I've uploaded quite a few videos over the past 12 months and some photos. My earnings increase April 2023 vs April 2024 on Adobe Stock is 120% and overall earnings increase April 2023 vs April 2024 for my four ports is 31%.

So, the number of sales per week didn't actually increase, but revenue nearly doubled since I started to price my bestsellers much higher to $149/HD and $199/4K from $74/HD and $149/4K.  On Pond5, I think if you want to make money, you got to price your clips at decent level and can push it higher for your bestsellers.  Buyers don't buy them because it's cheap.  Those cheapo buyers just pay $10/month and download on cheapo sites or get subscription plans on SS or AS.  My RPD is about $95 now since I started this high price strategy.  Some folks are pricing their clips at $25/HD and $27/4k and get like $10 for a download.  I think they're making a big mistake.  I'm surprised to see the number of high price HD sales is the same as regular price HD sale.  Only 707 clips out of my 30k clips are set at higher price.  So, the popular bestselling clips have pricing power we may be underestimating.

My port.
https://www.pond5.com/artist/blvdoneprime

Your stats and work are very impressive. How do you grow your port with those numbers of clips because I recall looking some 6 or so months ago (maybe a bit longer) and there were like 16k clips. There's now nearly 30k clips. You do this full time? 

3 downloads for a total of just over $90 which is a good sale for a Sunday.

Pond5 returns to its regular crawl with just one sale under $20 so far this month.

Best month on Pond5 since June 2023, not extraordinary but a decent result overall. 

We have an official response from kelvinjay on the iStock/Getty forum:
" UPDATE: Refunds / cancellations

Some contributors have noticed an increase in cancellations on their royalty statement this month.

A large corporate customer who licenses a high volume of content mistakenly selected these uses as royalty-bearing when, in fact, they were for comp / low-resolution image use. It is standard industry practice that comp uses, for client pitches, mock-ups, etc., are not a royalty generating license.

We subsequently met with the customer to reiterate the correct licensing requirements and reversed these transactions. Due to the customer's sizable team, some assets were selected for intended comp use multiple times, necessitating multiple cancellations

In future, if the customer licenses and downloads some of the affected assets for actual, published projects, these will appear on Connect statements. Please note there is no need to open tickets regarding this issue.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused during this process."

This well articulated response to the above from istock forum member Bulgac....

"I can't believe what's written in this statement. It's utterly outrageous!

Firstly, it's alarming that such a fundamental misunderstanding of licensing terms could occur with a "large corporate customer." How could they mistakenly categorize high-volume content usage as royalty-bearing when it was intended for comp/low-resolution image use? This reflects a severe lack of diligence and competence on their part.

Furthermore, the fact that this mistake led to multiple cancellations due to assets being selected for comp use multiple times is simply unacceptable. It suggests a systemic issue within the customer's team regarding understanding and adhering to licensing terms.

The nonchalant tone of the statement, suggesting that such occurrences are just part of the norm in the industry, is appalling. This is not standard industry practice; it's a glaring oversight that should have been addressed swiftly and rigorously.

Moreover, the suggestion that affected assets for actual published projects will be accounted for in future statements does little to rectify the inconvenience caused to contributors. This situation could have serious implications for their income and workflow, and a mere apology is insufficient.

In conclusion, this statement fails to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and the impact it has on contributors. It reflects a worrying disregard for proper licensing procedures and accountability."

The entire process is very odd. The statements themselves were bordering on overdue. Views, interactions and downloads still have not been updated. Then there were almost an avalanche of anomalies reported by iStock contributors. IStock needs to get its sh!t together.   

From what I can see I didn't have many refunds in the February statement. So overall February 2024 was just a crap month for royalties  (especially given the hundreds of images and videos uploaded during the year) - down 29.6% on February 2023 - and there's still no downloads in ESP for February. Disastrous admin. I'm only glad these people are not our airline pilots. 

