General FTP Program

If you are still uploading your images via a browser, one-by-one, and have more than a handful of images to upload, you need to check out an FTP program.  Keeping true to the ever true “K.I.S.S.” principle, a simple FTP program is still the most used piece of image submission software for microstock photographers.  A few of the most popular FTP programs are

• FileZilla (Free) PC | Mac
• CyberDuck (Free) Mac
• FireFTP - FireFox plug-in (Free) PC | Mac
  
• SmartFTP ($36.95) PC

DeepMeta

For those photographers who are uploading to iStockPhoto, DeepMeta is essential.  It may take a few minutes to find your way around the program, but once you are familiar with it – you will become entirely dependent on it – and that’s a good thing.  The program is completely free and assists you in attaching releases, keywording images, uploading, tracking – the works.  The software only works with iStock but even for non-exclusive photographer it is a indispensable tool.

[DeepMeta]

Yuri’s Keywording Tool

Yuri Arcurs provides a number of tools on his website for anyone to use.  One of the most useful features is his keywording tool.  Akin to other popular third party software, it is both free and simple.  The tool works by asking you for a few specific keywords, then, through an image search, finds other keywords which may apply to your image.  The tool needs to be used with caution as it is easy to get carried away and use too many keywords with your images, however it is a great tool for brainstorming and seeing which keywords you may have missed.

[Yuri's Keywording Tool]

PicNiche Toolbar

PicNiche is a Firefox broswer plug-in and has a number of useful functions including image uploading (similar to FTP), microstock blog updates, personal earnings notifications, a keywording tool, and various other useful link shortcuts.  The creator Bob Davies is an active MicrostockGroup member and posts updates and provides trouble shooting support in the dedicated PicNiche area of the MSG forum. The software is free – so you have no excuse to give it a run!

[PicNiche Firebox Plug-in]

ProStockMaster

ProStockMaster is the Swiss army knife of microstock tools.  The software allows you to simultaneously upload to multiple agencies, brainstorm for keywords, provides earnings statistics and allows you to search your database by metadata.  The software isn’t free but if you make good use of it, it isn’t expensive either.  The software is sold as a monthly subscription.

[ProStockMaster]

iSyndica

I did a full review of the iSyndica service earlier, so I won’t cover it all again – but suffice it to say that it is a very useful image propagation tool and stats tracker.  If bandwidth is one of your biggest deterrents to getting your images online – you will want to check out iSyndica. iSyndica has a free trial, but does cost a little if you end up using it to upload a large amounts of photos, videos or vectors.

[iSyndica]

lookstat

The other big name in third party services, Lookstat provides a full package of image services for photographers who need to lighten their workload.  They also provide detailed image sales tracking through iStock and Dreamstime with the ability to create collections to further refine earnings performance.  Lookstat provides image statistics for free, and charges if you choose to use their ‘Back Office’ image uploading / processing services.

[lookstat]

CushyStock

Similar to ProStockMaster, CushyStock provides keywording, uploading and tracking of your microstock images.  The software has a free trial, with two additional software versions depending on your needs, both sold as a one time payment.

[CushyStock]

FindPhotoKeywords

FindPhotoKeywords works similar to Yuri’s Keywording tool, but has more features.  The tool allows you to search for keyword ideas from five different sites, as well as search in 10 different languages.  While I had a few problems when selecting images from Getty, and when trying to ‘unmark all keywords’,  a number of MSG members find the site quite useful.

[FindPhotoKeywords]

FlemishTagger

If English isn’t your first language or you want help organizing and sorting your keywords – FlemishTagger could be a useful tool.  The website best describes itself as a script (javascript) to generate, reorder, edit and spell check image IPTC keyword tags.

[FlemishTagger]

Did I Miss Anything?

What tools do you use?  Did I miss anything essential?

[MSG Discussion] – Which third party tools do you use?

I recently had a chance to try out Lookstat’s back-end service, and although I have yet to  add it to my permanent workflow – I find myself looking forward to the time when I do.

The back-end service of Lookstat is a great tool for anyone who likes shooting more than sitting in front of a computer or who doesn’t have a room full of people working for them.  Microstock photography is time intensive.  Shooting and editing in larger numbers, keywording those images, and perhaps most time consuming, uploading to the large number of microstock sites – all add up to a lot of time spent per file.  Time that could have been more productively spent shooting.

For those who take advantage of the Lookstat Back-end service however – all they need to do is shoot, ‘press play’, and watch their images appear on the microstock sites of their choice.  Edited, key-worded, uploaded and processed – ready for sale.

Perhaps one of the best features of the service is it’s scalability.  If you only want to make use of a couple of the services Lookstat offers – uploading and keywording for example, you can.  Additionally, if you have a huge back-log of images, or shoot seasonally, you can use the service only when you need it, with no further commitment.  Something hiring in-house staff simply cannot compete with.

