This month for the first time we have moved up a royalty level on two sites (123 and FT). The difference in sales is usually only pennies but it really is nice to see some hope for potential income growth as the port and sales grow. Hopefully a new level on Shutterstock is just around the corner!

Congratulations. It's really nice when it happens. I'm closing in on the highest level on Shutterstock. The levels on all other places are out of reach for the time being, so it might be my last "pay raise". 

"iStock started as a file sharing site and found a need in the market for cheap, user-generated content and kind of exploded from there. So we as a business at Getty Images have the premium imagery on Getty and iStock is the crowd, it�s the community."

Ummm... sorry but the community has left in 2010.

Is there any other product or service that people so willingly give their work away?

Yes, basically in all creative areas: Musicians pay to go on stage at some events. Authors are paying to get their books printed. It has been like this for decades. Why should photography be different?

I guess if I want any chance of making some money I need to step up to the plate. I really need to get into this new filtered look business, because it seems that is hot right now.
...
The times of shooting what I like is over.  I dont have time to be a pro stock shooter. I shoot on my travels, editorial and landscapes, but that kind of stuff is present over-abundant.

Here's a hint: Filter all you want, average images in oversupplied sectors will not be accepted to any of the premium agencies. Then again, really interesting images will be accepted without any fancy filters applied.

Just sharing my own experiences I've made over the last two years when - while having been accepted at most places - I still struggle to come up with enough volume for them. Trying to perfection the way I take images however works much better for me than trying to perfection using Lightroom Presets.

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.

That is only because what you get to see at first is the single credit sales. It's like comparing IS with only ODD & SOD sales on Shutterstock. Subscription and partner sales are added only a month later, so you have to add those to your numbers to make an honest comparison. And the volume for PP & Subs sales on iStock is much bigger than credit sales and still growing.

For me, the average revenue per download on IS in 2014 was $0,54 compared to an average RPD of $0,73 on Shutterstock. Fotolia, Dreamstime and CanStock have RPDs around $1 as they are selling less subscriptions but they all lack the volume of the big 2.

For exclusive contributors at iStock, the average RPD is quite a bit higher as they get more for subscription sales and the add on of GI sales. At the 40% rate, IS contributors are getting RPDs of about $4-5 these days.

Problem is: The RC system determining your percentage level was set up at a time with higher sales volume and most sales were counting against it. Today most sales (subs, GI, PP) don't count against the RC levels, so it is very unlikely to even reach the 30% when you start submitting now. So you'll most likely be stuck at the 25% level which will translate to an RPD of about $2,50 as a newbie iStock exclusive - maybe even lower if you don't manage to get many images into the S+ collection and transferred to Getty. All that with sales volumes that are probably less than half of what Shutterstock sells.

While I know a lot of old time iStock exclusive who are still making decent money from their sales (due to the fact that they are being kept at their higher percentage levels), I don't see why any new starter would want to go exclusive with iStock these days.

(and I forgot to mention that iStock pays you a month later for most of your sales than SS does; and they keep changing the rules every six months)

hint : another way to sneak in is to join an agency that is distributed by Getty.

by the way, if we talk about sales i'm hearing better things about Corbis recently.

Exactly. I have a Getty account from back then when Getty-Flickr was still running. But I don't submit new images. I rather get a smaller share from the Getty sales (as I have to split it with my distributor) but have the same images sell through Corbis, Offset and 120 other agencies. In my sales reports, Getty sales are mostly in the $1 - $5 range with very few exceptions while I get decent royalties from agencies I never heard about. Corbis is doing pretty well for my small portfolio.

Hi, all!

I'm planning to re-apply (yes, I was already rejected once) to Stocksy in June. I'd appreciate any feedback on my set so far. Also, they only asked for 25 images last time, but will I be better off showing more?

While it probably isn't a requirement at the application stage, I believe it might be an advantage if you already show that you have a basic understanding of royalty free stock imagery - which in my opinion means, you should skip most of the black and white shots (color by far outsells b/w) and remove images with potential copyright issues like the one with the GAP jacket.

Also, yes, more variety in topic would certainly be better. Basically from those images you showed I'd only need to see 2 or 3 images to find out what you do. All the rest are content wise far too similar.

Finally, do some research on Stocksy and find out what content areas are not yet filled with thousands of images that you could fill. Everyone shoots their own kids.

