Author Topic: Shutterstock Q2 Profit Rises (Read 29070 times)

dirkr · « **Reply #50 on:** August 08, 2013, 13:26 »

Quote from: tickstock on August 08, 2013, 12:45

Thinking about it a little more, the "Contributor royalties payable" might be money that is left on contributors accounts but is below the payout level.

This is what it is. It is on the Balance Sheet under liabilities. It's money they owe to contributors but haven't paid out yet.

The contributor royalties paid out in Q2 are somewhere in the "cost of revenue" of $21,768 m. This number must also include other items like technology costs (as the other line items of operating expenses don't seem to contain those).

One has to consider that revenue in Q2 and royalties paid in Q2 (even if we knew the exact number within the 21 million) will still not give an exact royalty percentage, as the payments in Q2 relate to the amounts received by contributors in the months March to May, while the revenue contains the months April to June (as Shutterstock pays out in the middle of the month for the prior month). Also to consider: all sales of people that did not reach payout are not included as well (those are in the 8.1 million tickstock mentioned - but only part of it, because some of that amount will come from older downloads).

The best way to derive your own average royalty rate at Shutterstock is still to take your own received RPD for Q2 and divide it by the published number of revenue per download ($2,33 in Q2).

cthoman · « **Reply #51 on:** August 08, 2013, 13:38 »

Quote from: dirkr on August 08, 2013, 13:26

The best way to derive your own average royalty rate at Shutterstock is still to take your own received RPD for Q2 and divide it by the published number of revenue per download ($2,33 in Q2).

Makes sense. It's interesting that that numbers seems to have leveled off. I wonder if that is where it will stay?

gbalex · « **Reply #52 on:** August 08, 2013, 14:15 »

Quote from: djpadavona on August 08, 2013, 12:44

Did you listen to the earnings call? I just wonder if they are mixing in YTD numbers in the call. I didn't listen to it, so I cannot comment. Otherwise I don't understand the big difference between the printed quarterly report and the conference call.

Posted this earlier in the thread there are detailed numbers from Thilo Semmelbauer for contributor royalties of nearly $16 million in the 2nd quarter.

Page 2 or 3 depending on how large your font is. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2

Shutterstock's CEO Discusses Q2 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Snip

With that, I’ll turn the call over to Thilo Semmelbauer, Shutterstock’s president and COO, who will share some of the key operational highlights for the second quarter.

Thilo Semmelbauer

Thanks, Jon. We remained intensely focus on acquiring new customers and adding fresh content in the second quarter as we’ve discussed these two signs of our network, reinforce and drive each other, fueling our growth. Now, starting with the contributors’ side, as in prior quarters, we accepted many new contributors. We saw strong activities from existing contributors and a small number of contributors left us.

In total, we added 2.2 million images and 150,000 video clips in Q2 more than in any prior quarter. And the quality and diversity of our collection is now better than ever. As we’ve mentioned, we screen every image before it enters the collection and we reject between a third and a half of the images that are submitted in order to enforce a very high quality standard. We’re also focused on improving the diversity of our collection so we can meet more of our customers’ needs along the dimensions of subject matter, style, culture, geography. In total, our library contains more than 28 million images and more than a million video clips and continues to be one of the fastest growing and largest collections in our space.

In Q2, we continued to invest in growth on the contributors’ side making a number of improvements to our review operations and our systems to enable us to continue the scale. Even though we’re receiving and reviewing more content than ever before, our service levels and time from image submission to approval improved significantly in Q2. We also paid out more to contributors than ever before, nearly $16 million in the quarter.

VB inc · « **Reply #53 on:** August 08, 2013, 14:42 »

Quote from: gbalex on August 08, 2013, 14:15

Posted this earlier in the thread there are detailed numbers from Thilo Semmelbauer for contributor royalties of nearly $16 million in the 2nd quarter.

Page 2 or 3 depending on how large your font is. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2

Shutterstock's CEO Discusses Q2 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

In total, we added 2.2 million images and 150,000 video clips in Q2 more than in any prior quarter. And the quality and diversity of our collection is now better than ever. As we’ve mentioned, we screen every image before it enters the collection and we reject between a third and a half of the images that are submitted in order to enforce a very high quality standard. We’re also focused on improving the diversity of our collection so we can meet more of our customers’ needs along the dimensions of subject matter, style, culture, geography. In total, our library contains more than 28 million images and more than a million video clips and continues to be one of the fastest growing and largest collections in our space.

I found this part very interesting. Come on SS, you now have content that should be priced higher. Your library is full of luxury items instead of the all you can eat buffet menu.

