Microstock Agencies - An Overview for Beginners
Posted on: May 23, 2008 (23) CommentsThe purpose of this post is to give you a two minute, super quick overview of the landscape of microstock agencies and which ones to submit to.
Below you will find a graphic overview of my total income from the different agencies over the last three years of my microstock carrier.
The non-exclusive microstock distribution channel (submitting to a lot of agencies, such as I do) still remains the best income provider, despite the higher commission of the exclusivity offers out there.
Finding where to sign up at these agencies can sometimes be a little difficult, so therefor I have provided links to the sign-up pages at each agency at the bottom of this post. If you use the link below you will become affiliated with me and are entitled to personal guidance by me or my staff. We can do this because we get a tiny percentage of your income if you are affiliated with us.
Income Primo 2008
Income Late 2008
The income speaks for itself but you should always take into consideration the time it takes to organize, upload, attach model releases and assign categories at the different agencies. Some agencies have made it extremely easy to upload and organize your images, including Crestock and 123RF. Other agencies have not thought so hard about this aspect and it can therefor be quite time consuming to get your files submitted for inspection. Files have to be categorized and organized before they are evaluated by the editors where they may or may not get rejected.
If you have just spent hours organizing your files and a lot of them get rejected afterwards it can be quite frustrating. Below I have included the result of a study on average agency online management time consume. (The time it takes to attach model release, categories and so forth once the files are already online).
Uploading time compared to income, (Primo 2008)
The most cost-efficient (time spent uploading vs income) agency to upload to is Shutterstock, followed by StockXpert and Fotolia. The least cost-efficient is Snapvillage and Istock. This does not mean that you should not submit to these agencies, but just that you should take this into consideration if you have to do all the uploading yourself. The Yuri Arcurs Distribution Network does keywording as well as uploading for very good stock photographers joining microstock. Read the requirements and find out if this could be you (post almost ready)
Below are the links to the sign-ups at the different agencies. Good Luck in microstock!
Istock Fotolia Shutterstock StockXpert Dreamstime 123RF Bigstockphoto Crestock Snapvillage
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Hi! I didn’t quite understand… how does one become elligible for Yuri Arcurs Distribution Network keywording service? Just by signing in via some of the links provided, or by signing in via ALL the links provided (for instance, I have already established my account on some of them, but not all the major players), or by paying for the service?
Thank you
You don’t get eligible for the service before we have evaluated if it is cost-efficient for us to manage your production. If we estimate that you are capable of hitting a high return per image you will be invited to join. If you want to join or hear more about the service you are welcome to contact me directly. An official page will launch very soon however.
Hi Yuri,
I’m a big fan of you in istockphoto and I know that your small rectangle in Snapvillage is probably 10 times my total income in Istock. I wonder if you ever considered (or calculated) the possibility to cut the last 4 websites to save time for your staff (and possibly money for you) and to concentrate more on the first 5?
Hej Yuri,
I’m very interested in microstock photography. I am a photographer currently working exclusively with some stock agencies and do not see the income I expected (and think I deserve).
I currently have 2000+ images but had a few questions, would you might helping me? (That would be my first question)
2. Do you submit the same images to every stock agencies?
3. How do you decide where to submit each (if you don’t submit everything everywhere) ?
Thank you.
Victor.
To Victor: If you plan on non-exclusive then you need to spread out as much as possible. I do yes, submit the same images to different agencies. Only a few agencies offers exclusivity deals: Dreamstime, Fotolia and Istock. Non of these offers currently pay as much as non-exclusivity. Istock exclusivity will pay almost the same, but you have a upload limit.
TO Ibusca. God question! I would advice anyone without a big staff to do just that. Stick to top five (top six). However, if you have a big staff, the extra income is worth it. I get around 1000 USD per month form a small agency like Bigstock, even though they are very difficult to upload to. If I get an assistant working on this, and he/she does 100 uploads per day, then this will very fast pay half his/her salary.
THANK YOU for sharing all this info… This has saved me so much time looking these link up….
brian
Yuri, thank you !!!
I have done image inspecting for 2 microstock agencies you submit to as I still work for one currently. Your images are fabulous to inspect and I don’t remember ever rejecting any of them. Always fabulous composition and very sharp and clean..
