thanks i see a lot of people making harsh sarcastic jokes about istock is it bad then? already quite angry about ss already in process of slowly removing my stuff, i started in 2015 with pond5 still with them, 123rf pretty bad for me as well adobe so so

pretty much whatever SS did to rip you off, Istock/Getty did 5 years ago and more - 15% to artist - check, sales lower than a penny - check, not reporting sales for up to 2 months, opaque reporting system....

Others have probably said it better - but we are basically where we were with Istock a few years back - are you going to put up with the BS they put you through to get 15% of whatever schemes and scams they come up with to wring as much $ out of a once pretty nice opportunity for everyone or are you going to decide that your peace of mind is worth it to remove your content?

I certainly am not a big enough fish that they care about my specific content even though it probably made them 6 figures over the years. They aren't going to give me any special deal and if they decide to improve the deal for artists it won't be because of something I do or do not do.

I can say they won't screw me any worse going forward. I don't have to worry about getting 10 cent video sales or a total January RPD of 10c. I won't be racing to follow a moving target RC scheme to prop up some egotistical man-child's bonus.

Sadly I also probably won't be doing a whole lot of microstock production anymore since SS was one of the last pillars barely keeping it worth my while. It was a good run. I wish I had put a little more work in during the early days when it really made a difference. Oh well, it was a good run.

I am very fortunate that I have no dependents and have paid off my debts and learned to live off of shockingly little in a place where many people struggle to make ends meet. (California)

Do I wish SS would pull its head out of its backside and actually motivate artists to produce quality work - hell yes, do I expect it to happen - not at all. Same with Istock/Getty, 123RF, and so on.

I pretty much said none of it mattered at the current rate they pay contributors. Fix that and then they would need to fix all sorts of other things but none of that matters at the moment.

It will be interesting to see if/when they actually double our earnings, or how they weasel out of it.

Another question, does anyone know how to tell how many images you have for sale there now? I used to be able to see this by clicking on an image and then my contributor name, but that doesn't seem to work anymore.

I have always thought that if the sites want to lower prices to be kind or to steal market share or as a jubilee bonus or because it is their birthday or any other reason that is fine, but they need to still pay us our full normal sale amount. Of course they don't seem to see things that way. I guess it is "nice" that if Getty sells at 10$ instead of 100$ I only lose $13.50 and they lose $76.50.

Don't even get me started on the "our customers have been asking for more free images" or all of the premium content to be in the all you can eat super discount section or whatever. I wonder if they raise prices they tell the buyers "our producers have been clamoring for higher payment".

I have had more SOD sales at SS - most are still below $1 or at least below the normal OD amount, but I did get my first one over $10 in I think over a year this month. Sadly now that makes a difference in the monthly total. Without those SOD sales this would be a truly horrible month - like I made more with double digit # of images. The total number of sales is very low.

Based on the sales so far this month they must be going great guns with their new program or it will be hard to double my income.

Mostly what others have said above - supply vastly outstripping demand plus agencies either openly or somewhat shadily working to get a larger cut or funnel the sales to other things - eg offset at SS.

For me SS is well under half what it was, both in total downloads and especially in $. Almost no big sales at all (I think maybe 1 over $10 in the last year), and a lower percent of anything other than subs.

Adobe seems to have dropped more than SS recently, but my numbers are not enough to be particularly statistically valid.

in general I think the long slide to less income will continue - with a bigger dip from the pandemic coming. Hopefully the somewhat worldwide nature of this business dulls that hit.

I haven't added up my totals, but I suspect they will be rather sad, especially at Adobe. It is pretty amazing how much the bigger sales make or break a month (and how long since I've had any at SS).

Good work getting in early on some of the coronavirus images. I definitely failed at that.

In the last 2 days I have had a One-Design sale listed as A$1.00 with .25 royalty and 2 sales listed as R$5.00 with .48 royalty listed , I was wondering if anyone has heard what is up with this or had similar.

or upload a "boycott zazzle" bumpersticker or magnet or something enough to keep from incurring the fee.

pretty lame though.

DT was my first agency and I think that as soon as an image passed QC you were in. I think I was hovering around 50% acceptance for the first few months or more. I had some pretty good images, but I also had some really really poor ones and it definitely took me more time to make an image acceptable. It didn't help that I was using a not quite 4 mp point and shoot. RPI that hit $1 per image per month really helped the motivation though.


There are a few things I have images of that I wish I could re-shoot with the gear I have now.

Quote from: eyewave on January 27, 2020, 08:19

Contacted them twice already, no reaction yet 

Sometimes I get the impression that they simply refuse to answer questions on sensitive subjects (for them).
Several times I asked them why, if my commission was 35%, I was only getting $0.35 for images that sold for $1.39.
I never received an answer to that question.

I also asked them if it was normal that the same image was sold 5 or 10 times in a row for $0.35... so apparently to the same person. It seems to me that it's against their rules...
I never received an answer to that question.

Overall I have quite good sales on this site, but I find it lacks clarity and transparency.

Not that I know for sure, and I certainly am not condoning sites not answering questions or having useful FAQ pages, but my understanding was that the sales listed at 1.39 or whatever were in some other currency the equivalent of $1 US - hence the .35 for us. Also multiple sales to the same person were one of the advantages of Canva originally - sure, we only got .35 but if you wanted to make a flyer and an e-mail and a poster, you would have to purchase the image for each one. It still happens, but it seems a lot less than it used to.

Quote from: pancaketom on February 09, 2020, 20:45

I got one from Fotolia LLC in the mail (I'm in California, USA)

When did you get receive it? I'm also in California.

I'm not positive, I've just been throwing them in the tax envelope, but I think it was in the last week or so.