In June 2011 I posted 3 year trends in return per image (RPI) from my microstock portfolio. How it looks 6 month later? Here is an update for 2009-2011 years.

How RPI is calculated

Calculating RPI is straightforward for a single agency – just divide earnings from sales by the number of pictures in your portfolio there for a given time period, e.g., a month. It is getting more complicated when you are submitting pictures to multiple agencies. You cannot calculate RPI separately for each agency and then add those numbers together. That would be mathematically incorrect. You need to use the same number of pictures as reference for each agency, e.g., the average size of your portfolio.

I am submitting pictures to multiple microstock agencies. To derive the total RPI for my portfolio I am using the total number of pictures prepared for microstock. This way I can use RPI to compare performance of different agencies. My RPI depends obviously on the acceptance rate. So, the agency, which regularly rejects my pictures as too similar or duplicates, has a lower RPI in my system. The “similarity” issue is a major problem in the case of Dreamstime and to a much lower degree of iStockphoto.

After 4 years of my microstock adventure I have around 3800 pictures in my stock portfolio: 68% in iStockphoto, 83% in Shutterstock, 59% in Dreamstime and 66% Fotolia counting just the 4 top agencies. I do not analyze separately other agencies with lower sales, instead I am looking at total sales from them as “others” (Bigstock, 123RF, Canstock, Veer, Graphic Leftovers, Deposit Photos, PhotoDune, Panther Media, StockFresh, FeaturePics, Yay).

RPI (Return per Image) is potentially very useful statistics for a stock photography portfolio. However, there is a lot of controversy around it. Some microstock contributor consider RPI completely worthless. Others are using to predict future earnings from microstock or to estimate how many pictures they need to add to a portfolio to reach a certain level of earnings. There is also a common belief that RPI has to go down with a growing portfolio.

RPI as any other statistics to be meaningful must be based on a sufficient number of data. So, it is not a really reliable for a small portfolio or for an agency with low sales. There is certain irony here, since it would be the most useful when we just starting submitting to microstock.

Calculating RPI is straightforward for a single agency – just divide earnings from sales by the number of pictures in your portfolio there for a given time period, e.g., a month. It is getting more complicated when you are submitting pictures to multiple agencies. You cannot calculate RPI separately for each agency and then add those numbers together. That would be mathematically incorrect. You need to use the same number of pictures for each agency, e.g., the average size of your portfolio.

To derive the total RPI for my portfolio I am using the total number of pictures prepared for microstock. After 3.5 years of my microstock adventure I have around 3400 pictures in my stock portfolio: 64% in iStockphoto, 82% in Shutterstock, 60% in Dreamstime and 64% Fotolia counting just the 4 top agencies. I do not analyze separately other agencies with lower sales, instead I am looking at total sales from them as “others” (Bigstock, 123RF, Canstock, Veer, Graphic Letfovers, Deposit Photos, Panther Media, StockFresh, FeaturePics)

This is a supplement to the previous posts discussing trends in 3 years of my microstock earnings and contributions from different agencies.

Let’s look at the growth of my portfolio in iStockphoto, Shutterstock, Dreamstime and Fotolia. These are my 4 top microstock performers providing 88% of income. I submit pictures regularly preparing between 50 and 100 new files each month.

The gray line above represents a number of all pictures (jpg) produced for microstock including rejects, multiple versions and files which were not submitted. So, this is a measure of my work and efforts rather than a number of files available for stock. I used that number as a reference to derive RPI (return per image).

After 3 years I have quite different portfolios in various agencies. Shutterstock has the highest number of my pictures (2269 by the end of October 2010). Nowadays they accepted almost all pictures. Dreamstime with 1,761 files takes the 2nd place. However, my DT portfolio is growing slower during last year than in other agencies due to their review policy (“too many similar pictures”).

My numbers for IS (1628) and Fotolia (1614) look quite similar, but those portfolio are quite different. FT accepts most pictures rejected by DT. My landscape and industrial pictures rejected by FT are usually selling in IS. It is interesting that the IS portfolio contains some unique pictures which were not accepted by SS, DT or FT.

My adventure with microstock photography started in November 2007. 3 years in microstock is an occasion for a statistical summary.

iStockphoto, ShutterStock, Dreamstime and Fotolia are considered nowadays a Big 4 among microstock agencies. Indeed, they bring together between 80 and 90% of my earnings from microstock photography. After 32 months of submitting the size and content of my portfolio at different agencies are quite different: iStock – 1425 pictures, Shutterstock – 2024, Dreamstime – 1586, Fotolia – 1392.

The above graph show percentage of my earnings from the Big 4 agencies and other mictostock sites during last 2.5 years. I plotted quarterly values to smooth out month to month fluctuations.

I started to submit my pictures to iStock in November 2007 and that agency dominated my earnings until I got accepted by Shutterstock. Then, Shutterstock took a lead for a year so. In the beginning of 2009 my sales at iStock started to grow and today iStock in my number 1 with 40-50% of all microstock earnings. Is it a permanent trend? My sales at iStock are slowing down despite of reaching a gold level which allows me to submit more pictures.

Dreamstime is holding number 3 in my microstock earnings with a pretty steady contribution of about 10%. The number 4, Fotolia, shows some growth recently.

All remaining microstock agencies contribute currently about 12% to my income. I can divide them into two groups: (1) agencies with regular payouts every month or every second month (BigStock, 123RF, CanStockPhoto, Panther Media) and (2) agencies where need several months or a year to reach payout level (Veer, FeaturePics, DepositPhotos, Graphic Leftovers).

