First we had the renegade admin, then the RIDICULOUS long queue (now averaging more than two weeks) only exceeded by CanStock, now we have idea thrown around of subscription model paying out 20 cents...

To top it off sales are SLACK. Totally slack. I have the largest portfolio on BigStock and now sell more on 123RF (with a third size portfolio), 5 times more on Fotolia (with half size portfolio), 10 times more on Shutterstock (with equal size portfolio), iStock (with half size portfolio) and Dreamstime (with 2/3 size portfolio).

Into the Abyss with BigStock

I think after a couple of years the strata are clarifying:

1st division: iStock, Dreamstime, Shutterstock
2nd division: Fotolia (with a possibility of an upgrade), StockXpert
3rd division: 123RF, CanStock (with a possibility of a downgrade), BigStock (under review for a downgrade)
the rest...

I've been waiting for a Fotolia payment forever now. Problem with Fotolia is they're putting all of their resources into expanding their db (first to a million race), at the expense of 1) customer service, 2) quality of photos accepted and most importantly 3) marketing.

I've done some statistics as a job and would like to bring up a concept/equation:

Variables:

PortfolioShare = Your portfolio as a share of the total number of photos in the agency
AgencyGrowth = How quickly agency is adding photos
PortfolioGrowth = How quickly you are adding photos
AgencySales = Total photos sold by agency
YourSales = Total photos sold by you

Assuming:
1) proportionality (that all photos sell equally well, which is NOT true on a case by case basis, but probably true within 2 standard deviations for a large portfolio: say 500+ photos) then

If PortfolioGrowth = AgencyGrowth then you keep the same PortfolioShare.

Fotolia's been growing very fast 5-10% a month for the last 3 months. So has my portfolio. My share has kept constant (as does my ranking: currently in the top 400). My sales in the 3 months increased by lousy 5%! Because my ranking did not drop (neither total, nor weekly, although weekly varies wildly from top 100 to top 1000 depending on sales), it is clear that despite huge growth in number of photos offered, Fotolia is just not selling more. The only reason why my sales are keeping up is because I upload a lot and keep my portfolio share up.

This points to only one thing: lack of good marketing. All the resources are being diverted elsewhere, approvals and God knows what else, but not marketing. In the same span my portfolio grew by the same 50% on Dreamstime: sales doubled.

Moral of this mathematical diatribe: Fotolia better get into shape or it will fall into oblivion along with GimmeStock, Crestock and recently BigStock

"Don�t worry about this status. You can download images immediately after purchase."

I like Fotolia for their growth and primarily for their forum bouncing admin, Chad. But honestly their customer service is THE WORST of all the microstocks. I'm in the same boat. I submitted for payment a week ago, still not gone through. Customer service doesn't answer. Last time it took 8 days and an e-mail.

I'll keep completely anonymous 

WAS from Seattle

Honestly, there are hundreds of stock sites there. None but a handful are worth anything. I've been duped to upload into couple of them and for revenue of 0 to 10 dollars a year it's not worth the effort.

Crestock - with for months, small portfolio NO SALES
Gimmestock - with for months, big portfolio NO SALES
TotallyPhotos - with for months, small portfolio NO SALES
StockPhotoMedia - just trying out, no sales yet

They ignore FTP requests because they got their heads stuck so deep inside their arse the don't see the light anymore.

But yeah... they'll be dethroned soon. Dreamstime coming on strong and their traffic is growing the fastests

No. Rejections YES, but with sales.

Actually, and this is the case for all sites. It's all reviewer dependent. I know this is probably against the rules in all the sites, but I DO resubmit the rejected photos at least once with minor if any changes. Case in point:

Shutterstock submission earlier this year: 28 of 48 accepted. I was shocked. Most given reason: LENS FLARE and this was all on outdoor shots! Obviously the reviewer didn't know much about photography. Resubmitted all 20 couple weeks later with NO changes. 17 of 20 accepted.  The 3 rejections: DIGITAL NOISE. Shrunk them by 50% (originals were 12MP) so now they're 6MP, resumbitted: all 3 accepted.

This is the case with all the sites. Shutterstock seems to be absolutely the craziest. Istock seems pretty reasonable with the rejections.

Anybody else feel the pain as I do, no sales, but rejections?

I'm so glad I found you guys 

I obviously wish that every site got millions of sales (well... every site I'm on), just between the choices I obviously support the ones that treat us (the photogs, illustrators) with A) respect and B) reward us financially. Obviously there are sites that do that: I don't want to push my favourites here but Dreamstime comes to mind first. They pay well (with their credit discounts I recon we get something like 60-70% of the revenue), their rejections are usually informative (not always, but better than "we don't need that image" or Fotolia's famous rejection that covers "purple fringing OR not in focus OR too dark/bright OR bad composition OR too many in db").

Besides the obvious fact that iStock pays the louziest and makes a killing off of us, what I hate MOST is their arsehole attitude of "we are boss: it is thanks to us that you make money". I've actually had a "conversation" by mail with one of the admins that basically suggested that we should be happy that they're allowing us to submit photos there. I don't want to rant, but who . do these guys think they are? WE are the ones who pay their wages. WE are the ones that made that  50 million dollars sale to Getty possible. Without photographers and illustrators there is an empty space filled with their staff's work. And I've seen Bitter's portfolio: it's banal utmost shite, possibly with the exception of pictures in which Transferred is modeling (she's a juicy minx, isn't she?).

Okay, anyways, iStock rant off my chest. First and last.

Well... I'd start worrying about it once they had a couple thousand sales. So far on 61 five quid sales, they would have accumulated less then 200 quid to donate between three charities. They probably wouldn't have made any donations yet.

Is this site audited by any other organization?  In other words, how do you know that your money is actually getting to the charities that it is advertising?

Heh... Not quite. Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana. From my area.

Thank you!     I like yours too.  Is that you?   

I was a bit worried about getting the 500W ones and purchased three table top 150W halogens. Hmm... mistake. They provide nowhere near enough light for macro / light-tent photography. Now I've purchased a studio flash bulb and a white diffuser umbrella and do my macros with it. Much better. In fact I ditched the light tent all together now, it's just a pain in the arse. I simply roll out a seamless white paper and shoot objects with two halogens lighting it at 45% angles (diffused), the umbrella above at a 90% angle and a buit-in flash at a 45% angle setting it off. I get pretty good light coverage with that with minimal photoshop work required.

Well George... I'll be honest here: I don't trust it. In your homepage banners you pass off images from best selling Fotolia photographers that aren't ANYWHERE on your site. In fact I have doubts whether or not these images have been purchased at all, as they are exactly the same size as thumbs on Fotolia's start page.