In terms of logistics, the Lookstat back-end is simple.  You upload a set of images (and releases) via FTP – wait for them to be keyworded, make any changes if necessary, download the keyword sets to your computer if you want, confirm the data and your work is done.  Lookstat takes care of the rest – and you can proceed with your next shoot while you images are pushed through the uploading process on the sites of your choice.

The luxury of an automated back end is obviously a paid service, but the price is fair given the work involved. If you are sitting with a back-log of images, which could be earning you income, you should be easily able to recoup your costs by getting these online today with Lookstat instead of in a few months (or longer) working by yourself.  To get the full pricing breakdown, and further info you’ll have to ask for details on the Lookstat site.  Alternatively, you can check out the discussion on Microstock where Rahul, the CEO checks in quite often to answer questions.

But wait, there’s more…

If you’re not a big producer or at the level where you need / want someone to take care of part of your workflow,  Lookstat has a few things that still deserve to be checked out.  Valuable features that are free.  Firstly,  Lookstat has a blog where they post suggestions for shoots along with detailed statistics showing popular search terms and possible database holes and opportunities.  If you are wondering what to shoot or which shots withing a topic may sell – browse the blog while you are brainstorming.

Secondly, the analytics side of Lookstat, which is a big part of their offering, provides a valuable tool for sales tracking and shoot performance.   Lookstat can automatically track sales on all of your images from both Dreamstime and iStock and allows you to group the images for comparison.

To Summarize

Lookstat is the Tupperware of third party services.  It is extremely useful, reliable, and an industry benchmark.

If you are involved in microstock or thinking about getting involved – check out Lookstat if for no other reason than their valuable blog posts and analytic tools.  They are free – you can hardly go wrong.

If you want to outsource some of your work load with minimal risk – check out the Back-Office service.  Like I said earlier, I haven’t added it to my permanent workflow yet – but if I manage to organize as many shoots as I hope to this year, I will definatly be offloading some of the work to them.

[Lookstat discussion on the forum]

MicrostockGroup Threads: first here, then here, and here, etc etc
Fotolia Threads : first here, then here

So what is all the fuss about?

Commission Pricing

Fotolia recently updated their pricing structure to charge $1.20 / credit for the most expensive credit packages, with other currencies also being respectively updated.   When the buyer makes a purchase with those credits, the photographer is given a % of the credits spent and not the purchase price.  So if the buyer purchases 10 credits for $12.00, then buys a photo for 10 credits (spending his $12.00 worth of credits); a white ranked photographer whose commission level is 25% will earn $2.50 (10 credits * 25%), as apposed to $3.00 ($12.00 * 25%).  This essentially gives the photographer a 21% cut of the sale instead of the 25% described in the contract.

In Fotolia’s defense, they also offer credit packages for $0.75/credit, yet still pay the photographer commissions on a full credit.  Whether the photographer is getting a good or bad deal depends on which packages Fotolia sells most of.

Exchange Rates

As if the pricing confusion wasn’t enough, the whole issue has raised an old sore spot many photographers have had with the way Fotolia handles currencies.  Depending on when and where you first signed up as a photographer, you were assigned a currency which your account is associated with.  Photographers earn ‘credits’ on the Fotolia site, then when requesting payout convert those credits to cash.  Fotolia’s ‘exchange rate’ is currently 1 Credit = 1 USD = 1 Euro = .75 GBP. For those photographers who are lucky enough to have signed up with the Euro currency, they are currently earning 37% (1 Euro = 1.36562 USD, Feb 8 2010) more than photographers with a USD Fotolia account.

In terms of image sales; if a buyer purchases credits with Euro, then spends them licensing a photographers images who gets paid in USD, a white ranked photographer could earn as little as 16% of the actual credit sale price.  On the flip side if the photographer gets paid in Euro and the buyer pays in USD and purchases the largest package, Fotolia pays out a 46% commission. (see table below)

Given these variables there is quite a large variance in the actual commissions photographers are getting for each sale.

Below are two tables.  The first table assumes the photographer gets paid in USD and is a white level photographer.  The table gives the commission levels from buyers paying in three different currencies and buying either the most or least expensive packages.  The second table is the same as the first table except the photographer is paid out in Euro.  Currency exchange rates were calculated 5 Feb 2010.

White ranked photographer paid in USD

-

White ranked photographer paid in Euro

It is pretty clear that having photographers paid in Euro is costing Fotolia a lot more than photographers paid in USD.   What commissions Fotolia is actually paying out is almost impossible to know.  Alexa claims 63% of Fotolia’s traffic heads to the German site with another 6.3% heading to Fotolia France.  Using these numbers we could assume the majority of Fotolia’s buyers are from Europe and are paying in Euro while the majority of photographers appear to be paid in USD.