Where are my monthly microstock earnings reports? I stopped posting them … December 2009 was the last one. I was busy shooting recently. And, those monthly graphs got a little bit boring. However, I am going to write some more general posts on trends in microstock photography from my own perspective.

I am trying to follow my microstock business model as described in my earlier posts: Am I Really Making Money from Microstock Photography ? Part 1 and Part 2. I treat microstock photography as a part time job (1/3 of my time = about 60 hours/month) and I tried to keep all related expenses below 30% of total sales.

How that business model works for me in practice? I ended the 2009 year with a little bit more than 40% in expenses due to a new Canon 5D/II camera with two lenses I bought by the end of the year. My expenses should go down to 30% when looking together at 2009 and the first half of 2010. However, I am not sure if my 30% model is sustainable in a long run unless I significantly increase my sales.

60 hours per month? Well, I am sure I am doing some overtime … I could record hours spent at my home table top studio and in front of a computer, but it would be difficult to clearly separate my part time microstock photography from pictures shot just for fun during paddling or hiking (some of them are ending up in my microstock portfolio).

I gathered 30 months of data including sales estimates for May 2010. So, let’s look at some trends.

My profit (after expenses) from microstock photography stayed at the same level of $1000 during the last three months of 2009 year. It happened to be my microstock goal for 2009. However, I was rather lucky in December.

I produced a similar number of pictures for microstock as usual (~65), but mostly during the second half of the month during Christmas time. Earlier in December I spent a week at American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting at San Francisco. Of course I was shooting pictures whenever I could, but I doubt if a visitor to San Francisco can shoot anything what hasn’t not been shot before. Anyway, I extended a little bit my San Francisco portfolio. It was fun.

Sales in all of my microstock agencies except one went down in December. The most dramatic sale reductions happen in Dreamstime and Shutterstock even with a couple of ELs. BigStockPhoto showed a slight increase but well below its BME.

The situation was saved by iStockphoto. It was showing a slight increase of revenue with comparison to November. Then, a day before Christmas, I got a nice gift in the form of three extended licenses. This put IS out of scale and, now, I have problems with my performance graphs.

November brought a slight drop in my earnings from microstock photography. I was quite busy last month adding 67 pictures to my portfolio – 1823 pictures in total with the largest selection online with Shutterstock – 1565.

iStock, Shutterstock and Dreamstime provided 81% of my microstock earnings. My RPI (return per image taking into account the entire microstock portfolio) was down to $0.79 in comparison to $0.84 in October and $0.73 in September.

I added a profit line (earnings minus expenses) to a graph below. What it is included in expenses I explained in two previous posts Am I Really Making Money from Microstock Photography ?

I just completed 2 years in microstock photography. November was my 2nd month with a profit above $1000 (well, slightly above).

iStock. BME, 44% of my microstock income. 43 new pictures added. $0.92/download – same as in October.

Shutterstock. 26% of my earnings. 65 new pictures added. $0.45/download (1 EL and 11% from “on demand downloads”) – lower than in October.

October was quite successful for my microstock photography. I added 80 pictures to my portfolio. Sales are still growing: BMEs for most of agencies, $1478 in total sales, $250 more than in September. iStockphoto, Shutterstock and Dreamstime provided 80% of earnings. My RPI (return per image taking into account the entire microstock portfolio) was up to $0.84 in comparison to $0.73 in September and $0.71 in August.

iStock. BME and #1 with 42% of my microstock income. 59 new pictures added. $0.92/download – lower than in September due to increasing number of Xsmall downloads within $0.20-0.30 range. I guess I am producing pictures for bloggers.

Shutterstock. BME. 71 new pictures added reaching 1500 files, $0.50/download (1 EL and 14% from “on demand downloads”). However, last 6 months in SS were rather disappointing. In October I made only $34 more than 6 months ago in April despite of “feeding the beast” regularly, adding 387 new pictures and jumping to higher payment rate during that period. Before April 2009 I had almost a year of constant growth in SS.

DreamsTime. BME. 52 new pictures added, $0.85/download. It is getting more and more difficult to get my pictures accepted there (too similar …, lack of concept …).

StockXpert. BME. A great performance with 70% of sales still coming from Jupiterimages and Photos.com. The last good month?

Fotolia. Slightly lower earnings than in September. 44 new pictures added, $0.90/download.

123rf. BME with $44.50 (more than double September earnings). I started to rotate pictures in my “favorite” collection. A coincident?

I got more busy with microstock shooting in September and added 77 pictures to my portfolio. However, the September results are somewhat mixed. BME in iStock and Fotolia, a not bad performance of Shutterstock and Dreamstime, but my smaller players went down. I increased my earnings by 8% in comparison to August, but I hoped for better results after summer slow time. Well, actually August was pretty good for me.

IS and SS provided 74% of my microstock income. Adding DT and FT makes almost 89%. This is my big 4 or rather 2+2.

Shutterstock. A better performance than in August, but still well below the April or June. 67 new pictures added, $0.43/download.

DreamsTime. Performance close to July BME. 59 new pictures added, $0.86/download.

Fotolia. BME duet to 5 ELs. 50 new pictures added, $0.94/download.

StockXpert. Unfortunately going down after 3 months of good performance (-33%). Photos.com and JupiterImages subscriptions provided more than 60% of earnings.

Veer. I uploaded most of my portfolio. My acceptance rate is above 80%, however, they rejected practically all my best selling pictures as not suitable for stock. Nevertheless, it looks promising.