I'm in no position to really make a statement, so please regard the title as a question.

From what I've gathered iStock took a huge nosedive around 2010 (+/- a couple of years maybe?). I used to buy everything from there back in 2004'ish to 2007 or so, also had a 1 or 2 images up but not that i had any faith they would sell

Anyway I recently started to upload again and mix my photo's with 3D renders suitable for stock (most of my files are pending at the moment, so you can only see a handfull).

I was hoping to get exclusive ASAP and fill out my portfolio as time went by. After I discovered this site and had a look around it seems that everyone agress that iStock is no longer a good Money earner (well no where near SS).

So i decided to diversify and applied to SS and started uploading to fotolia. Then i said "what ." and applied to DP and DT too.

BUT after reading through each forum I'm shocked (quickly deleted my pending files from DT and will cancel my account on DP when they accept).

I was thinking of going Shutter, iStock and Fotolia (made sure to turn DCP off there), but the royalties seem very very low compared to iStock where $1,5 to $4,5 is where you start at and with exclusive you're looking at $7 or so.

Comparing that to cents from SS made no sense to me. Are your files selling around 20x better on SS that it makes it worthwhile? What am i missing here?

Currently thinking really hard on building a portfolio exclusive to iStock and leaving it at that.

Please help