How other sites deal with the problem

All microstock sites have credit packages which sell at different prices – so how to they deal with the problem?  The most common method, used by both Dreamstime and iStock for example, gives photographers a % of the actual price of the credit.  This method may be more complicated when first looking at your earnings report but provides a more transparent commission structure, which if nothing else keeps photographers happy.

Lastly, photographers seem to be upset due to a lack of response from Fotolia.  Fotolia has not made an official comment on the situation, save a small post from Chad on their forum.

Good evening everyone,

On behalf of the Fotolia team, I want to thank each of you for your patience and support while we roll-out new purchase incentives and commission structures. Rest assured, our payout averages continue to be amongst the highest in the industry. Fotolia understands and appreciates the investment contributors make in creating their material. We welcome and value your feedback. Should you have questions about Fotolia’s new program, please contact Customer Service directly and we would be happy to chat with you.

Fotolia Management

© Hartphotography Dreamstime.com

There seems to be a never ending supply of threads where people find their images stolen or being given away for free.  Our first line of defense should be to contact the infringing party directly.  There is still a lot of education to be done regarding proper licensing and many people do not know how to license an image, or that stock photography even exists at all.  If we inform the offending party – we not only stop them misusing our images, but have the chance of gaining a new microstock customer.  Make use of a good referral link when you notify them and you will not only profit from the sale of another image but from the referral income as well.   Shutterstock recently contacted an offending party, who purchased the wrong license for their image use, which resulted in multiple extended license downloads for many members on MicrostockGroup.  Most people are honest and want to do what is right – we need to help them know what is right.

Maybe Not So Innocent

Ok, I’ll admit that sometimes people aren’t so innocent and outright steal images to give away, sell, or build up a portfolio on flickr or some other photo sharing site.  If you get no response from first contacting the infringing party – it is time to get more serious.

Microstock Sites

If the images are being sold on a microstock site, contact the site directly and explain the situation.  Give links to both your own, and the offending images.  Most sites have a link on the bottom of every page labeled ‘contact’ or ’support’ which you can use to send them a message.  The microstock sites are quick to take down infringing photos and deal harshly with users who upload infringing content.

Flickr

Most photo sharing website are more than willing to remove infringing content from their site, and flickr is no exception.  A quote from the flickr guidelines:

Copyright Infringement
If you see photos or videos that you’ve created in another member’s photostream, don’t panic. This is probably just a misunderstanding and not malicious. A good first step is to contact them and politely ask them to remove it. If that doesn’t work, please file a Notice of Infringement with the Yahoo! Copyright Team who will take it from there.

You may be tempted to post an entry on your photostream or in our public forum about what’s happening, but that’s not the best way to resolve a possible copyright problem. We don’t encourage singling out individuals like this on Flickr.

[Flickr Guidelines]

If flickr agrees that the image is infringing on your copyright, and generally they will, flickr will remove the image from their  website.  If the member’s portfolio is primarily made up of infringing content, the entire account will be deleted.

For a form letter you can send to flickr, along with addresses and further information, check out this information from Kevin Hulsey

[flickr copyright and intellectual property policy]

Google

If a website is hosting your content, one recourse is to report it to Google.  This won’t get the site or the image removed from the internet but it will remove the site from the Google search results and should drastically decrease the amount of traffic the site receives.  For addresses and information on contacting Google, as well as a form letter check out Kevin Hulsey’s page again.

Web Host

Most websites are hosted at a web host.  You can find which webhost a website is using with a simple ‘who is’ search.  Once you have found the website, send them a form letter informing them of the infringement.  All web hosts will have different policies regarding copyright infringement but if a site is hosting your content, they should take steps towards getting it removed.  Also, remember that the host must receive a “reasonable amount of time” to remove the content.

Do you have any other suggestions for protecting your intellectual property?  Let’s hear them in the comments.

[In the Forum: MicrostockGroup Image Sleuths]

© Photographer: Gibsonff | Agency: Dreamstime.com

New Pricing

Since the new year Fotolia, iStock and Dreamstime all have updated their pricing. I did a review of the iStock update here.  Getting your head around the various image sizes each site is offering as well as what they are charging for the credit packages they sell and lastly the variety of price levels the images can have – is confusing to say the least.

The Table

To try make sense of some of the information and see how the agencies compare, I have put the information for the top 6 microstock sites in a table.

The table shows what each site is currently selling images for at their cheapest and most expensive offering. To calculate the most expensive price I took the cost of the most expensive credit sold and calculated what the cost of the most expensive type of image would be. On iStock for example this would mean buying a package of 12 credits then buying an exclusive image, for Dreamstime it would be a level 5 image etc. The cheapest image was calculated from using the most expensive credit package purchase (giving the cheapest price per credit) and buying the cheapest type of image.

The ‘high end’ collections, such as iStock Vetta, 123RF Evo etc., that some of the sites offer, have not been included in the table.

