SS is my   'volume'  site. My 'fast food micro' site. I don't make a lot of $ per pic, but I sell a lot of them  (multiple pix almost daily) .  I would venture to say that is true of most of the folks here.

I agree with the flower advice above unless you have something really unique out there in the garden... flowers are ...well, everyone has them.

I'd stay away from them on the first shot, that is, when you apply.   On the other hand,  once you are on SS,  if you have the time to load 'em,   load 'em.  What's the worst, they say 'no thanks'.
     Be prepared to be rejected by SS,  seems EVERYONE has to submit more than once... took me a few times to get on. It's no big deal.  SS is worth the time invested.

No email here... but I can tell you right now... there's no way I'd go for it... I hate to be paranoid, but there's been too many  'funny'  things going on in this business.   Rather than give that data out,  I'd pull my account too.
I don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling from  ....
 
 "   this is Johnny from admin, it's okay, don't worry about it......  "   

Yeah, okay,  here's my amex, mc and visa and while I'm on line,  here are the pin codes to my bank accounts too.

Just too many scams out there and no sooner than one is uncovered, another pops up to take it's place.  I'll pass on this one.

With all due respect to Void,  in fact, I COMPLETELY understand where he's coming from. I personally only have 6 sales on LO after several months with pix that sell very well at SS, StockXpert, FT, DT BS, and others.
    My professional background is in management training,  one of the things I teach and really enjoy teaching  is marketing.  Looking at all the sites I submit to I have to say that  I am not all that impressed with most of the sites format, as formated from a marketing perspective.  And not just microstock websites, I mean the web in general.  On the other hand,  I think Bryan and the folks at LO are on to something.  If I were building a microstock website....  I'd be off an a completely different approach, something fresh, out of the box,  dump the status quo, something   "what's happening?" ,  look at me. ...   like, LO.
   You click on some of those sites mentioned above and you come on a bland, colorless, featureless, home page.  Hey, a couple of them don't even have a   "photo"   on the home page, just text.  What's this site all about?  click in/click out.
    I could go on, but this isn't one of my classes, sorry, I do tend to ramble.

I'm sticking with LO and uploading as fast as I generate new work or convert old.  I think that once this Lucky Oliver Machine takes off, it's going to be one heck of a ride.  It'll be in the   "TOP  ?" whatever  Leaf decides to put up,  sometime this coming year.

And Leaf, as you no doubt know full well,  you can't please all the people all the time, just some of them some of the time.  Everyone is going to view the 'list' differently and probably change that view on a weekly basis...LOL    Perhaps the best listing would be what reputable agencies that review the biz have to say. We can always 'debate' the issue here in the family.  In my own case, it wasn't what any of those lists said that swayed me as a newbie, it was  in total, the conversations the folks had in the threads.  Their personal experiences.            peace - tom

HA!!!   before I clicked I thought,    "here we go, the ride begins again!".
The more I read and thought about this and the other thread, the more I regreted my orignal comments on the other thread.    I wasn't very kind.  And I was wrong.
      When I go and look at my own portfolio... I have to admit that there is some real garbage in it (no pun intended to the original thread).  Even now, I occassionally upload something that, while I am yet keywording it, one side of my brain says,  "this is real crap, man, why are you sending this?"  but,  the other side sends it anyway. 

The freaky thing?   Some of them sell!  And when they sell,  my brain asks,   "Why would someone buy that piece of crap, even for 25 cents?"

      Who knows, maybe someone bought it to put  on a forum somewhere on the web and people are ripping it, and me, and the microsite,  ... to shreds?  LOL  ha ha ha ha.
      My point:   One man's garbage is another's treasure ....  beauty is in the eye of the beholder    .....   love is blind...    and a billion other catchy sayings.    OR,  someone might have actually been looking for a pic of that particular ratty looking, 1950's, kit transistor radio? 
    My wife puts up a lot of my work on the sites.  Early this week she put on a picture of a horse in a meadow.  First, there's  999,999,999.2 pictures of horses in meadows out there. Second, I never posted it as I thought it was a LOUSY  picture.  I came home and even asked in a disappointing manner,  why she put that poop picture up.

