout from anywhere else on the list. Once we hit payment from Deposit, I am likely to pull images. I am not sending new uploads there at the moment.

MichaelJayFoto · « **Reply #16 on:** June 08, 2015, 02:33 »

Quote from: tickstock on June 07, 2015, 14:25

I wouldn't consider contributing to a site that I didn't expect to make a payout every month. RM or sites that pay $100's per sale would be different but none of the microstock sites. There is no way the effort is worth it to get a payout once a year.

That is most likely due to you being used to consider it "normal" to upload through a proprietary software, click on every second keyword to define its specific meaning for the term, upload new model releases with each single image etc. That kind of "effort" indeed isn't worth my time, even when I get paid more regularly.

There are agencies which make it a matter of minutes to upload 20, 50 or 100 images at once. For those I don't see why I wouldn't send my files to them. There are others which make it a bit more complicated but none come even close to iStock.

The only condition to me is that there must be a realistic expectation to "eventually" get paid and not just collect one or two dollars a month for a $100 payout limit. Otherwise I basically would be submitting my images for free as I would never get a chance to cash out my money. And my personal limit to this expectation is to be able to reach payout level at least once a year.

Yay Images Billionaire · « **Reply #17 on:** June 08, 2015, 03:53 »

I was considering dropping all the low earners that seems as though they would never reach payout, and then suddenly one of them surprised me and became my third best earner two months in a row. So, it might be worthwhile to hang on to some potential earners.

tickstock · « **Reply #18 on:** June 08, 2015, 07:10 »

Quote from: MichaelJayFoto on June 08, 2015, 02:33

Quote from: tickstock on June 07, 2015, 14:25
I wouldn't consider contributing to a site that I didn't expect to make a payout every month. RM or sites that pay $100's per sale would be different but none of the microstock sites. There is no way the effort is worth it to get a payout once a year.

That is most likely due to you being used to consider it "normal" to upload through a proprietary software, click on every second keyword to define its specific meaning for the term, upload new model releases with each single image etc. That kind of "effort" indeed isn't worth my time, even when I get paid more regularly.

There are agencies which make it a matter of minutes to upload 20, 50 or 100 images at once. For those I don't see why I wouldn't send my files to them. There are others which make it a bit more complicated but none come even close to iStock.

The only condition to me is that there must be a realistic expectation to "eventually" get paid and not just collect one or two dollars a month for a $100 payout limit. Otherwise I basically would be submitting my images for free as I would never get a chance to cash out my money. And my personal limit to this expectation is to be able to reach payout level at least once a year.

If I'm uploading to a site I need to know what is going on on that site. If I upload to 20 sites I need to know what partners each has, best practices for each site, what's changing within the terms for each site. It's a lot more involved than just uploading and forgetting about it. The time to upload is only a very small part of the equation. I used to be on many sites so I know what is involved in keeping up with that.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #19 on:** June 09, 2015, 02:22 »

It partly depends how easy they are to upload to and you may find you do well on some - I upload to some if I have time but always prioritise getting stuff on the higher earners.

Fatmanphoto · « **Reply #20 on:** June 09, 2015, 06:37 »

I generally add to the big four as I go along, and about half a dozen of middle tier at the start of the month.

I added a few more after seeing a table on the Backyard Silver blog. Basically, I looked at the table and added to my list any new agencies that were easy to upload to. Too early to say how they do though.

http://www.backyardsilver.com/2014/11/stock-agencies-support/

ArenaCreative · « **Reply #21 on:** June 09, 2015, 09:40 »

Quote from: PixelBytes on June 06, 2015, 22:17

I say if you have less than 5-10k images it is a waste of time uploading to the little sites. You may never make payout, but if you do have a few sales, they end up keeping 100% if you don't get to payout. Even if you have big strong port some sites will only earn maybe $50-100 per year. Not worth the time uploading.