The table is color coded to hopefully help give a clearer picture of how things compare. Each image size has a color, if there is no pricing for a given image size for a site – the higher price (color) is used because that is what the buyer would need to buy if they needed that size. For example, if I needed a 3mp image and I were buying it from iStock, you can see that the 3mp cell for iStock is colored the same as it is for the 5mp image which means you would have to pay $9.50-$22.80.

Observations

So what does the table show us? Excluding Shutterstock for a second, it is interesting to see that the three most popular sites offer the widest range of prices.  It appears to be working for them.  Certain buyers are willing to part with “big” money in order to purchase desirable files, while the agencies still provide cheaper priced images for to those buyers who want them.

Shutterstock is primarily a subscription site, so it is almost unfair to include them in this table, but they do offer credit purchases and at surprisingly cheap prices.  Shutterstock, 123RF and StockXpert haven’t updated their prices for 2010 yet, so lets hope they have something good in store for photographers.

[Discuss on Microstockgroup]

If you aren’t familiar with iSyndica, it works like this.

• You upload your photos / video / vectors to iSyndica via FTP or online uploader
• You click a couple buttons on the iSyndica website
• Your images are immediately available on 35+ websites, ready for submission

That description may be a little simplified, but it is essentially what happens.  Want more info?  Here is the breakdown…

Getting your files onto iSyndica

This is the only spot in the workflow where you have to sit and wait.  I found uploading via FTP the simplest, and comparable to uploading to any other website.  Once the files had finished uploading they were immediately avaible for editing for syndication on my iSyndica control panel.

Last minute editing

If you don’t keyword your images before uploading, iSyndica provides a nice user interface to add keywords to your images.  The UI has made great use of AJAX, letting you edit the keywords on all your files without the page ever having to reload.

What sites does iSyndica Support?

I think it would be simpler to list the sites iSyndica DOESN’T support, but quite frankly I couldn’t find one.  The current list of supported photography sites is at 35.  That is more than enough to satisfy even the most ‘band wagon hopping’ prolific microstockers.  If you do manage to find a site that iSyndica doesn’t support, perhaps a site of your own or the ‘next big start up’ you can enter the settings as a generic FTP account.

Entering your account information for the various microstock sites is straight forward with the iSyndica double checking the credentials immediately, letting you know if you made a mistake.

As an additional feature, iSyndica also support a number of ‘promotional’ sites where you might want to upload part of your portfolio to generate traffic or advertise yourself.  These sites include facebook, twitter, Flickr, Picassa etc…

Sending the files out – the magic happens

Now the magic starts!  I have a fast internet connection, but a 500mb video file still takes around 2 hours to get online via FTP.   Photos can be uploaded quicker but a folder of 50 images can easily take close to an hour.  Once the images are online with iSyndica however – you simply select the images you want to syndicate, then start selecting the sites you want those images sent to.  Seconds later the files are ready for editing at the microstock site.  If you are used to having to wait 10 hours to upload a folder of images to 10 sites, or 20 hours for 2 videos to 5 sites, you are in for a treat. This is where you will go wow.  With iSyndica you are uploading your image once but getting your images online everywhere.

So what’s the catch?

So with all these great features, what is the catch?  Well none, really – except maybe that it isn’t totally free.  They do have a free trial account however, and if you are hobby photographer, that may be all you need.

Pricing is based on a credit system.  In the trial account you are given 100 free credits to use each month.  That means you can upload 100 images to 1 site, or 20 images to 5 sites.  One upload to one site costs 1 credit.  Full pricing info here.

For hobby photographers, iSyndica ends up being quite cheep, if not free.  For full time microstock photographers, the costs start adding up.  I have a fairly low production level for someone doing microstock full time, but I still try to upload 200 images / month.  I upload these images to around 15 sites.  To accomplish this through iSyndica, would cost me 3000 credits (200 images x 15 sites), which come at a cost of $40 ( the largest package which includes 1200 credits/month) + $18 (1800 additional credits) = $58/month.  $58/month isn’t really a big deal when making a full time income from microstock, and for someone with a slow internet connection this would be very tempting.  iSyndica is up against stiff competition however as their main competitor is ftp uploading from your computer to each site individually.  This method takes 15x longer in my case, and requires a dose of patience, but it is also free.

Added Value

iSyndica offers a few things, general FTP uploading does not.

In the ‘Syndicate’ panel, you are given a clear overview of which images are uploaded to which sites.  This list can include all your files, only images from organized groups, or by upload batch.  For those with poor organization skills – this could be very usefull

iSyndica also provides pretty graphs of your earnings from the majority of the sites.  The graphs can be displayed in a variety of ways – daily / yearly, sales / downloads, including / excluding certain sites etc.

If you are paranoid about hard drive failure, iSyndica has that covered too.  With everything but the free account, you can download your files from their site – providing you with a great backup resource.

