Quote from: WD3 Photography on February 06, 2021, 10:05
I sold 101 photos on SS in January 2021.

So, I moved to tier 2 on 1st February.

43% of my income in January was from on-demand sales.

I'm still think I can make more on SS in 2021 than in 2020.

I hope you are correct and I'm also hoping the same for myself. But after "HOPE" the new payment schedule doesn't look really optimistic. February is going to pass January for me, probably by the 15th at the rate things are going.

That's not saying a whole lot, because Jan. 2021 was down 33% from 2020.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 06, 2021, 15:56

Quote from: WD3 Photography on February 06, 2021, 10:05
I sold 101 photos on SS in January 2021.

So, I moved to tier 2 on 1st February.

43% of my income in January was from on-demand sales.

I'm still think I can make more on SS in 2021 than in 2020.

I hope you are correct and I'm also hoping the same for myself. But after "HOPE" the new payment schedule doesn't look really optimistic. February is going to pass January for me, probably by the 15th at the rate things are going.

That's not saying a whole lot, because Jan. 2021 was down 33% from 2020.

I was down 67%   .

Quote from: WD3 Photography on February 06, 2021, 10:05

I'm still think I can make more on SS in 2021 than in 2020.

Sure, if you work hard.
Double your efforts, make a little bit more ;-)

Quote from: WD3 Photography on February 06, 2021, 10:05
I sold 101 photos on SS in January 2021.

So, I moved to tier 2 on 1st February.

43% of my income in January was from on-demand sales.

I'm still think I can make more on SS in 2021 than in 2020.

You should be able to, with sales on that kind of sales volume I assume you can double your portfolio size in a year, which will offset almost any decrease in sales or commissions. It's when you are making that many sales each day that these changes are devastating.

QuoteI'm still think I can make more

Dont forget to calculate ALL your expenses AND your working hours

Jan 2020 - $125 / 135 sales
Jan 2021 - $76 / 222 sales
Plus if doing this as a side hustle to a decent paid main job in the UK, you loss 40% of that to the taxman lol

Quote from: rcj1uk on February 07, 2021, 22:11
Jan 2020 - $125 / 135 sales
Jan 2021 - $76 / 222 sales
Plus if doing this as a side hustle to a decent paid main job in the UK, you loss 40% of that to the taxman lol

Only if you are earning in the 40% tax band

Personal Allowance   Up to £12,500   0%
Basic rate   £12,501 to £50,000   20%
Higher rate   £50,001 to £150,000   40%
Additional rate   over £150,000   45%

You only have to pay 40% to the taxman... if you're in the 40% tax group? Who would have thought it?!

Quote from: rcj1uk on February 07, 2021, 22:11
Jan 2020 - $125 / 135 sales
Jan 2021 - $76 / 222 sales
Plus if doing this as a side hustle to a decent paid main job in the UK, you loss 40% of that to the taxman lol

Average wage in the UK is £31K, so if you are doing this as a side hustle and your primary hustle is making you considerably more than the average person then, yes, you will be paying 40% of your Stock income towards services provided by government. Just like anyone else earning that much money. I am not sure "losing" it is the correct framing.

To answer Justanotherphotographer^...its amazing really there was a time from around year 2000 to 2010 when you could earn that sort of amount from stock-photography alone.
The Image-Bank, Stones and the early years of Getty together with the early years of SS, Istock and Fotolia. Providing a good commercial portfolio you could earn a small fortune!
Now we are all penny pinching!

Is there any way how to know if part of buyers migrated from SS to Adobe or other websites? Maybe someone can see it in his stats (with portfolio big enough to get stable and not so random results).

Unfortunately my own stats are not clear, because I don't upload new images on SS since Juny. I'm down 50% on SS in earnings and 20% down in downloads. Other websites do better now for me (Adobe is 50% up), but I uploaded a lot of new images there (but not so many to get 50% up) so I can't say clearly if they do better because of my new images or because they keep bigger part of the market.

Adobe will be dominating this market in no time. Shutterstock and Istock are being left behind much faster that everybody thought. The Shutterstock move is just a quick money grab so the founder and a few more people in the management can make as much money as possible before leaving the sinking ship. Mr Oringer is slowly selling his stock in the company every week. I wonder if he still has more than 50%.

Istock did the same when they raised prices like crazy with Hellman&Friedman in this case making a quick money grab on the back of their customers. They run away and then they had no other option to reduce royalties, introduce subs, ...... Since today they have not recovered from the hit, have a huge debt that at one point might put them out of business in the future.

Less and less top contributors are giving any content to Shutterstock and that only means one thing in the near future. As simple as that.

Quote from: cosus on February 09, 2021, 23:53
Is there any way how to know if part of buyers migrated from SS to Adobe or other websites? Maybe someone can see it in his stats (with portfolio big enough to get stable and not so random results).

Unfortunately my own stats are not clear, because I don't upload new images on SS since Juny. I'm down 50% on SS in earnings and 20% down in downloads. Other websites do better now for me (Adobe is 50% up), but I uploaded a lot of new images there (but not so many to get 50% up) so I can't say clearly if they do better because of my new images or because they keep bigger part of the market.

