Mon - September 1, 2008

Microstock Photography Earnings Report for August 2008



microstock photography earnings August 2008

I was quite busy in August shooting and contributing to microstock portfolio. My average portfolio grew up from 287 pictures in July to 327 in August. I have the lowest acceptance rate in Fotolia recently, so my FT portfolio is the smalest one.

My total microstock earnings went down 10.5% in July in comparison tho the previous month mostly due to poor performance of Shutterstock which dropped down from $98.75 ($70.75 without EL) to $59.08.

However, the performance of my iStock portfolio improved siginificantly (BME). I am getting really limited by 15 image/week upload limit there.

IS and SS provide together 76% of my microstock income. These two agencies are the top performers for most of microstock photographers. I am puzzled why the contribution from all other agencies is so low in my case. E.g., Lee Torrens from Microstock Diaries is reporting only about 55% of his microstock earning coming from IS and SS.

From all others sites Dreamstime is showing the most stable performance even during summer months. My Fotolia earnings were growing nicely till April, but now is just changing places with BSP and 123RF at the bottom of my table.

In additional to the total earnings in the second plot I am also showing actual payment received in each month. In the last days of August I got my 4th payment from iStock. I am getting very close to the first payment from DT.

agency portfolio size downloads (EL) earnings return per image sell-through rate % earnings

iStock

304 75 $71.93 0.24 39.1% 41.6%

Shutterstock

 365 228 $59.08 0.16 76.2% 34.2%

DreamsTime

 303 23 $14.83 0.05 33.0% 8.6%

123rf

 359 9 $10.25 0.03 - 5.9%

Fotolia

 270 12 $7.20 0.03 - 4.2%

StockXpert

 350 8 5.00 0.01 2.9%

Big Stock Photo

 339 4 $4.50 0.01 - 2.6%

total

 359 $172.79

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:

Anybody else?

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