I had the same problem. I send them a message and a manual payment was made to me within 24h. Received my money in my PayPal account today.

Pond5 is falling apart. Also did not receive payment on the 15th of the month as is usually the case.

Payments are automated. From the FAQ:
My account has surpassed the minimum payout limit. How do I request for payment?
No request is necessary. All payments are made on or after the 15th following the month that Your Minimum Payout Threshold is reached. Payments are generally made by the 3rd week of the month.
I exceeded the minimum payout threshold last month and still no payment received this month.

Yet another agency with zero transparency. They use to be a good earner for me. Individual sales all but disappeared and there is no clear explanation of how applies and exports relates to earnings. My applies / exports continue to increase over time to an all-time high, yet my monthly earnings continue to decline month after month to such a point that it is not worth my effort to upload anymore. My only conclusion is that they use this lack of transparency to tweak the (secret) formula in such a way that they keep more of the money, while expecting us to simply accept whatever small earnings they report monthly without complaint.   

I also questioned them about this. Here is the answer:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us. Apologies for the delayed response.

As of 18th February 2025, a new PLUS pricing package is made available for clients which covers all media in 123RF.

This new pricing package also adjusted the contents of all media into PLUS package. All contents in 123RF is now categorized as PREMIUM & PLUS, regardless of previous selection.

For your reference, "PLUS" license is a budget friendly digital use only subscription offered to our clients as a part of our nurture process; with the ultimate goal of purchasing one of the download packs or subscriptions from the paid section of the site. The calculation for PLUS download earnings using this formula: Your earnings = 50% of Nett Revenue ➗ TOTAL PLUS downloads ✖ Number of PLUS downloads of YOUR content

Hope this clarifies.

Have a nice day.

Theresa
Contributor Support Executive

This was done without any notification. A new low in the microstock industry. Time to quit 123RF.

I am lucky that only twelve of my images removed thus far (portfolio of 7400 images). I was, however, annoyed that one of the removed images was one of my all-time bestsellers. I searched for this image on the main Adobe page and find it still online, but not under my name.

It was stolen by "Designpics" and here is the image:

https://stock.adobe.com/za/images/greyhounds-at-full-speed-during-a-race/609179796

I looked through this portfolio of 100 pages and find many more of my images. Obviously a portfolio of stolen images. Those of you searching for removed images and find them still online, make sure they are under your name and not stolen.

This is very similar to Envato Elements with unlimited downloads for a low monthly subscription. In the case of Envato, Elements has basically killed the normal marketplace. I predict that on SS the unlimited downloads subscriptions will eventually replace the normal market and if you are not opted in you will see very few sales on SS in future.

This looks like a desperate move of SS. Not surprising and is probably the final phase of the microstock industry in the race to the bottom.  I am sure others will follow this trend of unlimited downloads very soon in order to retain market share.  Very sad.   

Quote from: JustAnImage on February 09, 2025, 07:23
However, I'm not sure what will happen on the Yayimages side afterwards. I had an account there that generated between 10 and 50 sales every month until September 2023 (always for exactly $0.25 per sale), but since September I haven't had a single reported sale there.

Exactly my experience. Very suspicious. That is the reason a deleted all my images after 5 months of no sales. Yayimages cannot be trusted.

My prediction with this transfer from Panthermedia is that it will take a long time to transfer the images and may never arrive. Secondly, even if your images arrive at Yayimages I predict you will not see another sale again.  I my case my 56 euro at Panthermedia was transferred to Yay where it now shows 56 US dollar (ignoring the difference in the exchange rate between euro and US dollar) and I cannot request a payment because the minimum for payment is $60.  Pantermedia was a reasonable earner for me and this change is really a very disappointing move from them.

Stay away from Freepik. I tried them with a small portfolio. Average earning per download €0.017. I am glad I deleted all my images from EyeEm. Will definitely not allow my images to be transferred to FreePic.

$5.75/month for unlimited download. Guess what will be our earnings.

Quote from: FHphotography on September 10, 2022, 08:37
I seem to have problem with uploading photos to 123RF about 5-6 days. No photos appear on dashboard and no sales in a week. That has not happened for a long time. Has anyone have same problem?

Also no new sales in more than a week, which never happened. This is until I clicked on "Earnings this month" and see there is now a new monthly/daily earnings page. I did indeed have sales the last week, but they are not reflected on the old Dashboard Overview. There is a new column "Download packs", but no indication of where the Plus sales will be reported. Not sure what that is? More concerning, I know I was very close to payout (something like $46), but now my earning summary reported only $23.06. This site is so broken.   

Thank you for the update. This then clarifies the problem, but why no notification to contributors?  Just another demonstration how little they care.

Quote from: wollwerth on May 28, 2020, 23:10
Having said that, I have a higher return per image with elements than with any other stock site. Can't complain about that aspect anyway.

What changed? When I left Elements my RPD without the bonus was $0.03 and after the bonus $0.11 - selling images only, no other media type.  This was month after month.

And of course, it does not matter that this "double your income" comes at the cost of buyers stockpiling hundreds of your images. But then, since they don't display the download numbers that problem is also solved. If we cannot see those high download numbers they do not exist, right? 

My, my ..... The plot thickens. Did you notice that they have now removed the number of subscription sales from the earnings page? I guess they want to hide the true numbers about what contributors really earn per subscription download - an RPD of less than $0.05. My guess is they got a lot of angry messages.   

It is clear they closely observed their fellow Australian agency, Envato, and their Envato Elements - the most damaging enterprise for stock photographers. With the introduction of a similar concept, Canva knew what was coming and they, therefore, offer the carrot of double your earnings (which I do not see yet) for 6 months on condition THAT YOU DO NOT REMOVE ANY ASSETS. That is the key because they know contributors will start removing their assets once they see that their assets are virtually given away for free.

