iStockphoto any good?

I just came across this site and it seems to get a lot of traffic. There was a post here a few days ago about shutterstock. Which stock photo companies offer the highest payout? Volume of sales?

Thank you for your help.

Robert

I believe shutterstock does offer the highest payout and pretty big in sales. There is a member here, I believe his name is Steve. He deals with a lot of stock sites and has success at selling his images. Hopefully he will see this and answer your question.

b0caj wrote: I believe shutterstock does offer the highest payout and pretty big in sales. There is a member here, I believe his name is Steve. He deals with a lot of stock sites and has success at selling his images. Hopefully he will see this and answer your question.

Member is Steve Heap ( backyardsilver.com ) where he lists his sales figures each month and has lots of info on stock sales.

And here he is!

iStock is my second best seller after Shutterstock. There are two issues that keep it a bit lower - the first is that they are sticklers for high quality images. Even very small aberations that would probably never be seen can cause a rejection. They pay more for larger size files and so there is always a conflict between putting the highest resolution file online versus resizing down to hide any small flaws. The second issue is that you can only upload 20 files a week, and if 5 of those are rejected, then you are only increasing your portfolio by 15 a week. As a result, I have 1300 images on iStock and 2500 on Shutterstock. If all my images were as good, that would mean that I would earn more on iStock if I could only get them online!

If you want to go ahead with stock (and want to make some money!) you really must get on both these sites.

Steve

Robert

I created a table on my blog about the earnings per image per month . The highest earner was Shutterstock with $0.24, iStock was not far behind with $0.19, the next was Dreamstime and Veer with $0.05. A big drop between the top two and the rest. Overall, I worked out that I made about 75 cents per image per month when all stock sites are taken into account.

Steve

Cool blog, what is the most you have made in one month?

Thanks for the compliments! I try to keep it up to date and interesting.

The most I have made is $1305 last October. I've been hovering around the $1100/$1200 per month since that time.

I keep on uploading - mainly because I find it interesting to go around taking photos, and partly to build a good ongoing income stream for my retirement!!

Steve

steveheap wrote: Thanks for the compliments! I try to keep it up to date and interesting.

The most I have made is $1305 last October. I've been hovering around the $1100/$1200 per month since that time.

I keep on uploading - mainly because I find it interesting to go around taking photos, and partly to build a good ongoing income stream for my retirement!!

Steve

Other than the obvious of having to go out and take new photos. Is there any maintenance to having those accounts?

Other than the obvious of having to go out and take new photos. Is there any maintenance to having those accounts?

No, there is no cost to set them up, and no maintenance cost. Once an image is online, it will continue to be available for sale (and some of my earliest shots still keep being sold.) There is an argument that because the total volume of images online keeps increasing, you need to keep up with the growth to maintain your income, but I'm not sure that is 100% right. To me, more (and different) images means that I have more chance to cover any possible need that people will have in the future.

So, once you have made the effort to get them online, they will continue to provide an income - maybe slowly decreasing - even if I stop taking any new images.

Steve

What kind of photos do best? I was told holiday themed shits pull in a steady flow of interest?

I was told holiday themed shits pull in a steady flow of interest?

I'll assume there is a spelling mistake there although there is a market for every sort of image

The ones that seem to sell best are the young bright models doing business things, but you need to hire models and have a reasonable studio for that kind of thing. Well done Christmas shots sell in the Fall, summer beaches and vacation shots sell well in the spring - I focus more on landscapes and travel images (although I've been trying more macro/studio shots lately). Each of the main sites has a section that shows their most popular images that week and "all time" but it is better to take what interests you and really try to come up with a new approach to the subject.

Steve

steveheap wrote:

I was told holiday themed shits pull in a steady flow of interest?

I'll assume there is a spelling mistake there although there is a market for every sort of image

The ones that seem to sell best are the young bright models doing business things, but you need to hire models and have a reasonable studio for that kind of thing. Well done Christmas shots sell in the Fall, summer beaches and vacation shots sell well in the spring - I focus more on landscapes and travel images (although I've been trying more macro/studio shots lately). Each of the main sites has a section that shows their most popular images that week and "all time" but it is better to take what interests you and really try to come up with a new approach to the subject.

Steve

Excellent summary of types of shots.
I'm assuming Moe meant SHOTS but I think I've known some of the others . I and O are next to each other on the keyboard.

It's a MicroStock site and provides 30% of the sell price to the photographer. Photographer owns the copyright, good or bad, that depends on you...

I'm amazed that anyone can make money on those sites. I just looked and there are so many photos on just about any keyword.

I'm amazed that anyone can make money on those sites. I just looked and there are so many photos on just about any keyword.

There are, but there are also a lot of sales each day in total, and so images can still be found and sold. I sell about 30 a day on Shutterstock (maybe 5-7 on iStock) and I must be a tiny tiny percentage of the total images on those sites

Steve