        Yesterday, it sold.         Who knows why we put up what we do? Or why what sells, does?   I'm learning  to compete against myself. I don't just do it for the money, God knows I'll never get rich on Micros.  I do it more for the fun and the art and the passion and, then a couple extra bucks. If someone likes something I did, I'm thrilled to share it with them  for a quarter or a couple hundred.
     I am not so naive as to think that all my pictures are art and no one could possibly rip them up.  I'm sure I get ripped up somewhere on this planet several times a day.  So what?   Walk into any major art museum in the world....   you'll hear people praise one classical artist as the greatest that every walked the earth... and in the next room say another one's work should be gracing the nearest garbage landfill... 

same here and everywhere.                   peace.   -tom

Exactly how I'd bust them out into categories based on my limited experience.  I'm assuming that there is no  'position'  being implied in the Big 6.  As that would vary photog to photog... but I'm sure most with agree with your categorical analysis.
     This site has been a tremendous help to me starting out in the biz. Never underestimate the value of your forum, Leaf.  It is so much more than a place for photogs to shoot the bull. In my case, it also serves as an important tool in my day to day micro activities and I'd bet that is true for many here.   Keep up the good and appreciated work!

High hits, but low sales... next to USPS, lowest sales... BUT  I'm hanging in there and uploading like crazy.  I think LO is going to be a major player in due time.  I did opt for the EL... and now have some concerns about 'unlimited'.  Hope I did the right thing... we'll see...

Yeah, what were the reasons they shot you down?

Just because they're selling great on SS isn't a measure of assured acceptance anywhere else, but I suppose you know that, you seem to be on several sites as it is.   I went into StockXpert with all my SS shots, figuring if I got past  their  "noise fanatical"  reviewers, I'd roll right into StockXpert.   Nope!! On the other hand,  StockXpert took some of my SS rejects, so...there's no figuring them out at all. Most of my StockXpert rejects are  the old "got enough of this stuff already".

I surfed your LO portfolio.  I'm a landscape kind a guy and I liked all your Singapore shots! Have they been shot down? Seems like you gave them real variety as well.    Who knows what evils lurk in the hearts of reviewers?     (insert manical laughter here)

A friend of mine recently got into the design field. I asked him where he was buying.  His outfit buys from Getty and another macro I don't recall, but not one of the Big 3.  I asked why they didn't use the micros. He said it didn't matter to his outfit as the cost is always passed on to the customer.  He did say that they have used DT in a pinch. 
    I told him to surf the micros... the work's as good or better than  images on the macros.    And sure a lot less costly.   In fact,  I finished the conversation by saying...   "Call ME when you need your next image"   Ha ha ha ha ha.
 

the point..    evidently, designers and design outfits DO get in ruts or develop 'comfort zones' with certain photo shops.  On the other hand, to Leaf's point,  if you know what they have and you're happy with it...  would make no sense to 'shop around'.

wow, this is great reading....  is there any more?    -tom

My sales in November and December in BigStock have been the usual pace. Slow but steady.  Not my highest seller at all   (SS highest quantity though not highest $). I like BigStock, easy site to work on, easy upload and I like my 98+% approval rating there.  BigStock is accepts more of my work than any of the others.  I don't know if that's good or bad...   LOL

I started just this past summer.  Photography has been a passionate hobby for me since I was a kid. My wife is a photog too. About a year ago she started to dabble in things like Zazzle and Cafe Press with her photos and had a modest success. She also used many of my photos.  She turned me on to microstock. 
    I figured, hey, what the heck.  I started with SS and got shot down 2 or 3 times... tried my luck with DT and BS... now I'm with  SS, DT, BigStock, FT, LO, StockXpert, 123RF & USPS ( yeah, I actually have sales there).  I've been working on a disk for Alamy... trying to find the time to uprez, a tedious affair in my mind.   
    I have a small portofolio, still less than 300, but I'm working on it. I am having a modest success in sales, but I won't be quitting my day job any time soon.    Right now, it's still fun.
    Interestingly, all 3 of my kids and two of their mates are also now breaking into the biz. 

This quarter, my highest quantity of sales,  however not my highest $ sales.

SS rejected me. have to wait a month now. 7/10 refused

litifeta,  don't let that 7/10 reject from SS bother you.  I think most of us have gone through that initial SS rejection, some of us 2 or 3 times before finally getting on. I was shot down a couple times, but now,  my rejection from them is minimal. Hang in there.  Sometimes you can figure out what each individual outfit wants and slant your submisssions that way... and other times,  I've seen no pattern at all. Who knows?   I've had pix that are top sellers for me on SS, BigStock, DT SX... be rejected at FT & 123...  ?   They all have their own likes/dislikes and professional needs.  And I suppose that's the point. It might sell high to the SS design customers and there may have been no call for the same subject by designers that frequent another site.
   Of course, then there are times I just think the reviewer was ticked off at the world.. [insert laugh here].   It's all part of the biz.   Keep submitting!    -tom