Thanks a lot for the insight @Bauman!
I also sell prints through my own website (Wordpress + Woocommerce). Haven't tried limited editions yet, as I don't know if they are worth the extra effort. What is your experience with limited over open editions - would you recommend doing them?

Quote from: mike123 on April 10, 2025, 20:32
Thanks a lot for the insight @Bauman!
I also sell prints through my own website (Wordpress + Woocommerce). Haven't tried limited editions yet, as I don't know if they are worth the extra effort. What is your experience with limited over open editions - would you recommend doing them?

I started using limited editions during some shows in "brick and mortar" galleries, after I had won some awards.

I only use them for personal projects of 10-20 images. I make a long selection and publish only the best of the best. Usually they are series with the same concept and style. Consider that I have only done 5 series/projects in 25 years of photographic activity. And with all of them I have won some awards. They are about 100 images in total. Almost all made with medium format film.

I sell them both in galleries that represent me and through my website.

But I sell very few, 3-5 a year. Maybe I advertise them very little. They are for collectors who like cotton papers.

Then I also sell open editions. The images are the same, to which I add other premium images that are not part of the projects. I sell the open editions not only with cotton papers, but also with acrylics (the best sellers), metal, and canvas.

My advice is to reserve limited editions only for special projects. The best thing is to do them for a project that has won an award.

And then you have to do a print run with very few prints (for example: 120x120 cm x5 prints, 80x80 cm x10 prints, 40x40 cm x15 prints). The price must be at least double or even triple that of open editions. I see some runs of 500 prints ... for me this is absurd. Limited editions must communicate scarcity, 50, 100 or 500 prints are too many for me.

Quote from: Bauman on April 10, 2025, 21:01
I started using limited editions during some shows in "brick and mortar" galleries, after I had won some awards.

I only use them for personal projects of 10-20 images. I make a long selection and publish only the best of the best. Usually they are series with the same concept and style. Consider that I have only done 5 series/projects in 25 years of photographic activity. And with all of them I have won some awards. They are about 100 images in total. Almost all made with medium format film.

I sell them both in galleries that represent me and through my website.

But I sell very few, 3-5 a year. Maybe I advertise them very little. They are for collectors who like cotton papers.

Then I also sell open editions. The images are the same, to which I add other premium images that are not part of the projects. I sell the open editions not only with cotton papers, but also with acrylics (the best sellers), metal, and canvas.

My advice is to reserve limited editions only for special projects. The best thing is to do them for a project that has won an award.

And then you have to do a print run with very few prints (for example: 120x120 cm x5 prints, 80x80 cm x10 prints, 40x40 cm x15 prints). The price must be at least double or even triple that of open editions. I see some runs of 500 prints ... for me this is absurd. Limited editions must communicate scarcity, 50, 100 or 500 prints are too many for me.

Thanks a lot, very helpful! I also do sell quite a few acrylic prints through my website, though they aren't my bestsellers (I think it's actually pretty evenly distributed between paper, canvas and metal prints with a few expensive acrylic ones in between).

I stopped caring about awards many years ago, when I realized they were a lot of effort for little monetary value. Now you gave me a reason to think about contests again

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 10, 2025, 19:14

Quote from: Brasilnut on April 10, 2025, 15:30

Quote from: Bauman on April 10, 2025, 14:30

Quote from: gnirtS on April 10, 2025, 14:18

Its a full circle for me.  I started out with most on Alamy/macrostock and RM.  Then migrated to the RF/Microstock model.

Now im seriously considering doing the same and retreating back to that.  Although to be fair, AS is still growing well for me currently.

And I would also like to go back to Macrostock or Midstock. But does it sell?

On Alamy, my historical average for 910 downloads is $7.52 net (about 20% are RM exclusive) vs SS's 39,000 downloads at an average of 60cents.

40x less volumes for 12x the price but then Alamy sells mainly editorial and no real point sending them generic commercial micro shots. 

At the end of the day, for me, it's more about taking back control of our assets and retaining some dignity.

Speaking for myself, I don't know what dignity there is to retain after I sold out to Microstock. A little late to take back anything, after it's out in the wild. New images, yes, that's possible.

You're right about Alamy, and people will argue, the volume isn't there. But last year, and Alamy is down, I made more on Alamy than P5, DT, IS and all of the minor sites I distributed to on Wirestock, all added together!. Selling out for pennies is just as desperate for any last money and this terrible plan from SSTK.

I suppose it's difficult to say goodbye to DT and P5. I spent time uploading, now that's just residual. Mostly, I'm waiting for the "Next Big Thing"  Which is the merger of IS and SS, to see what happens.

Quote from: Faustvasea on April 10, 2025, 13:37
I'm also thinking of just contributing to Adobe and Alamy.  Seems most agencies now pays pennies anyway.

I think that's a good plan to be considering. They don't care if we leave, we don't get paid for the effort. What's the loss?

I wanted to build own website for selling stock , but then this will be a huge project which unfortunately the success is not guaranteed, and requires a strong team.

I've started only 1 year ago in stock, very late. But yes, I don't want to sell my work for pennies, even if these aren't the best photos as others.

