Dreamstime Review: A Solid Choice for Stock Photographers
- Founded in 2000 as a royalty-free microstock site
- Has 24,000,000 registered members.
- Supports more than 400,0000 contributing photographers.
- Features over 96,000,000 photos, illustrations, clipart and vectors.
- Has more than 11,000,000 unique visitors monthly.
- Serves customers including some the world’s largest advertising agencies, national/international magazines, and film and TV production companies.
- Accepts both commercial and editorial photos.
- Offers both exclusive and non-exclusive contributor options.
- Features an active blog, forum, and message boards for contributors.
- Holds regular contests for cash and prizes.
- Is a member of the DMLA (Digital Media Licensing Association)the trade association for stock agencies in the United States.
- Was the first community-based agency to be received as CEPIC (Coordination of European Picture Agencies Press Stock Heritage) member.
- Is one of the founding members of the European Tech Alliance.
- Submit unique images, either in the subject matter or in the way that the subject is captured.
- Provide images that are “artistic in nature, dreamy, tell a story through lighting and composition, have a narrative.”
- Submit complex illustrations that are well executed and stand out.
- Break the ruled, i.e., submit “outstanding images that really are out of the usual patterns.”
- Don’t be cliché.
- Take photos at the right times with the right subject, right lighting, and use the right composition.
- Ask, “Is this frame-worthy?” In other words, would you hang it on your wall?
- Illustrate your own vision, not the assignment’s. In other words, shoot the image for yourself rather than for the assignment in order to make the images work better.
- Approval of 80% or higher: upload the maximum. Applies for the first 50 submissions if you’re new.
- Approval of 50-80%: upload 1/2 the maximum number of images per week.
- Approval of 30-50%: upload 1/3 the maximum number of images per week.
- Approval of 10-30%: upload ¼ the maximum number of images per week.
- Approval of 0-10%: upload 1/6 the maximum number of images per week.
Photo by Miss Zhang on Unsplash
While not as flashy or trendy as some other microstock sites, Dreamstime – founded in 2000 – has consistently built a faithful following and solid reputation for being fair and dependable. Known for its reliability, strong support staff, and fair treatment of photographers, Dreamstime gives photographers some of the highest commissions around. For these reasons, it is a favorite among many stock photography contributors.
Dreamstime Snapshot
Dreamstime: How Much Does It Pay?
Dreamstime’s commission schedule is a little complicated, but it boils down to contributing photographers receiving between a 25% and 50% or higher revenue share.
Additionally, any file where you have an exclusive contract receives an extra 10% bonus. If you are an exclusive contributor, you’ll receive a 60% revenue share for all sales, plus a 20-cent bonus for each of your submissions that is approved for the first 100 files (only for the first 10,000 approved files if your download rate is higher than 0.1). To become an exclusive contributor – which means you can’t submit those same photos anywhere else – you must have at least 50 approved images on Dreamstime.
As far as actually getting paid, you can request payment once your earning’s balances reaches $100. Dreamstime pays via Paypal, Payoneer, Skrill, or by check.
There are other ways you can earn money with Dreamstime as well.
1. Referrals: By becoming an affiliate partner, you can receive 10% of the gross value of every referred transaction for 3 years after the referral registers. You can refer buyers as well as contributors. Dreamstime automatically lets you know who joined and who bought what.
2. Assignments: Each month, Dreamstime has a photography “assignment” and the winners receive $300 (1st place), $200 (2nd place), or $100 (3rd place).
Keep in mind that more assignment images get rejected than accepted, so it’s kind of a challenge to win. However, the Dreamstime website provides several tips for submitting assignment photos.
3. Every 100,000,000th Milestone Contest: Every time a 100,000,000th milestone – the next of which will be the 100,000,000th submitted photo – Dreamstime gives away a cool prize. For the next prize (as of the time this was written), the lucky winner will receive an iPad Air 2.
To win, you must be a contributing photographer who is active on the Dreamstime forum. To improve your chances of winning, Dreamstime recommends uploading the maximum number of images allowed each day (make sure they are good quality so they will be approved), then be active on the site and message boards.
4. Blog Contest: In addition to the photo assignment, Dreamstime now also offers a monthly blog contest, with cash prizes ($300, $200, and $100 for first through third place).
Dreamstime: How to Become a Contributor
To become a Dreamstime contributing photographer, start by registering an account. You do not have to apply with your portfolio before submitting, but it’s still best to only upload your best images as there is a lot of competition and Dreamstime is pretty particular about approving images.