I think it still depends a lot on luck and randomness and on an individual port and the content. My February earnings on SS are for example 400% of my Adobe earnings right now. Adobe has been doing really great for me sometime around June last year where it was doing better than Shutterstock. Then my earnings declined and have pretty much been stagnant there for months now even though I constantly add new content. I think actually Adobe is the only one of the agencies I submit to, where adding new content does not have any positive effect on my sales.

I think more than any other agency they seem to have a problem in promoting new content over best-selling established content. I had such great results with my new Halloween and Christmas dog photos on all agencies (Hundreds of sales on some individual images, adds to various agencies' curated collections), expect Adobe, where they basically didn't sell at all - instead the same old images of much poorer quality from 2 years ago would still sell. As long as that's not changing, I don't think my future with Adobe is looking too bright.

Quote from: Firn on February 10, 2021, 07:57

Quote from: cosus on February 09, 2021, 23:53
Is there any way how to know if part of buyers migrated from SS to Adobe or other websites? Maybe someone can see it in his stats (with portfolio big enough to get stable and not so random results).

Unfortunately my own stats are not clear, because I don't upload new images on SS since Juny. I'm down 50% on SS in earnings and 20% down in downloads. Other websites do better now for me (Adobe is 50% up), but I uploaded a lot of new images there (but not so many to get 50% up) so I can't say clearly if they do better because of my new images or because they keep bigger part of the market.

I think it still depends a lot on luck and randomness and on an individual port and the content. My February earnings on SS are for example 400% of my Adobe earnings right now. Adobe has been doing really great for me sometime around June last year where it was doing better than Shutterstock. Then my earnings declined and have pretty much been stagnant there for months now even though I constantly add new content. I think actually Adobe is the only one of the agencies I submit to, where adding new content does not have any positive effect on my sales.

I think more than any other agency they seem to have a problem in promoting new content over best-selling established content. I had such great results with my new Halloween and Christmas dog photos on all agencies (Hundreds of sales on some individual images, adds to various agencies' curated collections), expect Adobe, where they basically didn't sell at all - instead the same old images of much poorer quality from 2 years ago would still sell. As long as that's not changing, I don't think my future with Adobe is looking too bright.

The quality was far, far better years back simply because pro photographers submitted portfolios! they have now left SS in droves. Nowadays they accept and promote any old crap! working on the concept of quantity rather then quality and of course silly buyers that dont know the difference!

Quote from: Horizon on February 10, 2021, 09:58

Quote from: Firn on February 10, 2021, 07:57

Quote from: cosus on February 09, 2021, 23:53
Is there any way how to know if part of buyers migrated from SS to Adobe or other websites? Maybe someone can see it in his stats (with portfolio big enough to get stable and not so random results).

Unfortunately my own stats are not clear, because I don't upload new images on SS since Juny. I'm down 50% on SS in earnings and 20% down in downloads. Other websites do better now for me (Adobe is 50% up), but I uploaded a lot of new images there (but not so many to get 50% up) so I can't say clearly if they do better because of my new images or because they keep bigger part of the market.

I think it still depends a lot on luck and randomness and on an individual port and the content. My February earnings on SS are for example 400% of my Adobe earnings right now. Adobe has been doing really great for me sometime around June last year where it was doing better than Shutterstock. Then my earnings declined and have pretty much been stagnant there for months now even though I constantly add new content. I think actually Adobe is the only one of the agencies I submit to, where adding new content does not have any positive effect on my sales.

I think more than any other agency they seem to have a problem in promoting new content over best-selling established content. I had such great results with my new Halloween and Christmas dog photos on all agencies (Hundreds of sales on some individual images, adds to various agencies' curated collections), expect Adobe, where they basically didn't sell at all - instead the same old images of much poorer quality from 2 years ago would still sell. As long as that's not changing, I don't think my future with Adobe is looking too bright.

The quality was far, far better years back simply because pro photographers submitted portfolios! they have now left SS in droves. Nowadays they accept and promote any old crap! working on the concept of quantity rather then quality and of course silly buyers that dont know the difference!

I am not sure what this has to do with the fact that on Adobe my old - much crappier - images sell, but my newer ones with much more experience and much better equipment that sell well on other agencies, don't. 

Quote from: Firn on February 10, 2021, 10:20

I am not sure what this has to do with the fact that on Adobe my old - much crappier - images sell, but my newer ones with much more experience and much better equipment that sell well on other agencies, don't. 

Pretty basic but, for me, different images sell on Adobe than SS. There are some "best sellers" that seemed to rise to the top everywhere, (when I was working more agencies) but more recently, one that has 100 downloads on AS has 1 on SS. And one that has hundreds of DLs on SS has 1 on AS. I don't even have a majority of the same images on both anymore, because SS takes some that AS doesn't and visa versa. Not a whole lot of identical to compare.

I think I'll need to watch new images as that's what you mentioned, and see how that goes, but I'm essentially down to two active agencies and Alamy for Microstock. I really don't see anything new catching on like they used to do, anywhere. Everything is a long slow ride, and maybe in a year, I'll see what's going on. There is no more, upload on Monday and watch for sales during the week.