Another interesting feature is their downsizing option.  If you want to re-size your images before uploading them to a certain website, you can automatically set this in your settings.

What I miss

After using iSyndica for a few weeks there are a few things I miss.

When selecting a number of photos I would really like to see how many images are selected.  Having such powerful tools can make for powerful mistakes.  If I select all images in a group, I would like a note that I have selected, for example, 50 images.  I often know how many images ’should’ be in a group, so this would also give me confirmation that everything got into that group correctly.

I would like to see reporting of earnings by group.  Being able to see how much a given shoot has earned is very important information which can be difficult to glean from the microstock sites themselves.   iSyndica doesn’t do this yet but I see it is in the ‘planned’ features.

[iSyndica Forum Discussion]

What are the changes?

There are 4 main changes announced.  iStock will introduce Tiered Collections, make a small adjustment to their credit prices, adjust the needed sales for each canister level and make some front end improvements.

Tiered collections

(starting January 7, 2010)

The Main Collection

The main collection will be built from non-exclusive images.  All pricing will stay as it currently is, except for the two largest photo sizes, where we will see a price cut.

Current Pricing – photos

New Pricing – photos

iStock Exclusive Collection

iStock exclusive images will be seeing a significant increase in their sale prices.  Prices will increase anywhere from 7%-100%.

Current Pricing – photos

New Pricing – photos

Current Pricing – vector

New Pricing – vector

Note: All Exclusive elaborate files are currently in Vetta

Exclusive Plus Collection

(will launch later than the other collections)

iStock exclusives will be able put 20% of their portoflio into the Exclusive Plus Collection.  Pricing for this collection is not yet set (and neither is the name), but will be somewhere between Exclusive and Vetta.

Vetta collection

The vetta collection currently represents around 1% of the total iStock database.  iStock will continue on with this successful collection, keeping pricing unchanged.

Current (and future) pricing

2010 Credit Price Changes

(starting January 7, 2010)

There will be a very small adjustment to the price of a credit.

Canister Level Changes

(starting February 24, 2010)

Current contributors will be grandfathered in to their existing levels.
Update: Kelly Thompson just announced that Exclusive contributors will be grandfathered into the levels for one additional step.  If you are a gold photographer on Feb. 24, you will only need 25,000 sales to reach diamond.  The next level, Black Diamond, would then be at the new levels and take 400,000 sales. [Announced 18 Dec. 2009] [Discuss]

Site updates

iStock also mentions they are constantly making updates to the backend of the site, but coming soon – they will be making improvements to the front end as well.

How does this affect the seller?

What we know!

• iStock hasn’t mentioned if they are going to shuffle the search results again, but they have stated that the Exclusive and Main collection will be shown together, in a similar manner as exclusive and non-exclusive files are currently shown.
• Exclusive photographers will receive 12.5%-20% less commissions for each sale when they reach the level that would have put them into the next canister level.
  Let’s say we have an exclusive contributor with 2000 downloads right now – lets call him Thor.   Thor is currently a Bronze contributor earning 25% commissions.  Thor won’t make it to silver before February when they change the canister system.  In March Thor reaches 2500 downloads.  With the new system however, he stays at Bronze canister level (25% commission) instead of getting silver and 30% commission.  So from march 2010 onwards, iStock is getting 5% more of Thor’s earnings than they would have without the change.  That 5% would have been a 20% increase in earnings for Thor (5/20 = 20%).
  make sense?  iStock are taking a higher percentage of the sale whenever someone SHOULD have reached the next canister but didn’t because of the change.
• iStock exclusives will see an increase in sale prices from 7%-100%.  Medium sized images will be selling for 67% more.  Despite the ‘earnings cut’ they receive due to canister changes, exclusives should see an overall increase in earnings due to the increase in prices.
• Currently, iStock is making more money from a non-exclusive sale compared to a sale from an exclusive photographer.  Once the changes take place, iStock will be making more money from an exclusive sale.  Using a medium file as an example.
  

  Canister Level	iStock’s Share - Current pricing @ 6 credits for all sales	iStock’s Share - new pricing @ 6 credits non-exclusive sale 10 credits exclusive sale
  non-exclusive	4.8 credits	4.8 credits
  Bronze	4.5 credits	7.5 credits
  Silver	4.2 credits	7 credits
  Gold	3.9 credits	6.5 credits
  Diamond	3.6 credits	6 credits
  Black Diamond	3.6 credits	6 credits

What we like to think we know!