I didn't receive the email, which I believe is why my sales have dropped significantly. I've never experienced such low earnings on the platform before

Quote from: rod-09 on April 17, 2025, 14:59
I didn't receive the email, which I believe is why my sales have dropped significantly. I've never experienced such low earnings on the platform before

Not connected. The product doesn't even exist yet.

Sales are dropping because customers are leaving them. This is likely a final roll of the dice.

I've seen people offering classes on marketing and letting students use their ss images in their own marketing - not what this model envisions but what it will be used for in addition to the many other kinds of image theft and misuse. Looking for that opt-out button now.

The time to opt out was in 2020 when SS went to the 0.10 per sale. Unfortunately very few people suspended or closed their accounts. The same will be true here.

Quote from: wordplanet on April 17, 2025, 19:03
I've seen people offering classes on marketing and letting students use their ss images in their own marketing - not what this model envisions but what it will be used for in addition to the many other kinds of image theft and misuse. Looking for that opt-out button now.

This is a problem in general. The licenses sold are (I) too cheap and (ii) allow far too much legal use. What used to require an extended licence can now be done on a sub.

The second problem is there's no realistic way to enforce license adherence with a digital image. Once it's in the buyers hands, realistically there's no way at all to ensure they're complying with the licence or not.

Most people now are buying ultra cheap packages and have no intention of following the extremely generous license terms.

I don't see the unlimited option either. Should be thankful i guess

Quote from: Rage on April 18, 2025, 17:11
I don't see the unlimited option either. Should be thankful i guess

Well, I'm sure SS will deem this a success and all contributors will have to make the opt in/opt out decision.  I opted out.

It's €18 per month, daily download limit is 100 images, so this makes €0.003 per image at max downloads.

No, thank you! Also this model can affect my sales on other platforms as well, so no, not for me.

Quote from: Mir on April 20, 2025, 13:37
It's €18 per month, daily download limit is 100 images, so this makes €0.003 per image at max downloads.

Where did you read about this?
And why only photos, and not videos?

Videos are included, I was thinking about images, that's why I wrote that.

https://www.shutterstock.com/discover/unlimited

Quote from: Noedelhap on September 01, 2024, 11:11
It provided for about 15-20% at its peak 3 years ago, but it's going down every year (to about 10% of my total income). So I'm not reliant on microstock. And I've already given up on it, it wouldn't make sense to put more work into it when royalties are going down, when AI is taking over and everything is becoming subscription-based unlimited downloads.

Quote from: Noedelhap on August 09, 2024, 23:58
Knowing Shutterstock, they'll ruin Pond5 as well. I doubt this change will benefit us in any way long term. It will eventually be simplified even further. Within 5 years the Premium category will disappear, because it will be all-you-can-eat unlimited pricing across the board. Sorry for the negativity, I just don't trust anything coming from them.

Seems like it's coming even sooner than I predicted.

I also have the unlimited images only filter applied by default when I search the site.

Quote from: Mir on April 20, 2025, 15:17
Videos are included, I was thinking about images, that's why I wrote that.

https://www.shutterstock.com/discover/unlimited

Everything is fine. The price is normal. Apparently buyers can already buy unlimited downloads.
The author's income will depend on the number of buyers. Will shutterstock be able to create competition for such well-known stocks as envato and storybloks.
It's strange that getty allowed shutterstock to do this.
In general, I only support such a pricing system, but only if shutterstock can attract enough buyers for me to receive a stable profit.
For example, depositphoto also has this, but I refused unlimited downloads there, because the profit was almost zero.

Searching the site shows that only up to 30% of Shutterstock videos are available for unlimited subscription. It's not much, but the main thing is that these videos contain my videos!

There is nothing in my statistics in the column "Unlimited subscription". When will I see the money?

Quote from: Mir on April 20, 2025, 15:26
I also have the unlimited images only filter applied by default when I search the site.

So they'll screw over existing users by only exposing the ultra cheap stuff by default?

Effectively hiding normal content. That's crazy.

So far it seems mobile site has default unlimited and not desktop.  But its coming.

Quote from: stoker2014 on April 20, 2025, 15:47
.
It's strange that getty allowed shutterstock to do this.

Getty has no say. Nothing has been signed. The way it's looking I can see them pulling out as they're offering way over the odds for a company that may not exist in a year or 2.
Waiting to pick off the carcass seems more sensible.

Doing the maths here.  From the initial email explaining a pool share of 50% of earnings then assuming max usage Shutterstock have cut the minimum possible payout per asset from $0.38 to $0.002 in 5 years (since 2020).

Even worse for video where we went from $40 to $0.002 !

Because of AI microstock will get to expensive in a few years.

Wasn't envato the favorite place for videos. And difficult to get into?

Like storyblocks?

Quote from: cobalt on April 21, 2025, 08:50
Wasn't envato the favorite place for videos. And difficult to get into?

Like storyblocks?

Yes it was.  The only place that involved quite a few hoops and checks.
Then they introduced elements and an identical system to this SS thing.  Earnings went to zero effectively with it.