This is the only reason i submit simple vector items that sell over and over again. I would like to invest some time creating higher quality vector art if the prices made sense to me.

cobalt · « **Reply #54 on:** August 08, 2013, 16:15 »

If they paid out 16 million, that would be around 1.3 Million a week in that quarter. In 2008 Kelly said istock was paying out around 1.7 Million? And that they were hoping to pay out more the following year...but who knows if that ever happened.

I really would love to know how much it is now.

But for the individual contributor it is the personal rpd that is most important. Mine is horribly low for photos, but very good for videos. But I am still at the bottom of the food chain.

Red Dove · « **Reply #55 on:** August 08, 2013, 16:16 »

We're at least fifth in line for any remuneration - behind the shareholders, the board, the employees and the tea lady, so I wouldn't count on it.

gbalex · « **Reply #56 on:** August 09, 2013, 00:50 »

Three Months Ended June 30,

.$ Paid to contributors $16,000,000
Divided by number of paid downloads 24,300,000 = .65 cents average paid out for each download (? "nearly" 16 million including Video, SOD, El, OD)

Number of downloads 24,300,000
Divided by number of images in collection 27,300,000 = .89 average download per image in collection during 3 month period

gbalex · « **Reply #57 on:** August 09, 2013, 01:55 »

.65 is 27% of $2.33

dirkr · « **Reply #58 on:** August 09, 2013, 02:16 »

Quote from: gbalex on August 09, 2013, 01:55

.65 is 27% of $2.33

That's probably as close to the "truth" as it gets...

gbalex · « **Reply #59 on:** August 09, 2013, 13:03 »

Quote from: dirkr on August 09, 2013, 02:16

Quote from: gbalex on August 09, 2013, 01:55
.65 is 27% of $2.33

That's probably as close to the "truth" as it gets...

Nearly

gbalex · « **Reply #60 on:** August 09, 2013, 15:08 »

.65 is 27% of $2.33

The following puts the monthly/daily numbers in perspective

$639,112.76 SS Q2 Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x Portfolio Number = Average Q2 Contributor Revenue per Download per Day

The average we earned per paid download for the three months in Q2 is $.65 or 27% of $2.33 SS's Revenue per download

$$$$$$$ SS Revenue per download

Number of paid downloads in three months = 24,300,000 x $2.33 or $56,619,000.00 SS Revenue per total downloads per Three Months in Q2

Number of paid downloads in one month = 8, 100,000 x $2.33 or $18,873,000.00 SS Revenue per Month in Q2

Number of paid downloads in one day = 274,291 x $2.33 or $639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day in Q2

On the Contributor side of the 27,300,000 files we have on SS each file on average received the following number of downloads.

.89 average download per file in collection in three months or .89 x $.65 = $.57 Contributor Revenue per download per Three Month Period in Q2

.29 average download per file in collection in one month or .29 x $.65 = $.18 Contributor Revenue per download per Month in Q2

.0095 average download per file in collection in one day or .0095 x $.65 = $.0061 Contributor Revenue per download per Day in Q2 (average duration in month = 29.530589 days)

$639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x port number = Average Contributor Revenue per Download per Day

w7lwi · « **Reply #61 on:** August 09, 2013, 17:05 »

These numbers are all well and good and indicate what SS is doing as a company. So long as they remain solvent and show no sign of going out of business what really matters to me is what is my financial position. How much money do I make and are my RPD numbers in line with the average or do I do worse (or better).

Q2 came in at $0.698, slightly better than average. However this was due to an exceptional month in May ($0.901). April and June were below average at $0.608 and $0.584 respectively. So far, July and August are looking better. July at $0.710. Really too soon to judge how August will turn out but I'm at $0.877 through today. August sales are starting out significantly better than July, but it really depends on the mix over the next three weeks.

gostwyck · « **Reply #62 on:** August 09, 2013, 17:09 »

Quote from: gbalex on August 09, 2013, 15:08

.65 is 27% of $2.33

The following puts the monthly/daily numbers in perspective

$639,112.76 SS Q2 Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x Portfolio Number = Average Q2 Contributor Revenue per Download per Day

The average we earned per paid download for the three months in Q2 is $.65 or 27% of $2.33 SS's Revenue per download

$$$$$$$ SS Revenue per download

Number of paid downloads in three months = 24,300,000 x $2.33 or $56,619,000.00 SS Revenue per total downloads per Three Months in Q2

Number of paid downloads in one month = 8, 100,000 x $2.33 or $18,873,000.00 SS Revenue per Month in Q2

Number of paid downloads in one day = 274,291 x $2.33 or $639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day in Q2

On the Contributor side of the 27,300,000 files we have on SS each file on average received the following number of downloads.

