Author Topic: RPI per month (Read 16098 times)

mattdixon · « **on:** October 30, 2012, 07:30 »

I'm probably going to get some understandably guarded answers here, but with a decent portfolio of a few thousand images what kind of Royalty per Image per month can you (roughly) expect at Shutterstock. I'm asking because quite honestly I'm cr**ping myself as an exclusive artist over at iStock and need to do something fairly soon before they wipe out the value of 6 years work.

leaf · « **Reply #1 on:** October 30, 2012, 08:14 »

I've added a poll to this topic - I think you'll probably get more responses if people can answer anonymously.

HerMajesty · « **Reply #2 on:** October 30, 2012, 08:43 »

It really depends what are you doing. There's a huge difference between illustrators and simple isolation shots for example when it comes to RPI.

mattdixon · « **Reply #3 on:** October 30, 2012, 09:07 »

Quote from: leaf on October 30, 2012, 08:14

I've added a poll to this topic - I think you'll probably get more responses if people can answer anonymously.

Thanks Leaf, didn't know you could do that :-)

OM · « **Reply #4 on:** October 30, 2012, 09:24 »

I'm a bit embarrassed to say but I've only been on SS effectively since end of June and have less than 120 photo's there. I hit $130 today for this month, having made $100 payout in September too. I must admit to having 'migrated' what I considered my best shots first from FT where I have only 300. FT is deceased for me and I'll probably fail to reach 50 credit payout for the second month in a row. Most of my old FT best sellers that were cut short in their prime by FT's monstrous search change are selling like mad on SS.

Even had I not had 1 EL on SS this month, I would still have made almost $1/image this month. Got no people in my port, mostly food and a few frames...........fffing great for me anyway. Dunno if it will last as I now have to come up with more work that's on a par with stuff I already have which sells.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #5 on:** October 30, 2012, 09:48 »

Question about Total Images:
Since we upload continuously, how do you determine the number of images used to calculate RPI (per month)

Would you use the number you had at the start of the month? End of the Month? Or some previous month?

mattdixon · « **Reply #6 on:** October 30, 2012, 10:35 »

Quote from: WarrenPrice on October 30, 2012, 09:48

Question about Total Images:
Since we upload continuously, how do you determine the number of images used to calculate RPI (per month)

The way I do it for a rough calculation is current yearly $ total divided by current image total divided by current month (10 in this case).

gostwyck · « **Reply #7 on:** October 30, 2012, 11:26 »

I think you'll find that the most popular answer would be a good figure to work with. The situation is not static however. SS is steadily growing, month by month, as customers appear to be migrating from elsewhere, IS and FT in particular. That's what my data indicates anyway.

ClaridgeJ · « **Reply #8 on:** October 30, 2012, 11:48 »

Why do people even bother with RPI ? whats the point? surely the important thing is what you get in your hand in the end of month, thats all that matters.
I couldnt give a flying so and so about the RPI as long as the money keeps rolling in.

Morphart · « **Reply #9 on:** October 30, 2012, 12:20 »

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on October 30, 2012, 11:48

Why do people even bother with RPI ? whats the point? surely the important thing is what you get in your hand in the end of month, thats all that matters.
I couldnt give a flying so and so about the RPI as long as the money keeps rolling in.

People who wants to upload their portfolios when leaving exclusivity do tend to do some research as... If I upload all my portfolio to SS, what can I expect to get from (xxxx images).

If the amount is 10% of what he usually gets per month, thats food for thought

.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #10 on:** October 30, 2012, 13:51 »

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on October 30, 2012, 11:48

Why do people even bother with RPI ? whats the point? surely the important thing is what you get in your hand in the end of month, thats all that matters.
I couldnt give a flying so and so about the RPI as long as the money keeps rolling in.

If you have been doing this for a while, what goes through your head when you're about to upload a new batch?

Do you have any expectation for it? Let's say you make next to nothing. Your RPI is, say, a penny a month. Would that be enough to keep you doing this?

But if it was a three bucks a month, you would be motivated to continue, right? Of course you would.

But what about $.25 a month? $.75? Everyone has a threshold number where it makes sense to keep going, or to hang it up. And everyone should have a goal number to shoot for which would symbolize getting a good handle on this microstock game.

The point is, knowing this number helps you project where you should be in a month or a year. You can plan your way to success, or you can hope to get there with blind ignorance and a dash of luck. I know which way has worked for me.

cthoman · « **Reply #11 on:** October 30, 2012, 14:04 »

Quote from: stockmarketer on October 30, 2012, 13:51

The point is, knowing this number helps you project where you should be in a month or a year. You can plan your way to success, or you can hope to get there with blind ignorance and a dash of luck. I know which way has worked for me.