Agree 1000%... PixelBytes knows. If you use batch uploading software or services, then you may as well submit everywhere. There's not much loss of time, especially if you have unlimited bandwidth and high upload speeds. But don't waste your time ftp-ing and submitting all of these files manually until your porfolio is rather large. Maybe once a year I will throw my portfolio at a newer or smaller agency where I think I can pick up an extra $50-100 / month, but sometimes that much doesn't even pan out. It's like gambling, except your time is the risk. There is no financial loss to try a new marketplace.

tickstock · « **Reply #22 on:** June 09, 2015, 09:47 »

Quote from: ArenaCreative on June 09, 2015, 09:40

Quote from: PixelBytes on June 06, 2015, 22:17
I say if you have less than 5-10k images it is a waste of time uploading to the little sites. You may never make payout, but if you do have a few sales, they end up keeping 100% if you don't get to payout. Even if you have big strong port some sites will only earn maybe $50-100 per year. Not worth the time uploading.

Agree 1000%... PixelBytes knows. If you use batch uploading software or services, then you may as well submit everywhere. There's not much loss of time, especially if you have unlimited bandwidth and high upload speeds. But don't waste your time ftp-ing and submitting all of these files manually until your porfolio is rather large. Maybe once a year I will throw my portfolio at a newer or smaller agency where I think I can pick up an extra $50-100 / month, but sometimes that much doesn't even pan out. It's like gambling, except your time is the risk. There is no financial loss to try a new marketplace.

Of course there is financial risk. Lots of those small sites are sketchy with opaque reporting and dodgy partners. Remember albumo or DP? Or somewhere like Stockbo that was only entering the business to sell it off to the highest bidder once they got enough content. If you are uploading to many sites you have to be vigilant or you might get burned or you might get burned even if you are vigilant. How many people read and understand the terms of agreement on all 20 or 30 sites? I know not many do considering how many people are clueless about the terms for the top few sites.

stockastic · « **Reply #23 on:** June 09, 2015, 17:00 »

You guys who feel you might as well give you photos to everyone, everywhere, should consider that some of these small sites will fail, possibly putting their owners in a serious financial bind. I think it's only a matter of time before one of these 'low earners' goes dark overnight, and the owner stops responding. And he might be facing an enormous temptation to quietly sell a portable hard drive containing all your images to someone even less ethical than himself.

Mantis · « **Reply #24 on:** June 09, 2015, 17:28 »

Quote from: stockastic on June 09, 2015, 17:00

You guys who feel you might as well give you photos to everyone, everywhere, should consider that some of these small sites will fail, possibly putting their owners in a serious financial bind. I think it's only a matter of time before one of these 'low earners' dark overnight, and the owner stops responding. And he might be facing an enormous temptation to quietly sell a portable hard drive containing all your images to someone even less ethical than himself.

This is my biggest worry about "supporting start ups". It really can be a double edged sword.

weltreisendertj · « **Reply #25 on:** June 11, 2015, 14:09 »

I wrote my own service mymicrostockupload.com to make the upload work. The agencies are sorted after there earnings statistics. So I upload new pictures only to agencies were I´ve earned more as 50$. The others will be delivered when they are reaching my limit. The reason of this is that some agencies are selling one picture in one year but for a good price. But I stopped uploading to deposit I have read to many bad news of this one.

ranplett · « **Reply #26 on:** June 11, 2015, 15:17 »

This thread has been a good read. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses!

Do any of you use uploading services that automatically upload at the flip of a switch? I'm exclusive to iStock so I'm not sure how it works, but I find it hard enough (dull enough) to upload just to one agency, let alone 12 - 13.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #27 on:** June 11, 2015, 15:38 »

I know this has been touched on in other replies, but do look carefully at any partner deals, whether they'll give you a list of partners vs. consider it a secret, and what the compensation is on partner sales. You also want to know if you can delete images yourself or if that's a function reserved for the agency.

If I made $50 from a new agency in royalties - say over 6 months - I might be encouraged (if those sales are growing over time) or furious (if they were partner sales and the buyer paid $500 of which $450 went to a distributor and the agency and only the leftover crumbs to me).