(Note that I'm not involved in anything content related on Stocksy, so I'm just stating personal opinions)

Five years ago on April Fools / Good Friday I was cut from my job. Even when stock drives me crazy I am blessed to have had so much time with my family! Here is to another five years 

Congratulations and continued success. 

80? EIGHTY?  It's like picking who will win the world series of baseball and including all 30 of the teams. Then saying afterwards, we had it right...

Maybe you look at it different than I do. But I don't see anyone trying to claim something would be "right" or "wrong" at the end. It's about sharing observations from different perspectives.

I see a list of 16 agencies, each predicting which images their customers are likely to use in the near future. I don't submit to all of these agencies, so I'm mostly interested in what five of those places have to say. And most likely that is the result for everyone reading it, except that we all pick different three or five places that we are most interested in.

Also I find it interesting to compare to last year's list. It seems some trends are trickling down from the "more trendy" agencies to the "mainstream agencies" with a year or two delay. So there is some kind of sorting within the list by itself. It might change my ideas about what to upload where over time.

Exclusive on one site, no-exclusive on every stock site which is more lucrative?

By the way, I uploaded tens of photos to DT, but it's long time review is a big problem.
I uploaded some to FT for a long time, but it's seems no one visited them, on the contrary, photos on DT get visited everyday considerably.
Do you guys use the both at the same time?

#1 From my personal experience (six years exclusive with iStock, now two years non-exclusive), today non-exclusivity is more lucrative in microstock. It might only be different if you have high-value portfolio (lifestyle, business) which is also mirrored from iStock to Getty. However, with high-value images you could also sell through midstock or macrostock.

#2 If you think any review time is a "big problem", microstock isn't the right thing for you. It takes years to build portfolios and a standing in the market.  It doesn't make a difference if your images go online tomorrow or in two weeks or three months.

#3 Every agency counts "views" different but they are somewhat irrelevant. If you're interested in getting views, likes and +1s you should upload to Facebook, Google+, Flickr and 500px etc. Don't believe that views have any meaning in microstock.

    You�ve worked 66 hours that month and 16.5 hours per week
    You�ve earned $4 $1.60 for the month and $1 .40 cents for the week (.25 .10 cents per accepted photo per month)
    Based on a 40 hour work week, you�ve earned .02 .01 cents US per hour for your efforts[/color]

It should be obvious that images won't stop selling after one week. So to figure out how much "you've earned per hour of your effort" you also need to calculate how long/often they are going to sell at those rates. If you assume they are consistently selling for 3 years , you would have made 36 times the $1.60 = totalling $ 57.60. Or roughly $0.90 per hour if your 66 hours effort is correct. It's only that you don't get the whole 90 cents paid out at once but over the course of the next three years. You don't need to make the numbers look even worse.

Besides that all those numbers seem odd to me: A beginner will never ever shoot 2,000 images in two days; then again, a beginner will not be able to figure out which of their images are usable or not, selecting only 4% of them (after focusing issues etc. you mention) seems rather low.

I'd guess the beginner will more likely shoot 4 hours within those 2 days, taking maybe 300 images and selecting about 50. Then spend about five minutes per image in post processing (if he would know enough to spend more time, his acceptance rate would likely be much higher). Then he gets maybe those 20% (on many agencies more likely 80% these days) accepted. Ten images online with about 8-10 hours of work. Brings up the hourly rate to $3.60. Now that's attractive. At least it still is attractive if you live in Belize or Cambodia as I read from Shutterstock's recent report. 

I know I've only been non-exclusive for just over a month, but I know what's commercial and attractive, and I know what sells.  At other agencies I'm making good progress - at FT I've already reached bronze and I'm selling 20 or more files per day.  Great.  At Shutterstock those same files get uploaded and just disappear without even a single download.

While I agree with your overall statement, you might underestimate the element of randomness... My best selling image at Shutterstock has made over 1,000 downloads but rarely any on Fotolia. My best selling images on Fotolia are rarely being downloaded on Shutterstock. And my long time best sellers on iStock never made any big numbers anywhere else.

Also, I believe Shutterstock is more of a long term project with the benefit of staying stable in the long run, images need some time to get established in the searches and then keep selling consistently. Fotolia has far more focus on new files but they might disappear from searches in a few months or a year. At least that's what I believe without being able to prove that with hard facts.