.89 average download per file in collection in three months or .89 x $.65 = $.57 Contributor Revenue per download per Three Month Period in Q2

.29 average download per file in collection in one month or .29 x $.65 = $.18 Contributor Revenue per download per Month in Q2

.0095 average download per file in collection in one day or .0095 x $.65 = $.0061 Contributor Revenue per download per Day in Q2 (average duration in month = 29.530589 days)

$639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x port number = Average Contributor Revenue per Download per Day

^^^ That seems to me to be meaningless numbers being spouted without references. Where does "$.0061 x portfolio number" come from? Why have you got a 'vs' (i.e.versus?) in a supposed mathematical formula?

gbalex · « **Reply #63 on:** August 09, 2013, 18:46 »

Quote from: gbalex on August 09, 2013, 15:08

.65 is 27% of $2.33

The following puts the monthly/daily numbers in perspective

$639,112.76 SS Q2 Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x Portfolio Number = Average Q2 Contributor Revenue per Download per Day

The average we earned per paid download for the three months in Q2 is $.65 or 27% of $2.33 SS's Revenue per download

$$$$$$$ SS Revenue per download

Number of paid downloads in three months = 24,300,000 x $2.33 or $56,619,000.00 SS Revenue per total downloads per Three Months in Q2

Number of paid downloads in one month = 8, 100,000 x $2.33 or $18,873,000.00 SS Revenue per Month in Q2

Number of paid downloads in one day = 274,291 x $2.33 or $639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day in Q2

On the Contributor side of the 27,300,000 files we have on SS each file on average received the following number of downloads.

.89 average download per file in collection in three months or .89 x $.65 = $.57 Contributor Revenue per download per Three Month Period in Q2

.29 average download per file in collection in one month or .29 x $.65 = $.18 Contributor Revenue per download per Month in Q2

.0095 average download per file in collection in one day or .0095 x $.65 = $.0061 Contributor Revenue per download per Day in Q2 (average days in month = 29.530589 days)

$639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x port number = Average Contributor Revenue per Download per Day

Quote from: gostwyck on August 09, 2013, 17:09

^^^ That seems to me to be meaningless numbers being spouted without references.

The numbers come directly out of Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results, they are just broken down.

Start here and break it down from three months in the quarter to one month and they days (average duration in month = 29.530589 days)

Three Months Ended June 30,

.$ Paid to contributors $16,000,000
Divided by number of paid downloads 24,300,000 = .65 cents average paid out for each download (? "nearly" 16 million including Video, SOD, El, OD)

Number of downloads 24,300,000
Divided by number of images in collection 27,300,000 = .89 average download per image in collection during 3 month period

http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768&highlight

Page 2 or 3 depending on how large your font is. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2

Snip
We also paid out more to contributors than ever before, nearly $16 million in the quarter.

Quote from: gostwyck on August 09, 2013, 17:09

Where does "$.0061 x portfolio number" come from?

.0095 average download per file in SS collection in one day or .0095 x $.65 = $.0061 Contributor Revenue per download per Day in Q2 (average days in month = 29.530589 days)

Quote from: gostwyck on August 09, 2013, 17:09

Why have you got a 'vs' (i.e.versus?) in a supposed mathematical formula?

Shutterstock Revenue per Day vs Average Contributor Revenue per Day per Download x number of files in port

tickstock · « **Reply #64 on:** August 09, 2013, 18:58 »

gbalex · « **Reply #65 on:** August 09, 2013, 19:04 »

Quote from: tickstock on August 09, 2013, 18:58

I think the $15.5-16million was paid out to contributors, which would include Bigstock, Skillfeed, maybe Offset (I'm not sure if anyone is paid there yet, I think they said it was Beta whatever that actually means), and any other things they have going on now. I wonder if the download numbers include those other sites or not?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2

Snip
With that, I’ll turn the call over to Thilo Semmelbauer, Shutterstock’s president and COO, who will share some of the key operational highlights for the second quarter.

Thilo Semmelbauer

Thanks, Jon. We remained intensely focus on acquiring new customers and adding fresh content in the second quarter as we’ve discussed these two signs of our network, reinforce and drive each other, fueling our growth. Now, starting with the contributors’ side, as in prior quarters, we accepted many new contributors. We saw strong activities from existing contributors and a small number of contributors left us.