I left Envato Elements and will likely leave Canva if this is the future trend. My prediction is that normal sales on Canva will completely disappear and be replaced by these Photos Unlimited subscription sales. This is exactly what happened with Envato PhotoDune. No more uploads in the meantime to Canva until there is more clarity on what will be the norm.  I will definitely not give away my images for $0.05. 

The only advice I can give you is stay away from Envato Elements if you value your work. I was part of Elements, but withdrawn my images when my images were effectively given away for free after they changed their bonus payments. Withdrawal from Elements was not easy. It took more than four months and many e-mail messages before my images were finally removed.

This was inevitable, unfortunately. With the likes of iStock Premium Access, Envato Elements and Storyblocks gaining traction and their collections growing, other companies must respond or risk losing their share of the pie. For as long as there are contributors that are willing to feed these companies (and these will always be) this process will continue and other companies will eventually follow (such as Pond5's HyperStock). This, it seems, is the natural process of evolution in the stock video industry driven by the massive growth in supply that far outpace the demand. In the end, we have nobody but ourselves to blame for this process.     

Today I discovered that contributor MHSKYPIXEL is selling a large number of my wildlife images under his name on Envato (PhotoDune & Elements) and also Pond5.

https://elements.envato.com/user/MHSKYPIXEL
https://www.pond5.com/artist/mhskypixel

I suspect there are a lot more stolen images in his portfolio. Better check to see if there are any of yours. Still investigation if he is also selling stolen images on other agencies.

The problem with Elements is not the 50% share of earnings. The problem is the unlimited downloads, which in my case resulted in almost half of my 'sales" earning me nothing, while the rest only earned me between $0.01 and $0.20.  Now last time I check 50% of zero is still zero.  Now, if there was a cap on downloads, resulting in an acceptable earnings per download I would not have a problem with the 50% share of earnings. 

I believe those contributors doing well on Elements by receiving the majority of the bonus payments are not photographers. They are selling other media types. I do not see any future for photographers on Elements where a subscriber for $16 can potentially download your whole portfolio in one month. Sites like Elements are the real danger to the stock photography industry and I strongly encourage photographers not to support them.
 
If you request withdrawal from Elements, be very careful of their games. I requested my withdrawal from Elements middle September.  I received confirmation that all my images will be removed by 31 October (why not 30 September?). They then proceed to immediately block my access to my Elements author page to prevent me from seeing my daily sales stats.  Come 31 October and my images are still available on Elements and they ignore my e-mail messages. By middle November out of desperation I proceeded to delete all my images manually to protect them from further exploitation. After several more messages, my one image left was removed from Elements on 28 November and my PhotoDune page also closed (almost a month later than agreed). They say they will pay me the outstanding amount, but since they blocked my access to my author page I have no idea how much is owned to me.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on October 28, 2019, 19:15

If you're making $10 to $20 in bonuses then that means you were making $15 to $30 in sales...so you didn't find it a bit out of the ordinary that you were making $300 a month in bonuses?

And for photographers, those "sales" on elements are often zero. Zero commission on zero sales, yet hundreds of images downloaded every month.  This is the danger of sites like Elements where there is no cap or limit on the downloads. Yet, there are always those non-photographers defending Elements who will suggest that you are at fault for not being able to make enough sales to earn a decent bonus. During the previous month, 48% of my sales earned me $0.00, with the rest only between $0.01 and $0.20. I just quit elements this month and I hope other photographers will do the same. Sites like Elements are the real danger to the stock industry and should not be supported.   

Quote from: Deyan Georgiev on October 25, 2019, 03:49

Quote from: Eco on October 25, 2019, 02:38

Quote from: WendyT on October 20, 2019, 01:10
As for balancing the income ... they added the subs to the monthly tally but that has not been added to the final tally. If you go back several months you will see all the subs that have not been added into your payment total.

I have had tickets in since the 9th and the only response has been an autoresponder. I then asked on FB whether they actually looked at tickets and they assure me they do. They said they would escalate it, so far still no response and the figures are still inaccurate.

Same problem here. Sub earnings not added to my payment total. No response to my ticket to them.

If you mind the October subs earnings, they will appear after the month finish.

The problem is not October. My sub sales of previous months since May when they were first reported were never added to my total. That is 5 months (May-Sept) that were never added to my "Unpaid revenue", nor my "All time revenue". You better check yours.

Quote from: WendyT on October 20, 2019, 01:10
As for balancing the income ... they added the subs to the monthly tally but that has not been added to the final tally. If you go back several months you will see all the subs that have not been added into your payment total.

I have had tickets in since the 9th and the only response has been an autoresponder. I then asked on FB whether they actually looked at tickets and they assure me they do. They said they would escalate it, so far still no response and the figures are still inaccurate.

Same problem here. Sub earnings not added to my payment total. No response to my ticket to them.

When I click on "Payments" I still only see my earnings from my normal sales. The subscription sales are not reflected under "unpaid earnings", nor under "all time earnings". How are we being paid for these subscription earnings? Are they separate from the normal sales?

Also, I am really not impressed with the low RPD of the subscription sales. Very disappointing. Competition with IS to see how low an agency can go. I bet if we accept this devaluation of our images it will not be long before the other agencies follow.

Just a quick question to those that already created a separate exclusive account, while retaining your current portfolio as non-exclusive. How did you go about doing that?  In the e-mail they send I only see the option of going fully exclusive. Do you have to e-mail them requesting a separate account or do you have register as if you are a new contributor? Another question - will payments of the two accounts be totally separate or will earnings be combined between the two?

Thank you