Sales here are pretty good - got a link to your port microstockphoto?

The only two I can think of are Canva and Picfair - are there any other established ones?

I want to move forward with productive ideas on how to monetize our images effectively.

There are lots of minor things that can be improved upon that will affect the bottom line in a minor way - SS need not act upon these things to stay afloat. The real bottom line is consumer monopoly, and the only way to generate a consumer monopoly is to attract contributors to your honeycomb, and only your honeycomb.

A raise by SS would be the best business move they could make. Every market leader has failed to maintain their position because they consistently take contributors for granted. What they don't realize is that despite the fact that contributors are really in no position to make demands of them, their primary concern is competition, not contributors.

With so many new agencies coming out, and many of them serious, as well as the massive acquisitions (Fotolia by Adobe), SS must innovate in order to maintain a leadership position. For example, all another agency has to do is provide a mixture of sales and exclusivity and many a contributor will happily try it out if it means 60% of the sales with double the profits per sale. I can't remember the exact number but it was something like over a dollar profit per download for SS - paying us contributors $0.25/download in that sort of market can't last, especially if another player comes in and says they will pay us $0.50 if we go exclusive with them.

Now, of course, no one is going to go and drop their other agencies for an unproven one - but let's use Fotolia for example. They are now Adobe - don't even call them Fotolia, call them Adobe. Adobe has a market cap of 40 billion dollars. Shutterstock has a market cap of 2 billion dollars. To maintain a competitive edge, don't you think Adobe would be happy to offer contributors $0.50 a download if we went exclusive with them? And don't you think Adobe could pull in the numbers given their reach?

At this point, in my opinion, this trend of lack of exclusivity is going to be overturned because right now, everyone is contributing to everyone. How can any company compete with SS if they have less sales? There is no incentive for the customer to purchase with them when they can go with SS. The only possible way to differentiate oneself with SS or other large companies is to provide either exclusive platforms or exclusive images. Adobe has access to exclusive platforms, so there's that.

But imagine what would happen if Adobe came out and said "we are offering exclusivity to all Fotolia contributors and paying $0.75 a subscription download and 30% for on demand downloads".

This forum would be rife with movement, and I can bet you a large, large number of people would "try" it out. Within a few months, customers would be finding less and less of what they want at SS and more and more of what they want at Fotolia.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, the only way SS maintains its competitive edge is if all other stock agencies try to compete with them following the exact same formula. If another agency comes up with a better one, it is a game changer. This is why the bottom line is how much they are willing to share with contributors to remove any incentive to go with another agency. At $0.25, there is too much room for another player to move on it.

I strongly believe exclusivity is on its way back in, in some way or another.

As the title says - seems 30p is more popular, but you get the random person raving about how it is easier to upscale 24.

All I care about are sales and longevity.

Is the information in the title an accurate assessment of iStock's royalty schedule for non-exclusive contributors? In other words, you make about 90 cents a video download?

Found what information I could here:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/buying-photos-for-selling-as-stock/

Thanks/

I don't mind waiting for approvals for what I feel is one of the best contributor and end user business models in the industry now.

Thanks for the info thus far. Seems as long as you're operating straight, they will treat you straight. So no one has heard of anyone being booted for no real reason?

I know it seems like a silly question, but I come from an industry where such things do happen when there is no contract.

Thanks for that statistic woody - awesome information.

Same for your gostwyk - great input. Thanks.

Just an update - I emailed them and they responded saying I should just upload the same images and let them know and they'll approve them.

So, I was right.

Do you feel there is any correlation between images sold through subscriptions and images sold on demand? Obviously the on demand ones will pay out more, but the question is, say one image gets 10 subscription sales (25 cents each) and another gets 2 on demand ($2 each). The on demand one has made you more money this month, but does that suggest that it is a better image, or more valuable? Or is it all variance and that next month the stats may completely flip?

I guess my question is, do on demand sales reflect an image that is "better"? And are subscription sales for cheaper or less "quality" images?

My thoughts are "no", but I haven't been in the industry long enough to know for sure. So I am asking for opinions.