As far as earnings go it's number 5th for me out of the 11 I submit to. That translates into very slow but steady sales. Very poor payout options, only Paypal and Moneybookers. No check or EFT. There's a $1 fee to get the money to Paypal.
Uploading is about the same as most other sites. Nothing particularly annoying or praiseworthy. They have accepted 96% of the images I've submitted with rejections being odd but not unreasonable.
Overall, if you have the time go ahead and upload otherwise stick with one of the better microstock sites.
EDIT: That should have read there is a $1 fee to get the money to Paypal if you want <$50. Unlike some other microstock sites their minimum for payout is quite low at $2.
Well, I don't have a huge portfolio anywhere yet, but Fotolia has made me more money than Shutterstock. More downloads at Shutterstock, but you get more per photo at Fotolia. Plus, Shutterstock seems to be turning down more and more photos--which gets a bit frustrating.
Haven't done payouts anywhere yet, so I can't advise on that front. But downtime for photo review and approval is very prompt.
I asked because I found Fotolia to be much more responsive and they were fast in approving my images. Within the same day, I got online. However, I did not go into their details of payouts etc. I have both moneybookers and paypal so I guess that is easy enough.
Personally, I feel although smaller sites may not be as popular right now, they should get better in due course if they have the stamina. Being small also means they try harder and don't take as long to review images.
Fotolia has made me more money than Shutterstock. More downloads at Shutterstock, but you get more per photo at Fotolia.
Really? For me Shutterstock gets 14x the number of downloads of Fotolia. Even with the average earnings per sale being $0.31 at Shutterstock and $0.51 at Fotolia it works out well in favor of Shutterstock.
Personally, I feel although smaller sites may not be as popular right now, they should get better in due course if they have the stamina. Being small also means they try harder and don't take as long to review images.
Depends on what you mean by "smaller". Fotolia, at least by number of images, is the largest microstock. Larger than Istock or Shutterstock.
Well, perhaps, I should have said less popular sites.
Didn't know they had that many photos but they were fast in reviewing my submission and they caught my eye. Even though I had to mail DVDs to Alamy, they were quite prompt in doing their part and within 3 weeks or so from the time I sent the DVDs half way across the globe, I had my images up. On the other hand, iStock, Shutterstock and Dreamstime are taking far longer.
When I research, I find that most sites carry the same works. That probably is the reason why the more well promoted sites sell more since they already have the customers and customers need not go around looking for more photosites since they will find them on Istock or Sthutterstock etc.
I guess it comes down to ourselves. We try to sell through as many sites so that we get the exposure. However, it also means we may not really benefit more in terms of sales since the pool of buyers is fixed at any one moment for a particular type of image that they may need.
I'm beginning to form an opinion that one should eventually settle with one or two stock sites and forget the rest. I have read that you should sell through as many sites as possible because buyers do not shop from site to site and so you get better exposure that way. However, I think the effort is not worth the kind of sale one would get, especially, when uploading to sites is slow and then the process of keywording is time-consuming. In my perfect little world, I would love to have Alamy offer us fast FTP uploading and say one micro site that will use tags directly as prepared in Photo Mechanic or Photoshop CS2 so that there is no additional work once uploaded.
Alamy will offer FTP. A micro that uses tags directly as entered in PS? Already exists, Lucky Oliver. Slow sales but once you upload you click one button and you're done. 123RF runs a close second with only having to indicate if there are any releases after upload.
Keywording isn't very time consuming to me. I do it once in PS for the image or image group and I'm done. I don't change the keywords per site and they all pick them up. Uploading is done in the background to other activities so it doesn't bother me that much. There are a few sites that are really annoying to upload to. Istock for example has the worst upload process what with having to define words to their controlled vocabulary in addition to their ridiculous classification system. If they weren't my #2 site I would drop them in a heartbeat.
In the end though it's all about what works for you. If it takes a lot of time for you to upload and it bothers you then it isn't worth it.
I'm at both microstock and with an RM agency. The thing I love about a RF site is that you get instant respons from buyers whether your files are sell or not. In that way you can work in the direction of your best selling photo.
With most RM agencies you don't have a clue what buyers are asking. So you don't know what to look for either.
Up to now, Fotolia has been my top site for selling images. I have about a 95% approved images rate with them.
I had submitted to Shutterstock 4 times before I was finally approved about 3weeks ago. Now that I have been approved with 9 of my initial 10 images, I cannot get them to accept anything else I have submitted. I have been and continue to be extremely frustrated with Shutterstock. In three weeks, the downloads have been fantastic, but I know it could be better if they would approve some of my other images. I cannot for the life of me figure out what the problem is. They keep rejecting due to noise/artifacts, but I do use Noise Ninja and when I view the photos at 100% I do not see any noise/artifacts.
A micro that uses tags directly as entered in PS? Already exists, Lucky Oliver.
I'm slightly confused; pretty much all of the microstock sites will pick up your tags on upload, as far as I remember (have to admit it's been a little while since I uploaded anything new)?
im exclusive w/ istock now (im actually one of the top ten sellers in a given week and somewhere around number 40 in the all time sales list, last i checked) and right now I average slightly more than a dollar each sale. b4 i went exclusive i sold at istock, shutterstock and dreamstime. anyways here is some web traffic info from alexa on royalty free stock sites - link. I would imagine traffic would be directly proportional to sales for the average user on each site.
A micro that uses tags directly as entered in PS? Already exists, Lucky Oliver.
I'm slightly confused; pretty much all of the microstock sites will pick up your tags on upload, as far as I remember (have to admit it's been a little while since I uploaded anything new)?
I quoted too little. The point was uploading without the site changing keywords and no categories or other classification to do after upload. Most have additional classification they want you to do. I've never had a problem with sites not picking up IPTC data however some break up keyphrases making them keywords. "New York" would then become "new" and "york".
I really like it. It has good sales, and yes, I have gotten many payments from they. They are currently my third best earner only behind shutterstock and dreamstime.
Payment took over a week which I find to be quite rude really.
The site functions could be improved for uploaders, other stock sites are coming along and improving their submission process.
However Fotolia is starting to pay more consistently the last few months.
//pdtnc.wordpress.com/tag/photography/stock-images/
i believe fotolia has a payout day every so often. If you request payment 1 week before payout day, you will have to wait a whole week to get your funds. if you request payment the day before payout day, the payment will only take a day.