The above graph is not valid anymore. I will update is as soon as I can. Istock and Fotolia are about tie in earnings now. Istock falls back because of their upload limit, low commission and lower starting prices.
Thanks for info…there exist a new microstock agency Pixmac (www.pixmac.com)
Yuri…you take great images and this is a great website. Thanks for the information. Very valuable!!
Two questions:
1. Any particular reason you don’t submit to Alamy? They seem to be a big player in micro and macro.
2. I’m assuming it would not be cost-effective for you to sell your images on your own ecommerce website.
Thanks…and keep up the great work!
some feedback for your site as a “thank you” for sharing:
the link http://www.arcurs.com/model-preparations-before-a-shoot is not working
at the top it shows 6877 Total Visitors 30571 Visitors Today 8 Visitors Online; not very logical
the video blog needs better lighting
Congrats! Number 2 in Total Downloads and Number 1 in Daily Downloads…..
I think this link is good for newbies, too.
http://www.istockcharts.de
You are a busy great photographer but you also have time to teach and speak and review.
You are really a GOOD person. I learned so much from you, thank you.
Thank you for all this,
I want to know why you have just 3650 photos in istock but in Shutterstock and Dreamstime you have more than 12000 files
HI Yuri,
I’ve been reading here today as I’m trying to make the decision whether or not to go exclusive at one of the big micro sites. This has been very helpful and the level of information you provide is fantastic. Thank you very much.
Looking at the late 2008 figures it still seems to me that you could make more money from going exclusive. For instance, if you went exclusive at iStock you would more than double your income from that site overnight (20% to 40% royalties + 10% extra for ELs). You currently don’t even get the preferrential treatment in Best Match that exclusives get - and I can see from the stats sites that the recent change in BM at iStock hurt your sales. Also by going exclusive you would increase from whatever paltry upload limit you have now as a non-exclusive to having 150 or 200 uploads a week which I assume you could fill easily. You could double your current portfolio on iStock in less than 6 months and be 10,000+ images within 12 months. With that in mind your iStock earnings in 12 months would be 4 to 6 (more than double $ per sale, triple portfolio size) times what you are earning now.
If you then take into account how you could simplify your overall process from 10 sites down to 1, and associated reductions in paperwork, man power etc. it further adds to the benefits.
Another benefit is that by uploading the same images or even similar images to a number of sites you are cannibalising your own sales. If a designer knows you upload to a number of sites they will go to the cheapest site they can and download your images there. If they are all at one site, a buyer knows they have to go there to get your images, and I suspect your buyers will follow you because of the style and quality of your images. Fair enough, you may lose a few along the way, but they will be more than made up for in other ways.
Obviously there are other concerns, you can’t just stop contributing to some of the sites you contribute to as they have tie in periods and you have talked about the difficulty uploading to iStock which I think can be overcome if you use some of the tools available like DeepMeta.
I should add that I contribute to iStock as an exclusive so I am somewhat biased and the value equation might be even better at one of the other sites but surely you can see the benefit of increasing your volume by 300-400% in a year.
Anyway, something to think about and I’m sure you’ve done the sums for yourself in the past and indeed it might be that the time for you to jump ship was earlier this year when your portfolio on other sites wasn’t so large.
Dave
Yuri,
thank you very much for all the information, your site is great and your tools specially keywords are wonderful, the only thing I have a suggestion with is the color you use, white letter over black background makes it hard and tiring to read long sentences like the one Dave posted.
regards
Rafael
Interesting, I think others results may vary though. My income distribution looks a little different but generally your top earners are also my top earners. For instance, Bigstockphoto makes about 20% of what iStock makes for me, and for you it seems to only make a fraction of that relative to the income of your top earners. Dreamstime is about 50% of what Istock generates, Fotolia and Shutterstock are about the same for me, each about 65% the monthly revenue I get from Istock. I am also on some small non-microstock agencies that do as well as my top microstock earners for me. I imagine Yuri may have some other revenue sources not included here that would make him think twice about going exclusive as well.
Thanks for this Information. It is a nice topic and I hope we can see many new great Photos in 2009 of you.
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