In total, we added 2.2 million images and 150,000 video clips in Q2 more than in any prior quarter. And the quality and diversity of our collection is now better than ever. As we’ve mentioned, we screen every image before it enters the collection and we reject between a third and a half of the images that are submitted in order to enforce a very high quality standard. We’re also focused on improving the diversity of our collection so we can meet more of our customers’ needs along the dimensions of subject matter, style, culture, geography. In total, our library contains more than 28 million images and more than a million video clips and continues to be one of the fastest growing and largest collections in our space.

In Q2, we continued to invest in growth on the contributors’ side making a number of improvements to our review operations and our systems to enable us to continue the scale. Even though we’re receiving and reviewing more content than ever before, our service levels and time from image submission to approval improved significantly in Q2. We also paid out more to contributors than ever before, nearly $16 million in the quarter.

tickstock · « **Reply #66 on:** August 09, 2013, 19:06 »

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #67 on:** August 09, 2013, 19:10 »

"adding fresh content"

Good lord, how much fresh content do you need?

jbarber873 · « **Reply #68 on:** August 09, 2013, 20:08 »

First of all, nobody sold you guys a ticket. If you don't like the payout, pull your images off. Put all your images on symbiostock, and get all the money.
For me, I have tried selling direct. 15 years ago direct sales was a great business, but now everyone with a digital camera is a photographer, so this is what you get. The cost of one click on google is over 4 dollars the last time I looked. So, if SS wants to take the risk, that's fine with me. There's a difference between selling a product and producing a profit.
Every month my income goes up at SS. It pays my studio and my mortgage, so to me it's a great thing. I make my profit from assignment work, while the SS machine just keeps grinding away. It's a machine that just keeps spitting out money. I love it.

gbalex · « **Reply #69 on:** August 09, 2013, 20:36 »

Quote from: tickstock on August 09, 2013, 19:06

So you don't think Bigstock is included in that then or Offset, are they run by different people? I kind of thought Offset was run by the same Shutterstock guys.

Yes I do think BS is included as mentioned in the Q2 and other filings. Have you seen any information regarding numbers for Offset and Skillfeed in any of the SEC filings?

robhainer · « **Reply #70 on:** August 09, 2013, 21:13 »

Quote from: jbarber873 on August 09, 2013, 20:08

First of all, nobody sold you guys a ticket. If you don't like the payout, pull your images off. Put all your images on symbiostock, and get all the money.
For me, I have tried selling direct. 15 years ago direct sales was a great business, but now everyone with a digital camera is a photographer, so this is what you get. The cost of one click on google is over 4 dollars the last time I looked. So, if SS wants to take the risk, that's fine with me. There's a difference between selling a product and producing a profit.
Every month my income goes up at SS. It pays my studio and my mortgage, so to me it's a great thing. I make my profit from assignment work, while the SS machine just keeps grinding away. It's a machine that just keeps spitting out money. I love it.

Totally agree. Shutterstock pays out to me more than 10 times that of any other site. If I want a raise, I upload more and better images. You earn a raise through your work, not by what someone else gives you.

gbalex · « **Reply #71 on:** August 09, 2013, 23:59 »

Quote from: robhainer on August 09, 2013, 21:13

Quote from: jbarber873 on August 09, 2013, 20:08
First of all, nobody sold you guys a ticket. If you don't like the payout, pull your images off. Put all your images on symbiostock, and get all the money.
For me, I have tried selling direct. 15 years ago direct sales was a great business, but now everyone with a digital camera is a photographer, so this is what you get. The cost of one click on google is over 4 dollars the last time I looked. So, if SS wants to take the risk, that's fine with me. There's a difference between selling a product and producing a profit.
Every month my income goes up at SS. It pays my studio and my mortgage, so to me it's a great thing. I make my profit from assignment work, while the SS machine just keeps grinding away. It's a machine that just keeps spitting out money. I love it.

Totally agree. Shutterstock pays out to me more than 10 times that of any other site. If I want a raise, I upload more and better images. You earn a raise through your work, not by what someone else gives you.

Your position makes no sense

How many years are you willing to work for the same royalty commission fully knowing that your hard work will be eroded by inflation. By taking your position you are dooming your self to work x% harder each and every day based on inflation alone?

Have your gas expenses gone up? If so it costs you more each year to produce content based on only one business expense. Unless of course you are unplugged, use solar, grow your own food and use horse and buggy for transportation.