I keep track of it and find it useful for long term forecasting, but, in the end, it is mostly a leap of faith with a dash of luck.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #12 on:** October 30, 2012, 15:06 »

Quote from: cthoman on October 30, 2012, 14:04

Quote from: stockmarketer on October 30, 2012, 13:51
The point is, knowing this number helps you project where you should be in a month or a year. You can plan your way to success, or you can hope to get there with blind ignorance and a dash of luck. I know which way has worked for me.

I keep track of it and find it useful for long term forecasting, but, in the end, it is mostly a leap of faith with a dash of luck.

And what the poll is going to prove is the same thing that CJ and I keep hinting at (or slamming with a big hammer)

One persons RPI is not the same as someone else's. It based on what you shoot or draw and not how many. Look at the range already with 30+ votes. All the way from 10c to $1 an image. WOW, there's some variation.

Otherwise, I agree, as a personal valuation, and looking at my own sales, vs my own sales, it can show how good an agency preforms or how I'm doing compared to myself.

But I'm also with CJ on the other part. I look at bottom line and what specific images sell, not how many. I have 100 images that have never sold once. So I remove them and my RPI goes up smartly to show what I get for images that do sell? I like that. Makes for pretty numbers.

My RPI has no relationship to anyone else's RPI. That's what I'm trying to say.

fotografer · « **Reply #13 on:** October 30, 2012, 15:16 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on October 30, 2012, 15:06

One persons RPI is not the same as someone else's. It based on what you shoot or draw and not how many. Look at the range already with 30+ votes. All the way from 10c to $1 an image. WOW, there's some variation.

And the range could be even bigger as the <10c could be 1c and the more than 1$ could be absolutely any number. I also don't really understand what use other peoples figures are as you have no idea if you will be in the <10c or over 1$ range.

gostwyck · « **Reply #14 on:** October 30, 2012, 16:01 »

Quote from: fotografer on October 30, 2012, 15:16

I also don't really understand what use other peoples figures are as you have no idea if you will be in the <10c or over 1$ range.

Most contributers know if their sales, relative to size of portfolio, compared to others are generally above average, below average or, like me, distinctly average. I think that the 30c per image/month would be a reasonable guide for Matt. Even that would take time as progress is made through the commission levels.

lisafx · « **Reply #15 on:** October 30, 2012, 17:50 »

To get an accurate idea what a newbie might earn, I agree with Gostwyck that .30 is probably a good guess.

But if you want to get an overall idea what people are making there, stopping the poll at $1 is WAY too low.

Poncke · « **Reply #16 on:** October 30, 2012, 19:16 »

Quote from: lisafx on October 30, 2012, 17:50

To get an accurate idea what a newbie might earn, I agree with Gostwyck that .30 is probably a good guess.

But if you want to get an overall idea what people are making there, stopping the poll at $1 is WAY too low.

If I understand correctly the formula the OP wants us to use is RPI=(total $ made so far this year/images online)/month of the year

Someone with 2000 images online, making 1000 dollar per month has an RPI of 50 cent. Someone with 3000 images online making 3000 dollar per month has an RPI of 1 dollar. So if you have 7000 images online making 3500 a month its still only an RPI of 50 cent. I guess the dollar is not too low.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #17 on:** October 30, 2012, 19:54 »

I prefer to look at avg daily RPI, since monthly has too much variation (months have between 28 and 31 days). My daily RPI for Oct is .096, which would be $2.98 for a 31-day month. It fluctuates a few fractions of a cent each month... daily for Aug was .089 (or $2.76 for the month), and daily for Sept was .097 (or $2.91 for the month)

Microbius · « **Reply #18 on:** October 31, 2012, 04:18 »

Quote from: mattdixon on October 30, 2012, 10:35

Quote from: WarrenPrice on October 30, 2012, 09:48
Question about Total Images:
Since we upload continuously, how do you determine the number of images used to calculate RPI (per month)

The way I do it for a rough calculation is current yearly $ total divided by current image total divided by current month (10 in this case).

The way i do it is to keep track of uploads on a spread sheet and each month use the running total to divide the income for that month. A few of the sites give you stats for total uploads each month (incl. rejections) so it shouldn't be too hard to input old data (canstock and DT for example).

