No, of course I know you didn't start with 10,000.  My numbers are just fag packet calculations...... and would have been best divided by 2 to give an average of images over the period.

Hey - its been a long day.........

"Interestingly enough, the credits "value" is stated as only $130.  That calculates to a cost of 0.27/credit for the buyer, which is almost exactly the same as the cost of an image on SS ($199 for 750 images or 0.265/image)...."

That's a very astute observation Geopappas.  But remember that iStock will 'guarantee' a minimum value per credit of 96c for the photographers, so 96c x 20% = 19c minimum payment per credit.

If the overall pricing is similar to SS, the big differences are: IS charge more for higher rez images, and, photographers get paid based on the subscriber's maximum daily limit whether that limit is spent or not.

The REALLY big difference is the scheme whereby a single sale in a day can attract payment based on 100% of that day's allowance, generating the occasional very large commission payment for a single sale.

The fact that iStock is prepared to assume that 100% of each day's allowance is 'spent' must suggest that their research determines that the number of days when a subscriber makes no purchase at all must be very large, and confirms what Yuri has been saying that the payout ratio at SS is quite small.

The big impact of this new scheme will be felt at DT, StockXpert and 123, who will now be seen to be quite miserly (and in fact unacceptable) compared to iStock.

The microstock world just changed.

Reproducing US dollar bills is against the law in America - it is caught by the money laundering and conterfeiting laws.  This means that you can photograph or scan PART of a bill, but you cannot show the entire bill 'face on'.

Chode, under US law your photograph is illegal and that is why IS has rejected it.

I have posted a considered analysis on the iStock forum, which I'll reproduce here:

Okay, I've given some considerable thought to this subject and here is my analysis and prediction:


First, lets focus on two quotes from earlier, which are: "percentage of daily credits" and "trust me - you are not going to want to opt out". Also, I think Slobo might be the nearest.


Scenario: a buyer takes out a subscription with gives him/her the ability to download images up to 10 credits each day.


First day, the customer buys images worth 10 credits. No problem - the contributors get paid in the normal way (although the credits have been bought at a discount of course).


Second day, the customer downloads only 5 credits worth. On this day the contributors get paid AS IF 10 CREDITS HAVE BEEN SPENT, in other words they split between them the entire 10 credit daily value as a percentage, or in other words they get paid at double the rate


Third day, the customer only buys one XS image. That lucky photographer gets paid AS IF 10 CREDITS have been spent.


Under this scheme contributors always get paid based on the full subscription payment for every day that a customer actually makes a purchase. Very fair (except of coutse those credits have been bought at deep discount).


This scenario explains the 'trust me - you are not going to want to opt out" remark, and also explains the 'percentage'.


However, a percent of zero is always zero. So on any day where the customer fails to make a purchase, the entire subscription for that day is retained by iStock as profit. Istock can rightly claim that by doing so it has disadvantaged nobody because the customer didn't and wouldn't have bought anything.


So where is the advantage to iStock? Of course it lies in the number of days that a subscriber doesn't make a purchase. And there are a lot of them: public holidays, personal holidays, days sick, corporate entertainment days, days spent at a conference or in a strategy meeting or a Board meeting, extended 'holiday' either side of Christmas and Thanksgiving etc etc. There are probably somewhere between 30 and 50 days which will be pure 'profit' to iStock. But once again no contributor is being disadvantaged because the customer wouldn't ordinarily have bought anything on those days.


These 'spare' days represent 10% to 15% of a subscription year, hence that percentage retained by iStock, and why iStock can be fair to contributors in distributing 100% of the subscription payment for each 'purchase' day.


Is this good or bad for contributors (if I am correct)? The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but my initial conclusion is that contributors need to hope and pray that there are many, many days when our theoretical 10 credit subscriber only spends 5 credits.


This is all IMO of course.

The story about 'there are customers out there who will only buy subscriptions' is complete and utter twaddle - we have already seen the same story from Dreamstime and StockXpert, and in both cases that story was a smoke screen for 'we want to screw contributors and make more profit for ourselves'.

