Sorry - read it wrong - you knew that.     Payoneer's page says in small print * Currency conversion applies to local currency transfers - but can't find where they hide what today's exchange rate is.

When I asked them they said that exchange rates were according to Mastercard, which is what the card is.  Using the Mastercard current conversion tool which gives the rates according to date, they show the Canadian rate as:

0.9725

Paypal, on the same date, charged me this rate on a withdrawal into Canadian:

0.944526

I'm unclear so far if the Mastercard rate is what Payoneer will charge directly, but assuming the 6.95 is the only fee, then you make up the $6.95 fee difference as long as you are withdrawing over $250.  That said, you are just breaking even at that point.  Paypal seems better for the $150 transfers, while Payoneer seems to win after you get above $250.  I'm interested in that you seem to save on larger amounts, it goes right to the back, and you aren't dealing with PayPal.  With PayPal I have had numerous occasions where they locked my account after I used PayPal when not at home and making a purchase (i.e. buying an e-book on the road), and that meant a few weeks before I could get home, make the required phone call and get my account restored.  All that time they had my money and I couldn't access it.

The biggest flaw that I see with the Dreamstime system is that you could have a boat load of subscription sales that launch you into Level 5 territory where most people won't buy your image, and instead will look for level 0 or level 1 alternatives.  Under this situation you'd almost make nothing except subscription sales.

Let us know when you have a boatload of sub sales that launch an image to level 5 and then see it stop selling   It is possible, of course, but I've never seen it.  On the contrary, all my level 5 images have an RPD of about twice that of my average image.  I took a look at my top three level 5 images and all have had one or more downloads every month since June 2010 - so they seem to keep selling.  One, as an example, had 16 sub sales out of the last 50 sales...  That's a lot of credits - the minimum on a Level 5 image XS is 11 credits, and most purchase medium or higher.

Naturally, everyone will have different results - but I call false on the statement that buyers don't bite on level 5 images.

Exept Shutterstock, there, everything will eventually sell.

Why is everyone so dead against throwing away old garbage, you all like to sit there and watch them? thinking, Oh! I too that masterpiece back in 2005. Or is it just paranoid delution that it will sell and you might be short of a few cents.

I think the benefit varies depending on which site you are talking about.  I've removed a lot of old non-sellers on DT and think it helps there.  I also think it depends on how much time you spent on the 'non-seller' that you delete.  When I look at an old file that never sold, or sold once in two years I look at how populated that subject it.  In most cases my non-sellers are also my weaker shots in overflowing subjects.  I really think that the lost chance to get a sale on an old image it made up by having my better shots appear more often on my profile pages, or in searches.

I do have old ones that don't sell that I hang onto in the hopes they will sell someday, but most get cut after a couple of years without sales...  At DT you potentially benefit from directing more sales towards your higher level stuff.  Other sites are a different story.  If you need credits to hit a tier for higher royalties, it might force a different decision when every credit sale counts.

Quote from: leaf on May 15, 2011, 12:15

It makes perfect sense for an agency to raise prices on popular images

I don't quite understand the logic of that. Why would a buyer want to pay more for an image that so many others are using?

If you aren't hoping to sell an image to more than one buyer, then I don't think microstock is a good fit

Close to BME in March and so far this month sales have been spectacular. If it carries on like this it will be a massive BME but I am waiting for the sales to be 'switched off' again as usually seems to happen.

I tend to find my sales at Dreamstime appear in bizarre cycles of say 10 days of 'feast' followed by 2 weeks of 'famine'. I get the impression from the search results that different contributors are 'favoured' (or not) over time according to some unknown algorithm.

Interesting - I always find in the first week or so of a month things look terrible, and then they turn around and I end up better than the month before.  I too think they cycle between new/old.  I also find my referrals who have small portfolios and are not exclusive tend to sell early in the month when I'm doing poorly, and never when I'm doing well.  I like this approach (if that is what is going on), as it seems to give new files a chance to take off, while still promoting the higher level stuff.

To answer hose's question, I have noticed a slight downward trend in sales (buy not revenue) in the last three months.  I experienced the same thing in 2010 around this time of year.

Quote from: Megastock on May 09, 2011, 11:56

Pretty easy to reword to avoid the issue:

"The photographer is required to disable the file permanently from all other places where it is available for sale."

I find that offensive.   It assumes that all submitters are photographers. I am an illustrator, I never stoop to submiting mere photos. (Photography is for people who want to make pictures but who lack skill, talent, and imagination.)

I say we illustrators should sue Dreamstime and lobby Congress to pass laws to protect us from image-discrimination.

You're in luck - Dreamstime is already one step ahead   No need to involve Congress -  the new 1 and 3 year extended licenses have updated text:

"The Contributor will be required to disable the file permanently from all other places where he or she may sell it, as soon as possible after the sale occured, but no longer than 72 hours."

Pretty easy to reword to avoid the issue:

"The photographer is required to disable the file permanently from all other places where it is available for sale."

My only beef with it is I'd like to know the credit card fraud ones from the other causes.  I have no problem with a buyer that buys the wrong image, wrong size or finds the image doesn't work for them getting their money back.

If I actually knew that most were fraud then I'd probably get more worked up about it, but the pattern of which ones are refunded and so on have never led me to believe they were someone stealing my work...  Just the other day I had a refund that was clearly someone who bought too small a size and came back for the larger one.

Quote from: Megastock on April 20, 2011, 12:08

How do I change my vote?  I'm back up over $2 thanks to the credit update on Monday (and some actual credit sales, of course)...  Seems like you should wait until the end of the month for an April poll 

I changed the poll so you can now remove your vote, and then enter a new one.  I hope thats OK with luissantos84

Nice   Consider me updated...  I have to say that I'm seeing a lot of sales now in the 10-13 credit range where before I had a lot of 7-9 credit sales.  The effect of adding the level 0 is that for someone with a DPI of 5 (average file was level 2), you are now averaging closer to what used to be level 3.  As long as it doesn't push too many buyers to subs or other sites it seems great.

Quote from: Phil on April 19, 2011, 17:07

laughed the other day, one the images in my list of 4 year old unsolds being deleted has had over 1000 sales elsewhere, one a few weeks ago has consisently sold twice a week on Shutterstock for 4 years (not a criticism of Dreamstime, I have images at every agency that barely sell at others, just the luck of search engine placement and I'm sure you've seen the same type of thing)

Yep. One good reason to NOT go exclusive anywhere.

Hopefully if you are exclusive you concentrate on the things that do sell on that agency

Interesting that these results are so much higher than the monthly poll results to the right...

Does this help?

http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/intellectual-property-1800010

That just seems to cover photographs produced by the Mint (produced by RCM employees and of which the RCM owns the rights)...

I'm down about 20% from last months RPD.  Interestingly, I'm almost exactly the same as last April.  I saw RPD drop last April, and again in May.  How do people compare to last April, versus compared to last month?