• There have been rumors about iStock offering non-exclusive photographers the opportunity to upload exclusives files.  This rumor is totally unfounded, but comes from Kelly making this statement.
  We’re also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively.
  The fact that Kelly used the word ‘also’ makes it seem like there is something more than just the regular exclusive deal.  Time will tell.
• As mentioned earlier, iStock is currently making the most income per sale from non-exclusive sales.  In the future iStock will make significantly more from exclusive sales.  Many people are suggesting that iStock may decrease the non-exclusive presence in the already heavily exclusive-biased search results.
• Non-exclusive files may gain a slight advantage on iStock in regards to price sensative buyers.  For buyers who have a strict budget of a few dollars, they may choose a cheaper non-exclusive image, over a similar, more expensive exclusive image.
• With Vetta, Exclusive Plus, and higher overall commissions for exclusive photographers, iStock seems to be tempting a lot of non-exclusive photographers to put on an exclusive crown.  In the MSG thread there is a lot of discussion and anticipation about how the other microstock sites will compete to keep their photographers.

Have I forgotten anything?  Are there ways the industry will be affected that I haven’t touched on?

Post your comments in the blog, or get in the discussion:

Discussion on MicrostockGroup
Announcement thread on iStock Photo

This is my rebuttal to the points made in the blog.

…”Thoughts of a Bohemian” blog (here), shares the news that a 33 year old Orangutan earns a raisin for every photo taken.

The Orangutan taking photos and receiving a raisin – no problems,  full story here.  More power to Nonja

… you shoot, say, a gross of 500 images and get, say, 10 accepted.

If you are shooting 500 images you are going to get a lot more than 10 images accepted.  I can’t say for others, but I know for myself that on a recent shooting day I pressed the shutter 1000 x and will be getting around 200 microstock shots.  I also have a quote from Yuri who mentions he gets 200 images from a day of shooting microstock.  So 500 clicks of the shutter would give 100 images accepted, not 10.

How long does it take for those 10 accepted photos to make $75? Quite awhile, when the average per-sale figure is about $2, according to Jim Pickerell, in this article.

Using hard numbers (my own), I make about $2.00/image/month.  So how long would it take to get my raisins?  $75 (the cost of raisins) /(100 images  x $2.00/image/month) =  .375 months or 11.25 days.  Unlike the Orangutan’s payment however, microstock earnings are perpetual – they don’t stop earning after 11.25 days.  An average microstock image can be expected to earn well over $100 with those having strong portfolios earning over $200/image average.

The numbers could be even worse. According to the iStock Contributors site here, the TOP contributor, Yuri Arcurs, in 4 years only has 5,006 files uploaded, which equates to 104 images a month, on average, that are accepted. the site lists Arcurs as having 136 new files in the last 30 days. In his profile here, it is suggested he shoots “hundreds of 39mp files per day…”, so assuming he shoots 5 days a week, and let’s say 200 images a day, that’s 1,000 a week, 4,000 a month, and he’s only getting 136 accepted – and he’s the TOP guy? That’s a 3.5% shoot-to-acceptance ratio.

Yuri has over 24,000 images on Dreamstime and over 25,000 images on Shutterstock. So to say that Yuri only gets 136 files ‘accepted’ each week is simple mis-information.  Yuri has ’so few’ images on iStock simply because of their strict upload limits.  Yuri is in the top tier of non-exclusives (black diamond) and is still limited to uploading 35 images/week.  At 35 images/week that gives him nearly 100% acceptance ratio if he were to use 100% of his upload spots.  We don’t know how many images he tried to upload but I am guessing his acceptance ratio is around 99%.  That is a pretty different picture than the 3.5% quoted.

So yes, this generalization of math and microstock income provides the rough estimation that even a monkey is smarter than almost all microstock photographers.

To say the orangutan is smarter than any human is quite insulting, but to say that the orangutan is earning more than some microstock photographers is no doubt true.  Many photographers are not trying to make a living from microstock and are using it as a form of entertainment – as a hobby.  It is no different than uploading your photos to flickr or facebook.  It is simply a fun photographic activity.  If the orangutan earns more in raisins than these people do from their photos it makes no difference.  For others however, those who are into microstock for the money – it does make a difference whether the industry is viable or not.

Pulling data from last years poll we can see that 10% of the photographers who responded (out of 244 respondants) earned more than $25,000.  This is a significant amount and although $25,000 wouldn’t be able to support many families living in the U.S. it would be a substantial secondary income.  It would also be an exceptional income for people living in many parts of the world.

Changing to an income of $50,000/year we get 5% of the photographers making the cut.

Personally, I think this whole argument is a little ridiculous.  Many photographers have proven that it is more than possible to make a very healthy living from microstock.  That in itself should be proof enough that microstock is a viable industry.  Given that 5% of the respondents from last year’s poll seem to be making a very healthy income is substantial proof that it isn’t just a select few that can achieve success.  Microstock can be a profession for anyone with a little talent, knowledge of photography and will to make a serious commitment to building a portfolio.

Edit: Also, please note that this is a somewhat small sample size from the microstock industry.  Dreamstime, for example, currently has 80,000+ contributors, while only 244 microstock photographers responded to the survey.  I have good reason to believe that the results give a fair picture of the industry, but given the large number of photographers who did not take part in the survey, there could be discrepancies.