I doubt that this applies to iStock, but no doubt we will find out in due course.

The last official numbers I saw (a few months ago) were that only 28% of photographers are exclusive and 38% of content.

I imagine those percentages are a little higher now; perhaps 40/42% of content is now exclusive.

It appears (rough calculations) that the exclusive 40% content generates approximately 63% of contributor commission.

I've used three models found on ModelMayhem here in Australia, but rejected many more for stock work.

Here's an important tip (for stock photography): pay particular attention to those models who say they will NOT do nude under any circumstances.

I am always sincere and always truthful fotokmyst.  And sometimes I am blunt when the occasion demands.

Stock is a different world; it needs a different mindset and a different approach to 'business'.

One of the most difficult things to grasp is the concept of 'income' and 'asset'.  In a normal job people work for a week and get paid for a week.  Nice and simple.  In stock the week's work generates a portfolio of pictures which become an income producing 'asset'; those pictures might sell and sell over a period of three, five or even ten years.  In terms of 'asset value' the week's work is worthwhile, but in terms of 'income' (by which I mean immediate cashflow) the result is of course uncertain.

Over time and as the 'assets' grow, income becomes almost self fulfilling, but to get to that stage is a difficult road that requires hard work and commitment.  And each photographer will hit that target over a different time span depending on portfolio style and image production.

For a professional, entering the stock market (pun intended) should be after careful consideration and a detailed business plan.

Like the stock market, stock photography is about building a portfolio of assets that pay dividends over the longer term - if managed competently the dividends should grow into a sustainable income.

Getty: iStockphoto Sales Could Total $262M In 2012


March 28, 2008

By Daryl Lang

Getty Images projects that its iStockphoto division will more than double in size by 2012, reaching $262 million in annual sales.

At the same time, traditional royalty-free and rights-managed stock licensing is expected to shrink by a quarter, down from more than half of Getty's revenues to just 29 percent in 2012.

Getty made these projections public in a raft of documents filed Thursday as part of its agreement to be sold to a private equity firm. Getty Images management has trumpeted the growth of iStockphoto before, but has never provided specific financial data until now.

IStockphoto, the low-priced stock imagery site that sells royalty-free image licenses for a few dollars each, has already shown tremendous growth. It earned $22 million in 2006 and $72 million in 2007, according to figures in a document dated February 7.

A November 2007 report projected that iStockphoto will earn $122 million this year and $262 in 2012.

These figures represent a sea change for stock photography.

If counted separately from Getty Images, iStockphoto would probably be the world's third-largest stock agency this year. (The top two agencies, Getty and Corbis, each generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues. Jupiterimages, generally regarded as third place, reported $108 in annual revenues for 2007.)

Getty acquired iStock in February 2006 for $50 million.

The projections for 2008 and 2012 were part of a November 28, 2007 report prepared by Goldman Sachs using data from Getty management. Here are the detailed numbers from the report:

2008 Estimated Revenue

Creative stills: $461 million (51% of total revenue)
Editorial: $180 million (20%)
iStock: $122 million (14%)
Other: $77 million (9%)
Footage and multimedia: $47 million (5%)
B2B music: $14 million (2%)

2012 Estimated Revenue

Creative stills: $348 million (29%)
Editorial: $289 million (24%)
iStock: $262 million (22%)
Other: $159 million (13%)
Footage and multimedia: $83 million (7%)
B2B music: $46 million (4%)

When I first started contributing to SS a year ago I'm sure they had 50,000 photographers and added usually 20,000 or perhaps 30,000 new images each week.

Today's numbers shown on the site give 95,000 photographers, but more astonishingly 57,000 new images added this week.

That is a helluvva lot of photographers and a helluvva lot of new images.

A number of peeps here have commented that making progress at SS seems to be becoming 'more difficult'.  No wonder when there are so many images competing to be bought each week.

How long can this continue?  And are they adding new customers at the same pace?  Food for thought......

Congrats.  Keep shootin' and uploadin'.

Same problem for me.  They had a system upgrade today so presumably there are a few teething problems.

Buyers are reporting difficulty with downloads.