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

$.38 in 2008 has the same spending power as $0.41 does today, therefore your royalty rate suffered a cumulative rate of inflation @ 8.5% since you last received a royalty raise in 2008.

US Inflation Jumps in June 2013, Annual Inflation Rate Hits 1.8%
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23328472

UK inflation rate rises to 2.9% in June.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23324635
The rate of consumer price index (CPI) inflation increased to 2.9% in June, up from 2.7% in May, according to the Office for National Statistics

robhainer · « **Reply #72 on:** August 10, 2013, 14:38 »

That's not the way this business works. You get paid the competitive rate based on what your work is worth to others. We're not employees or union workers to sit around and whine about cost of living. We're individual business people. If there were more demand for our work and if the ability to create that work was more rare, we'd get paid more. Your expenses have zero to do with it. Besides, that's why you deduct your expenses on your taxes. Let the government pay for it.

Sure, I'd love more money if someone is just going to give it to me. But I'm not going to criticize Shutterstock on that front when it's the only site paying me anything worth more than a second's notice.

Also, looking at the amount you make as 38 cents is a total fallacy. It's an untrue statement to say that's all you make per download. Shutterstock offers different licenses. I'd bet nobody actually makes as little as 38 cents a download, even people on the lowest tier.

Finally, I know for a fact that if I improve my images and upload more of them, I will get a raise because I will sell more. Now that's a raise that's totally within my own hands. I don't understand how that doesn't make sense. I don't look at the my earnings on a download by download basis. I look at my earnings on a month by month basis. If it goes up from one month to the next, that's a raise. Seems pretty clear to me.

jbarber873 · « **Reply #73 on:** August 10, 2013, 16:19 »

Quote from: robhainer on August 09, 2013, 21:13

Totally agree. Shutterstock pays out to me more than 10 times that of any other site. If I want a raise, I upload more and better images. You earn a raise through your work, not by what someone else gives you.

Agree completely.
Actually the key to my success on SS is video. I make 50% of my income from video now. Every time I bring up video i get lots of posts about how hard it is, but it's the future. I've always preferred to take one idea and work on it than just shoot every angle possible, so my workflow works well with video. Even on the train wreck known as Istock, a video has a much better chance of being seen and selling, simply because it's still early days for most concepts. Pond 5 also sells well, but SS is rocketing along. They've obviously made a huge effort to ramp up, with the amount of storage, and the much more tedious process of review.

gbalex · « **Reply #74 on:** August 11, 2013, 12:40 »

Quote from: robhainer on August 10, 2013, 14:38

That's not the way this business works. You get paid the competitive rate based on what your work is worth to others. We're not employees or union workers to sit around and whine about cost of living. We're individual business people. If there were more demand for our work and if the ability to create that work was more rare, we'd get paid more. Your expenses have zero to do with it. Besides, that's why you deduct your expenses on your taxes. Let the government pay for it.

Sure, I'd love more money if someone is just going to give it to me. But I'm not going to criticize Shutterstock on that front when it's the only site paying me anything worth more than a second's notice.

Also, looking at the amount you make as 38 cents is a total fallacy. It's an untrue statement to say that's all you make per download. Shutterstock offers different licenses. I'd bet nobody actually makes as little as 38 cents a download, even people on the lowest tier.

Finally, I know for a fact that if I improve my images and upload more of them, I will get a raise because I will sell more. Now that's a raise that's totally within my own hands. I don't understand how that doesn't make sense. I don't look at the my earnings on a download by download basis. I look at my earnings on a month by month basis. If it goes up from one month to the next, that's a raise. Seems pretty clear to me.

Re: Finally, I know for a fact that if I improve my images and upload more of them, I will get a raise because I will sell more. Now that's a raise that's totally within my own hands.

Now that is a fallacy, it is not in your own hands it is in the hands of the sites which images and or ports they choose to display on their front pages. This month they need little kiddos. That should not last long if you keep broadcasting how well they sell.

All commodity prices go up over time, even the ones with historic gluts on the market. At these slim micro margins it does not take long to hit parity between production expenses and income. So good luck with your mindset and enjoy working harder and harder to keep pace with past performance while all around you suppliers raise prices for the things you need to survive.

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Author Topic: Shutterstock Q2 Profit Rises (Read 29070 times)

dirkr

cthoman

gbalex

VB inc

cobalt

Red Dove

gbalex

gbalex

dirkr

gbalex

gbalex

w7lwi

gostwyck

gbalex

tickstock

gbalex

tickstock

Sean Locke Photography

jbarber873

gbalex

robhainer

gbalex

robhainer

jbarber873

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