It is going to be interesting to compare this data to the 2009 results in regards to industry outlook, agency success and hardship (failure), portfolio sizes, income etc…

Photographers who responded to the survey: 244

Male: 77%  Female: 23%

Average gross microstock income for all photographers: $10,000

Average gross microstock income for full time microstock photographers (those earning over 50% of their income from microstock): $34,700

Number of full time microstock photographers who responded to the poll: 34 (13.9% of respondents)

Do you feel the future of microstock photography is positive?

Here is a graph which shows the income of all the photographers who responded to the poll.    The majority of photographers are earning less than $1,000.  Only two respondents stated income over $100,000 with an interesting bump in the graph for photographers earning over $10,000

Compared to a graph which displays the number of images each photographer had online, we see a number of similarities.  There are really only a few people who are seriously putting time into microstock with a lot of people just doing it in their spare time.  This is to be expected however, as that is what microstock is all about.  Providing a platform to the hobbyist to sell their work.  Those who generate a full time income from microstock are the exception.

In 2008, when asked about the site which generated the most income, Shutterstock easily falls into first place with iStock a distant second.  Fotolia has been really gaining ground this year and it will be interesting to see if they pass Dreamstime or if the graph remains similar.

Which site generates the most income?

I find it interesting though, how Microstock is said to be UGC (user generated content).  It is indeed UGC as we can see by the number of hobbyists which submit and the mass number of photographers signed up at various agencies.  But the images on the microstock sites don’t look like user generated content – content which is amateurish, spontaneous and natural.  I find this quite odd because the industry seems to have been turned upside down.  The content which looks like UGC is all the rage at Getty and other traditional agencies, created by professional photographers (and recently Flickr invitees), while the UGC photographers on the microstock sites are creating clean crisp images.

If you are interested in seeing other results from the poll let me know and I can add them to the blog post, or if think something was missed in last year’s survey let me know it in the comments.

Here are last year’s questions

1 Are you male or female?
2 Your age?
3 Are you exclusive to iStock?
4 How much money did you gross from microstock photography in 2008?
5 Is microstock photography your primary source of income (over 50%)?
6 In the future do you hope to make microstock photography your primary source of income?
7 Are you happy to keep microstock photography your primary source of income?
8 How much did you spend on photography / computer equipment and software during 2008?
9 How much did you spend on microstock photography shoots?
10 What percentage of your total income is earned from microstock photography?
11 Do you feel the future of microstock photography is positive?
12 Do you activley submit images to Alamy ?
13 Which microstock photography websites do you actively submit to?
14 Excluding Alamy, do you submit to any Macrostock agencies?
15 Which macrostock sites do you actively contribute to?
16 On average, how many hours a week do you spent on microstock photography?
17 In December of last year, how many  images did you have for sale in the microstock marketplace.?
18 Do you have any employees or work as a team with anyone creating microstock imagry?
19 How many MONTHS have you been involved in microstock photography?
20 Do you have any sort of formal photography training?
21 Are you planning / hoping to go exclusive with iStock within the next 12 months ?
22 Are you considering becoming a non exclusive photographer in the next 12 months?
25 Do you plan to submit stock video in the future?
26 In 2008, On which site did you generate the most income?
27 In 2008 which site gave you the highest return per image (RPI)?

Subscriptions always bring heated debate amongst photographers.  Even though microstock photographers are selling their images for pennies a piece (even if it is 100 or more pennies) many photographers get very upset, and perhaps rightly so, when the images are sold for even fewer pennies in the form of subscriptions.  I have compared seven microstock agencies and their respective subscription plans.  Who is giving the most back to the photographer may surprise you!

Where they came from and how they work.

Shutterstock was the first microstock agency to offer subscriptions with many (read every) other agency trying to mimic their large success.  The idea is similar to images on a CD which traditional agencies used to sell.  The buyer pays for a subscription plan up front, and then is allowed to download X number of images each day (or month, or year – depending on the agency).  If they do not download any images on a given day, those download spots are lost.

So what is the problem?

The problem that many photographers have with subscriptions, is the agencies are selling the images very cheaply.  As seen in the graph below, the cost per image for the buyer can be as low as $0.18, while the average return per download for credit based microstock sales are somewhere around $1.00.

Are subscriptions really cutting into earnings?

The one saving grace in regards to subscription sales, is that there can be a lot of them.  It is not uncommon for a photographer with a large (read several thousand images) portfolio to have over 100 sales on any given day with Shutterstock.  Because the buyers download quota expires each day (or month), the buyer ends up downloading many more images than they need.  This gives the photographer sales they otherwise wouldn’t have gotten and spreads the sales out amongst more photographers / images.  That is Shutterstock however.  Other agencies have subscription plans, but the volume isn’t there to justify their price.  What really matters for any photographer is the return ($$) per image.  If an agency is going to offer subscription sales, there had better be lots of them.