Veer - as an example - has partners (they won't give you a list but when you find a site you can generally work out where the images came from) who charge higher prices than Veer (by quite a lot) but you as a contributor get just your "standard" royalty as if the buyer had purchased from Veer. I don't like the notion that I'm getting ripped off and so is the buyer.

Most of the agencies from which I have deleted my portfolio have handled things professionally, but albumo was a nightmare (and I had passed the one year lockin). I was changing my descriptions to say that this agency was refusing to communicate and please buy my images at dreamstime.com just to get them to delete my portfolio! All things being equal, I prefer the option to delete my own files in case an agency won't respond.

Don't compare uploading anywhere to uploading at iStock - only Veer even comes close to the pain in the butt that iStock was (Veer/Corbis also has the millstone of a controlled vocabulary around their proverbial neck).

Jeffrey · « **Reply #28 on:** June 11, 2015, 22:24 »

I have about 104 images in DepositP with about 11$ earning, but uploading more is quiet a risky since I read a lot of negative reviews from Contributors and Clients.

I have over 1000 images in IS and Shutter, over 500 in FT.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #29 on:** June 13, 2015, 12:39 »

Quote from: ranplett on June 11, 2015, 15:17

This thread has been a good read. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses!

Do any of you use uploading services that automatically upload at the flip of a switch? I'm exclusive to iStock so I'm not sure how it works, but I find it hard enough (dull enough) to upload just to one agency, let alone 12 - 13.

I use Filezilla though its not a flick of a switch all sites are much easier than Istock except Panther and veer. If your prepopulate IPTC then most sites are not too horrendous - depends on your boredom threshold though

ArenaCreative · « **Reply #30 on:** June 15, 2015, 11:47 »

You can't police the internet, and you can't control what happens to your images as soon as they hit the web and are downloaded at least once. There is no real control, but there are still at least some honest business people out there. Honest buyers? Now we are talking a totally different topic. Buying a regular license, and using it as if it were an enhanced? Sharing their downloads with their peers? Let's be real. If you're afraid of all of these things, go become a basket weaver instead. They WILL happen. It comes with the territory, just like theft comes along with owning a retail store.

tickstock · « **Reply #31 on:** June 15, 2015, 11:55 »

Quote from: ArenaCreative on June 15, 2015, 11:47

You can't police the internet, and you can't control what happens to your images as soon as they hit the web and are downloaded at least once. There is no real control, but there are still at least some honest business people out there. Honest buyers? Now we are talking a totally different topic. Buying a regular license, and using it as if it were an enhanced? Sharing their downloads with their peers? Let's be real. If you're afraid of all of these things, go become a basket weaver instead. They WILL happen. It comes with the territory, just like theft comes along with owning a retail store.

Strange analogy, retailers put all kinds of measures into place to reduce the chances that their products will be stolen. Uploading to shady sites with opaque terms and dodgy partners puts your images at more risk than uploading to more trusted sites. Sure you can't stop ALL violations but that isn't a good argument against stopping many violations.

ArenaCreative · « **Reply #32 on:** June 15, 2015, 12:26 »

It's never bad to try and be as safe as you can with your digital assets. I'm not saying to be reckless with your hard work, all I'm saying is that you can also be "too paranoid" and miss out on a lot of extra income. Then again, if you don't have a large enough portfolio, it really won't be worth the risk. It's still safer than investing in the stock market!

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Author Topic: Are "low Earner" microstocks worth uploading ? (Read 12183 times)

GoetzPhilippines

MichaelJayFoto

Maximilian

skyfish

Maximilian

Pierre

sgoodwin4813

PixelsAway

stockastic

trek

PixelBytes

Nikovsk

robhainer

tickstock

Tror

Stock Wife

MichaelJayFoto

Yay Images Billionaire

tickstock

Pauws99

Fatmanphoto

ArenaCreative

tickstock

stockastic

Mantis

weltreisendertj

ranplett

Jo Ann Snover

Jeffrey

Pauws99

ArenaCreative

tickstock

ArenaCreative

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