Now it's more like upload, and wait... a long time! 

Sad to say, I started a pay FAA account in November and although I'm not working very hard, the sales there are better than DT, DP, P5, 123RF, and IS combined, for the entire last year. (most of those through Wirestock) All that tells me is I should be working where the money is and wasting less time where I get peanuts for downloads?

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 10, 2021, 14:53

I think I'll need to watch new images as that's what you mentioned, and see how that goes, but I'm essentially down to two active agencies and Alamy for Microstock. I really don't see anything new catching on like they used to do, anywhere. Everything is a long slow ride, and maybe in a year, I'll see what's going on. There is no more, upload on Monday and watch for sales during the week.

I've only been doing microstock for a little over 2 years, so I can't really compare whether new stuff is catching on like it used to.
I can only make an observation for that short period of time and it's like I described above. For me one image selling 50 or 100 times within a month is very good (maybe some will laugh at these numbers, I don't know. I am content with this. For me very few images manage to do this. ) and some of my newly uploaded seasonal images have managed to do this both on Shutterstock and iStock. Even on Dreamstime and Depositephotso some of them have sold 10-20 times within a month (I know these numbers don't look great, but these agencies just don't generate many sales for me, so it's a lot in comparison to the overall sale number), it's just Adobe where sales on these images are missing. Most of these images have not sold one single time on Adobe, a few maybe once. It's basically as if they did not exist. But the few images that have been selling regularly for me for the past 2 years still kept selling.
It's just that the difference between how these new images performed on Adobe compared to all other agencies (expect Alamy where I sell an image once in a blue moon) is quite noticeable, so I am having a hard time believing that it's the microstock market in general or that it's my images.

Quote from: everest on February 10, 2021, 07:40
Adobe will be dominating this market in no time. Shutterstock and Istock are being left behind much faster that everybody thought. The Shutterstock move is just a quick money grab so the founder and a few more people in the management can make as much money as possible before leaving the sinking ship. Mr Oringer is slowly selling his stock in the company every week. I wonder if he still has more than 50%.

Istock did the same when they raised prices like crazy with Hellman&Friedman in this case making a quick money grab on the back of their customers. They run away and then they had no other option to reduce royalties, introduce subs, ...... Since today they have not recovered from the hit, have a huge debt that at one point might put them out of business in the future.

Less and less top contributors are giving any content to Shutterstock and that only means one thing in the near future. As simple as that.

We would all like to believe it I'm sure but I don't think theres much evidence for that. "Third Quarter 2020 highlights compared to Third Quarter 2019:

Key Operating Metrics

Subscribers increased 39%, to 255,000.
Subscriber revenue increased 12% to $67.6 million.
Average revenue per customer, increased 0.3% to $328.
Paid downloads decreased 6% to 43.4 million.
Revenue per download increased by $0.39 to $3.79.
Image collection expanded 18% to approximately 350 million images.
Footage collection expanded 25% to approximately 20 million clips."

Quote from: Firn on February 10, 2021, 15:29

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 10, 2021, 14:53

I think I'll need to watch new images as that's what you mentioned, and see how that goes, but I'm essentially down to two active agencies and Alamy for Microstock. I really don't see anything new catching on like they used to do, anywhere. Everything is a long slow ride, and maybe in a year, I'll see what's going on. There is no more, upload on Monday and watch for sales during the week.

I've only been doing microstock for a little over 2 years, so I can't really compare whether new stuff is catching on like it used to.
I can only make an observation for that short period of time and it's like I described above. For me one image selling 50 or 100 times within a month is very good (maybe some will laugh at these numbers, I don't know. I am content with this. For me very few images manage to do this. ) and some of my newly uploaded seasonal images have managed to do this both on Shutterstock and iStock. Even on Dreamstime and Depositephotso some of them have sold 10-20 times within a month (I know these numbers don't look great, but these agencies just don't generate many sales for me, so it's a lot in comparison to the overall sale number), it's just Adobe where sales on these images are missing. Most of these images have not sold one single time on Adobe, a few maybe once. It's basically as if they did not exist. But the few images that have been selling regularly for me for the past 2 years still kept selling.
It's just that the difference between how these new images performed on Adobe compared to all other agencies (expect Alamy where I sell an image once in a blue moon) is quite noticeable, so I am having a hard time believing that it's the microstock market in general or that it's my images.

You are doing fine. Some image selling 50 times in a month would be shocking, in a good way! Everyone to their own levels based on what they produce and how much. Selling something new 20 times in a month on DT or DP is equally positive and a success.

Oh now I get it. When you said old images I was thinking "OLD" images.  The days of upload Monday, downloads by Wed. ended in around 2012. Kind of a marker date when things boldly went into a black hole that we had never seen coming, and never came out. Not precise but a general time when the industry turned down.

No answer why the current darling of the artists wouldn't do as well for you. I'll just say, for many, Adobe is the last one standing (holding up respect for artists) and makes more money for more people, than any other Microstock agency. Good that you do so well on others!