Unrelated: there are also people on this thread still bringing up the old arguments about how you can delete images in your portfolio to bring up your RPI. Again, no professional contributor would ever calculate RPI in a way where this would make a difference. It is calculated using total images produced, regardless of whether they are then rejected or even deleted as non sellers.

HerMajesty · « **Reply #19 on:** October 31, 2012, 06:46 »

Quote from: Poncke on October 30, 2012, 19:16

I guess the dollar is not too low.

That's not the point. Some people (not many I give you that) are making way more. There are a few people with just a few hundred images making a couple of thousand dollars a month. Nevertheless that's a very small group so statistically speaking irrelevant.

gostwyck · « **Reply #20 on:** October 31, 2012, 09:10 »

Quote from: Microbius on October 31, 2012, 04:18

The way I do it for a rough calculation is current yearly $ total divided by current image total divided by current month (10 in this case).

The way i do it is to keep track of uploads on a spread sheet and each month use the running total to divide the income for that month. A few of the sites give you stats for total uploads each month (incl. rejections) so it shouldn't be too hard to input old data (canstock and DT for example).

Unrelated: there are also people on this thread still bringing up the old arguments about how you can delete images in your portfolio to bring up your RPI. Again, no professional contributor would ever calculate RPI in a way where this would make a difference. It is calculated using total images produced, regardless of whether they are then rejected or even deleted as non sellers.
[/quote]

Exactly. Not to take this thread off-topic but the ratio that I'm most interested in (after monthly earnings) is the average earnings per image since I started doing microstock. I simply divide the total amount I've ever earned by the number of images I've produced. Being as the portfolio is still earning I then double that number to give an approximate value of each image uploaded. I know it can never be an exact formula but it is the closest I think of to get an idea of how much I earn per hour doing microstock.

lisafx · « **Reply #21 on:** October 31, 2012, 11:38 »

Quote from: Poncke on October 30, 2012, 19:16

If I understand correctly the formula the OP wants us to use is RPI=(total $ made so far this year/images online)/month of the year

Someone with 2000 images online, making 1000 dollar per month has an RPI of 50 cent. Someone with 3000 images online making 3000 dollar per month has an RPI of 1 dollar. So if you have 7000 images online making 3500 a month its still only an RPI of 50 cent. I guess the dollar is not too low.

Then I must have miscalculated. I calculate RPI by dividing the monthly income at a site, by how many images I have on that site during that month. The way the OP suggest doesn't make sense to me.

cascoly · « **Reply #22 on:** October 31, 2012, 13:56 »

as many of us have said over and over - RPI is at best a marginal statistic, and totally worthless if you're trying to figure what your results will be -- the only possible comparison would be without others who have similar portfolios and polls like this won't give you that info

RacePhoto · « **Reply #23 on:** October 31, 2012, 14:29 »

Quote from: Microbius on October 31, 2012, 04:18

(clipped parts)

Unrelated: there are also people on this thread still bringing up the old arguments about how you can delete images in your portfolio to bring up your RPI. Again, no professional contributor would ever calculate RPI in a way where this would make a difference. It is calculated using total images produced, regardless of whether they are then rejected or even deleted as non sellers.

So you mean I need to calculate based on submitted images, not active images?

Does anyone else except you do that? Because lets say I sent in 1000 images and 500 got accepted. You are saying my RPI is based on 1000 not the 500 active and selling? Or in that case, I have 500 images that will always be averaged in as a zero?

I find that kind of strange. Where calculating based on how many images working and how many images are licensed for X dollars, seems the norm?

In other words, I believe the general way of figuring it is - RPI=Sales/Number Of Images that's simple enough.

You really calculate based on every photo you ever submitted, on every site? Amazing!

cthoman · « **Reply #24 on:** October 31, 2012, 15:22 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on October 31, 2012, 14:29

So you mean I need to calculate based on submitted images, not active images?

Does anyone else except you do that?

I don't (I do only accepted images), but I'm not overly concerned about my time put in and my acceptance rate is pretty high (so it probably wouldn't be much different anyway). I could see that being useful if you feel you are just spinning your wheels or trying to track particular batches of images. That's too robotic for me though. I like the cluster shot approach.

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Author Topic: RPI per month (Read 16098 times)

mattdixon

leaf

HerMajesty

mattdixon

OM

WarrenPrice

mattdixon

gostwyck

ClaridgeJ

Morphart

stockmarketer

cthoman

RacePhoto

fotografer

gostwyck

lisafx

Poncke

stockmarketer

Microbius

HerMajesty

gostwyck

lisafx

cascoly

RacePhoto

cthoman

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