I believe that Fotolia keeps somewhere between 60 and 70% of each transaction. According to you Fred, I am supposed count myself lucky that they don't keep more. In the past few months Fotolia has devised two sneaky methods to retain more of  OUR earnings. The first was increasing the number of downloads to attain the various ratings and the other was an increase the price of OUR images but decrease the commissions. Now in this thread, people are posting their experience with earnings since the inception of the second claw back method. If Fotolia can't advertise with huge commission they already retain then maybe they should go under. However I think it is just a matter of greed.

Peter

And don't forget that they took away the referral program without letting us know so we would keep all of our FT banners on our websites.

Shutterstock is a subscription site.  Buyers drop in every single day to see what is new and download their 25 photos.    They don't care about the old content, because they saw it already when it was the new fresh photos.  There has been a small revival of old photos though, because in the recent past, SS introduced a pay per download option, and in this case, designers actually comb through their category.

Yes, RPD is creeping down for me over the last 6 months.  I can't believe the amount of subs I've been getting lately.  3-1 subs and then the regular sales mostly seem to be small or extra small!

.57 April (to Apr 8th)
.70 March
.75 Feb
.82 Jan
.80 Dec
.81 Nov
.86 Oct

DT is ultimitely a business that services CUSTOMERS, and we are suppliers.  Dreamstime must keep the customers satisfied and I agree with that.  I think they could offer even BETTER service to the customers by changing things a little, while still shortening the notice period to 2 or 3 months.  When notice is given that a portfolio is being pulled, an automated message could go out to all the lightbox holders who this would affect.  Might even give them a bump in sales.  6 months seems to be an awful long time for lightboxes though, maybe it has something to do with the agency investing in their own ad campaigns as well.  Other than that, I could see the 6 months rule in the beginning, when DT was a young struggling agency with contributors coming and going.  They have made so much progress though since I've been with them, I can't see why anyone would leave other than IS exclusivity.  

14 of my last 20 sales were subs.  What is with this subs explosion?  Is it just me?

I would be interested to know what your % of OD sales are.  My individual subs dls are down, but my earnings are climbing as a result of OD sales.  If I am not mistaken, others are doing better at SS these days as well?  It also seems that the OD buyers is bringing new life to old photos.

My OD sales in March made 11.43% of SS earnings.  Down a little bit from previous 2 months.

I also feel that there is a new kind of buyer at SS.  In the not-too-distant past they were a subscription only site, buyers would look at the fresh uploads every day and pick their quota.  Now I have a feeling that somewhere between 10-20% of their buyers (I should start a poll in April!) are On Demand buyers who want the BEST photo for their project, and do a more specific search.  Older photos seem to sell just a little bit better in the past few months.

I picked SA because I am also interested in taking some nature, wildlife shots.

Riddle:  Is Leaf going to SA because he is getting a fab new lens, or is Leaf getting a fab new lens because he is going to SA?

This was on the front page for quite a while.  Maybe you can't apply at DT anymore, but can use a card that you already have?  (Or do they work that way?)

February 3, 2009 (03:48) - posted by Tangie
Reminder for contributors: The no initial fee offer for Payoneer credit cards is set to expire on February 15th. Those interested in obtaining the official Dreamstime branded credit card from Payoneer, should access the Request payment page and apply now to get the card. More details can be read here.

Yeah, thanks for reminding me Vonkara, she seems to work in Firefox.  Still doesn't in ie though. Strange!

I think you need to change the numbers in your survey.  Unless they are exceptional photos, 100 will not see regular sales on BS, unless you think a half dozen sales each month are regular.  Someone, I think Larry, said that you need at least 1500 photos on BS to see decent results. 

EDIT:  I just checked my numbers and I make between 4 cent and 8 cents RPI at BS/month. 

My RPI this month (although the month is not done)
DT .25
SS .61
IS  .60   
BS .04  see the difference.

There's 2 package sizes, you get less from the larger package sizes.  Your commission will also go up when you reach the next level to 1.07 and 2.47.  (Is that still $500 in sales for the next level?)