Actually I said XL which would pay out 2.50 at Dreamstime or max 4.20 at istock. But I see what you mean, not much difference really.

right, you said that. My files (Canon 30d, 8,2 MP) do not qualify for XL at Istock, so for me that is (currently) not relevant - should have mentioned that.
But otherwise those files qualify for XL on StockXpert, where the XL is 10 credits and my share 50 %... (so a buyer is paying the same for an L at Istock or an XL at StockXpert, but my share at StockXpert is about double that at Istock).

So right now (at least for me personally) I don't see a big loss in buyers moving between those sites. SS (subscriptions in general) are a different topic, but I would assume that does not really apply since somebody who has a subscription plan at any of these sites will anyway first look to use that one up before looking to buy as PPD on any other site.

similar messages from the German FT team on the German board.
I'm still waiting for some explanations, but at least FT responded.

Thanks again. Maybe I will give it a try for some of my rejects, when I can correct what they saw.

Congrats!
Sales are good for me from the beginning as well.
I'm just not quite sure about the best strategy to upload. As everyone says you need to continually feed this beast, I started with small batches (five to ten) about every other day. That will allow me to have new stuff to upload for a long time (got several hundred waiting on my hard-drive), but it will of course take a longer time to build a big portfolio. Just wondering, would it be better to upload a bigger pile in the beginning to have a reasonably sized portfolio to start with or rather keep on going in small steps?
Any opinions / experiences on this?

Assuming that you are still "white" at FT (less than 100 sales) then, yes, that is what you'll get.
At that status your commission is 33% and the maximum price allowed for ELs is 20 credits.
When your status moves up you will be allowed to set higher prices, with the next step to bronze (after 100 sales) you can set prices up to 50 credits and your commission rises to 35%.

But why are you surprised? Did the site state something else when you entered into the contract with them to license your material?

technically they don't buy and re-sell (as in buy once, re-sell often). My assumption how it works: It is more like a white-labelling solution. They show pictures from FT on their website (with no direct hint that this is FT) and when someone buys, they will forward that requrest to FT, where the sale is recorded as a sale from Pixmac. Their profit is the difference of their sale price and the price they pay at FT (if any) plus they will probably get those sales booked as referred sales from FT.

But I agree, it is somehow scary and I do not understand all the details yet...

Very simple. Because Fotolia is - as experienced in the past - not consistent in their business practice and their information about that.
If you look at the API section of the Fotolia website, you will find the mention of a Reseller-API, with a nice little picture as example how that works. And that picture shows the words "sell Royalty Free Images without any mention of Fotolia" - I quoted that above in this thread. That indicates, that Fotolia indeed wants to allow exactly the usage Pixmac is now doing. Strange thing now is, if you read the ToS for the API on the Fotolia website, this Reseller-API is not mentioned in there. And all other types of API do require the mentioning of Fotolia and the re-direction on the Fotolia webpage for sale of images - as you pointed out.
Conclusion? I am sure Fotolia has an agreement in place with Pixmac. And Fotolia obviously does not want to discuss this topic. And they don't want to publicly disclose their list of partners. For whatever reason...

One more thing: I read through the contract I have to accept when uploading an image. I am not a legal expert, but it looks as though this usage (Fotolia is giving a sub-license to Pixmac and allows them to sub-license the image in turn to end-users) is not covered by that contract.

What to make out of that? I don't know. First I'll wait for FT's response to my support ticket, though I do not expect that to clarify much...

I asked them for explanation using their contact form.
And I sent a ticket to FT support.
Let's wait for the answers...

You can opt out only for your exclusive pictures. Everything non-exclusive is available via subs, no choice.

Thanks for the response.
I've got several hundred files on my harddrive waiting to be uploaded. That's going to keep me busy for some time....

you can set your own price for exklusive pictures from bronze on. Every new level gives you one more credit to begin with, so with gold status you can start at 4 credits.

Correct translation would be (roughly):

"The future lies - beside photos - in stock video and stock audio, and the importance of stock photos will continually decline"