Quote from: Pacesetter on March 11, 2024, 11:43

Quote from: yuriy on March 11, 2024, 11:26

Quote from: blvdone on March 11, 2024, 07:23

Slow start this week.  I'm just not good at this.  I should quit.
10,000 photos now.  0 video.  I deleted 7,000 videos one by one for hours last May when RPD kept going down to ridiculous cheap price.

agreed, you're not very good at this.  i've never seen anyone recommend deleting content to increase sales so i'm not surprised it's not working for you.

I think he makes up for it with exclusive Pond5 sales. How's your Pond5 sales blvdone? You must be earning at least 1,000 to 2,000 each month with your ports?

I had a BME on Pond5 in October 2022.  That was after Shutterstock takeover.  I had most of my Pond5 bestsellers at the time as exclusive.  Last year was difficult due to the industry wide slow down since May.  But the way Adobe Stock video sales were going down rapidly due to cheap video subs just like how Shutterstock video sales went down after their video sub introduction, I made a decision to delete all videos from Adobe Stock and go all in Pond5 Exclusive.  That's instant 50% royalty increase for non-exclusive clips I had on Pond5.  So, it's very possible I still would've made more money last year if I didn't delete all my videos from Adobe Stock, but I was happy not seeing those $2.80 video sub sales on Adobe Stock.  Instead, my RPD on Pond5 is still above $50 probably.  This year so far has been bad on Pond5 to be honest.  It's getting more and more difficult.  But Adobe Stock started giving out 4k clips for the same price as HD on video subs now.  So, I think I made the right decision to delete my videos early to preserve value of my products.  Some Pond5 Exclusive contributors who set their prices really high are surprisingly doing well. 

Check out this thread I posted on Pond5.

https://www.pond5.com/community?thread=246291911&page=1

I appreciate your honesty with your experiences and agree there is an industry wide slowdown - probably not surprising with global inflation and economies slowing etc. I've had a brief look at the thread you posted on Pond5 and will have a better read later.     

Quote from: blvdone on March 11, 2024, 07:23

Slow start this week.  I'm just not good at this.  I should quit.
10,000 photos now.  0 video.  I deleted 7,000 videos one by one for hours last May when RPD kept going down to ridiculous cheap price.

agreed, you're not very good at this.  i've never seen anyone recommend deleting content to increase sales so i'm not surprised it's not working for you.

I think he makes up for it with exclusive Pond5 sales. How's your Pond5 sales blvdone? You must be earning at least 1,000 to 2,000 each month with your ports?

So far this month only 1/14 of Adobe Stock's photo sales earning.  On its way to less than $100/month earning on SS.  I used to make average of $600/month from photos on Shutterstock.  This is disastrous.  I wouldn't recommend anybody starting stock photo today to upload to Shutterstock.  Adobe Stock is the only site worth your time uploading and tagging.  Sad.

Looks like video is headed in the same direction. I stopped uploading photos on Shutterstock months ago and now going to pause on uploading videos. I'll restart if video earnings-per-download pick up again but given the last 3 months of pitiful commissions it is not worth it. Video RPD on Shutterstock is now much worse than Adobe Stock.     

Quote from: Pacesetter on March 08, 2024, 17:58

Quote from: blvdone on March 08, 2024, 17:45

No hope here.  Down 150 spots in 2 days.  Lowest rank in a few weeks.  Maybe stock photo is not for me.

It's been a slower week I think and probably slower for many other contributors too. But you're making over $200 per week just from images alone which is really good in my view. Well done! You'd easily more than double that if you had videos.

Personally my most important metric is the sum of all $$$ (not downloads) at the end of the month from the agencies I contribute to. I would never be able to compete on volume (even against myself) which is why I pivoted my focus to video with generally higher earnings per download.   

My download number and sales $$ is higher than last week, but ranking is much lower this week.  It's weird.  Must be many people doing well this week.

It is a bit strange. My downloads are down this week by -20%. Sale $$$ are down -52%. Yet the damage to the ranking despite these lower results is just -0.5%.

Interesting to hear others having poor sales on Shutterstock. Volume of sales is down but much worse is the earnings-per-sale are way down. Am considering suspending video uploads now (stopped uploading images months ago on Shutterstock).