Dreamstime generally wants generic images with “well defined commercial concepts” and “marketable compositions that show creative insight.” They also like high technical levels of color, definition, and lighting. Files should be JPGs in RGB or sRGB that are a minimum of 3 MPs and not more than 70 MP.
Dreamstime changes the limit on how many images you can upload each week, and it varies depending on your approval rating. That’s why it’s important to only upload your best images.
Here’s the breakdown on uploads:
Additionally, exclusive contributors can also contribute an additional 50% above these limits. Contributors with an approval ratio of more than 85% who have more than 500 approved images online are given special uploading limits beyond those already mentioned.
Whenever you upload images, you also need to provide any necessary model releases. Any copyrighted material, such as logos, needs to be removed prior to submitting.
When it comes to keywording your photos, you can either add your own title and keywords, or Dreamstime has a “Keymasters” program where they will add keywords for you for 60 cents per image. The images are keyworded by paid Keymasters who work directly with contributing photographers to label and categorize their images for them. Dreamstime states that using Keymasters can significantly help increase sales.
Dreamstime is not a fan of keyword spamming. In fact, your photos can be flagged or reported by buyers for bad keywords – and they get paid $.02 for reporting. If this occurs, an admin will review and approve or refuse the flag. It can take weeks for a flag to be reviewed, but if you go back and remove irrelevant keywords in the meantime – and the flag will be automatically removed.
Valuable Keyword Tips from Dreamstime
To upload your images:
1. Upload using either the regular upload or the FTP upload. (Note: the FTP requires having Java installed and updated.)
2. Wait a couple of hours, then check your upload history/my account to make sure your images have been processed.
3. Continue submitting from your unfinished files/my account page. Here you will find 3 submission tabs and you need to choose the proper one for your image: RF commercial, RF no keywords (image info is filled in by Dreamstime’s Keymasters, which costs $0.60 per image), or Editorial (for editorial license sales).
4: Hit the “submit” button, which will send the image to review. You can find your images in the pending files folder where they’ll stay until reviewed.
You can also load photos directly through the Dreamstime app.
Depending on the length of the Pending Line, it can take several days for someone to review your images, then you will receive an email telling whether the image was accepted or rejected. If you don’t receive an email, make sure you check your junk folder and allow messages from Dreamstime.
If your images are refused, it is based on the site’s quality guidelines and the commercial potential of the image, as images need to meet their customer’s needs both aesthetically and technically. Dreamstime will provide you with the reasons why your image was refused. If you are able to correct the problem(s) that Dreamstime points out, you can resubmit the image. If you don’t understand the reason or strongly disagree with the decision, you can contact Dreamstime. However, this does not necessarily mean your image will be approved or qualify for resubmission.
Once approved, images typically start selling after about one month. The more images you have approved, and the more often you submit images, the more likely you will have sales.
Dreamstime offers users a variety of licenses, including Royalty Free, Extended, and even Sell the Rights (SR-EL). The SR-EL means that you sell the full ownership of a particular image. You can decide whether you want to make this an option for your photos, and while Dreamstime has a recommended price list to use as a guideline, you actually set the final price.
Depending on the length of the Pending Line, it can take several days for someone to review your images, then you will receive an email telling whether the image was accepted or rejected. If you don’t receive an email, make sure you check your junk folder and allow messages from Dreamstime.
If your images are refused, it is based on the site’s quality guidelines and the commercial potential of the image, as images need to meet their customer’s needs both aesthetically and technically. Dreamstime will provide you with the reasons why your image was refused. If you are able to correct the problem(s) that Dreamstime points out, you can resubmit the image. If you don’t understand the reason or strongly disagree with the decision, you can contact Dreamstime. However, this does not necessarily mean your image will be approved or qualify for resubmission.
Once approved, images typically start selling after about one month. The more images you have approved, and the more often you submit images, the more likely you will have sales.
Dreamstime offers users a variety of licenses, including Royalty Free, Extended, and even Sell the Rights (SR-EL). The SR-EL means that you sell the full ownership of a particular image. You can decide whether you want to make this an option for your photos, and while Dreamstime has a recommended price list to use as a guideline, you actually set the final price.
Finally, you can also donate stock photos to Dreamstime’s free photo section. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is a way to increase your portfolio’s exposure.
Dreamstime: Final Thoughts
As far as microstock sites go, Dreamstime really does seem to watch out for and value its contributors.
The royalties are some of the best in the industry. The referral program and contests provide other ways to potentially earn money. Their staff is helpful and the site provides a ton of material through their blog and forums.
Whether you are wanting to get started in stock photography or just expand your exposure, Dreamstime is a good option.