Getting your head around the various subscriptions plans.

Subscriptions can be confusing to understand.  Some agencies have 15 or more different plans they sell to buyers.  Depending on the agency, photographers are rewarded with everything from a fixed commission per sale, graduated commission based on image size downloaded, to a fixed percentage of the gross income a commission plan generate.  Confused yet?

The Table!

In the table below I have tried to compare the various subscription offerings of 7 popular microstock agencies.  I have chosen a subscription plan of 12 months which offers around 25 images / day.  This is one of the cheaper plans the agencies offer in regards to image cost to the buyer.  I acted as if I was a buyer looking for ~4MP images.  This plays into the results a bit as some agencies have varied pricing depending on the download size.

SS = Shutterstock, PM = PantherMedia, iS = iStock, CrS = Crestock, FT = Fotolia, DT = Dreamstime, 123RF = 123RoyaltyFree

*1: Entire Package Commission Percentage – (Photographers Share / per image cost for buyer * 100 = EPCP)  This is a simple calculation to compare the amount of the subscription package the agency would be giving back to the photographer assuming the buyer used the entire package.  Of course, very few (if any) buyers use their entire package, which is how agencies make money, but this figure is useful however because it gives us a metric to compare the agencies to one another.

*2: 1 year plan, 240 credits/day

*4: iStock’s download limits are per credit as apposed to per file.  This number is based on a package with 240 credits/day.  Downloading large images at 4.9mp we get 20 images /day *365 days = 7300 images.

*3: PantherMedia always transfers to the contributor 50% of the consumed subscription credits (of his images) to his “subscription account”.  At the end of each month, the actual monthly value of a credit is calculated. This means: calculated is the complete revenue from the subscription model compared to all downloaded subscription images per month. This is the “monthly value” of a credit.

*5: If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 240 uses 12 credits that day, all on one of your files, you’d income from all 240 credits, so (240/240) × 20% × $66.54 (the daily value of the yearly package price) = $13.30.  If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 240 uses all 240 credits that day, and purchases only one of your files for 12 credits :  (12/240) × 20% × $66.54 = $0.67.  There is a minimum payout of $0.19/credit download.  iStock keeps all revenue on days the package is not used.

*6: Based on a the average buyer using 50% of the package on 15 days in a month.  I believe these amount to be approximately correct based on how much of the PantherMedia packages are used and the commission levels the agencies give out for credit sales.  If there is any error in the assumed average amount of a package used, I believe it to be on the liberal side.  That is to say, if anything, less of the package is used – reducing the photographers share even more.

What have I learned!
Well, a couple of things.  First, looking at the price the agencies charge the buyers.  PantherMedia, Crestock, and Fotolia are the cheapest with PantherMedia undercutting the others by a few hundred dollars – but with the packages chosen, Fotolia also has the lowest resolution.  If you want higher resolution at Fotolia you need the Premium subscription plan.  Looking at the EPCP and hypothetical photographers percentage for these three agencies we can see that Crestock is giving the least back to photographers, while Fotolia and Panther are actually giving back a quite fair share.  Even if the agencies are giving a fair share however, it is important that they still charge a fair sum to the buyers – something which some people could argue, they are not doing.

On the other side of the scale, we have iStock charging an extremely high sum to the buyers but giving the photographers very little.  iStock has been applauded by photographers for their subscription program, suggesting it is the most fair.  One of the best points about iStock’s subscription plan is it is size based.  A buyer has X amount of credits per day.  If he uses them on large images he will be able to purchase fewer images than if he spent them on small images.  Photographers like this and feel they get paid accordingly.  iStock has a minimum payout per downloaded credit which is currently your share of 96 cents – which would be $0.19 for a non exclusive. That means that if you had a file large file downloaded (12 credits worth) on a day the buyer used their entire subscription on your image and other images – you would receive (12*0.19) $2.28.  This looks like a fair number, and indeed is significantly larger than any other microstock agency offers – but iStock’s average payout is still the lowest.   That said, iStock charges a lot for their subscriptions so the photographer’s share in terms of dollars is still well above any other agency.  If iStock does one thing right, it is charging a decent price for their imagery.  That in addition to their large customer base – keeps the photographers coming back.

Despite Shutterstock being many photographer’s top earning agency, they also give out a very low photographer’s commissions.  They have a very large customer base, charge more for their packages and thus can give the photographers a smaller percentage and still keep the photographers happy.  I don’t want to be an advocate of low commissions but it is interesting to note that the two agencies giving the lowest commissions are generating the highest income for photographers.  Perhaps this lets them advertise more than their competitors who are giving a higher commission percentage to photographers.

Panthermedia gives out the highest commissions rate, while Fotolia and 123RF fight for second place depending on the photographers ranking at Fotolia.  Kudos to these guys!

[Discuss on Microstockgroup Forum]