Pixels Away microstock

Microstock Portfolio Return Per Image (RPI) – 2009-2011 Trends

Marek — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:12:45 +0000

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).

The graph above shows the total RPI for my microstock portfolio and RPI for IS, SS, DT, FT and other agencies for the 3 year periods from 2009 to 2011. Thin lines represent monthly RPI, while thick lines are 5 month running averages to make trends more visible. I scaled values for each month to a 30 day month to eliminate influence of a month length.

December 2011 was pretty bad for my microstock sales, but generally the total RPI still shows a growing trend. iStock is going downhill while Shuttertock takes a leading position in my microstock income. Dreamstime shows signs of stagnation. Fotolia RPI is declining and, soon, I may have to replace FT in my big 4 by one of “other” agencies. 123RF, Veer, DepositPhotos, PhotoDune?

Return Per Image (RPI) from My Microstock Portfolio – 3 Year Trends

Marek — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:46:11 +0000

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)

The graph above shows the total RPI for my microstock portfolio and RPI for IS, SS, DT, FT and other agencies for the last 3.5 year. Thin lines represent monthly RPI, while thick lines are 5 month running averages to make trends more visible. I scaled values for each month to a 30 day month to eliminate influence of a month length. It also allows me to show data for a partial month (11 days of June 2011).

I wouldn’t pay too much attention for my first year with turbulent changes in RPI. It just proofs my point that it is difficult to make any predictions based on RPI derived from a small portfolio.

RPI for DT, FT and others are quite low, but they show some growth. Graphs for IS and SS which are major players in my microstock earnings are more interesting. During 2008/2009 I had a higher RPI from SS than IS, then IS took a leading position. Unfortunately, IS is experiencing clear downhill trend for a last year or so. It would be even much worse without the recently introduced photo+ collection. RPI for SS started to grow, but it still cannot catch IS.

My overall RPI (black line) is still growing (after the initial year), but can I use it to make any predictions? After filtering out the monthly variations this trend is pretty smooth. That’s somewhat encouraging in the current situation of microstock industry with many bad changes for contributors.

RPI doesn’t show the entire story. It ignores expenses and labor used to create images. In the past I made some attempts to include these in my statistics, estimating even my hourly rate. However, it is not easy, especially, when microstock photography is only my part time job. There is no problem with estimating expenses, at least, on annual basis since they are calculated for tax purposes anyway, but I am not so ready to record my time spent on photography.

Growth of My Microstock Portfolio in 4 Top Agencies

Marek — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 18:28:33 +0000

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.

A year ago, my IS portfolio was the smallest one, but now it passed already FT, and will, probably catch the DT portfolio. The current 30 images/week upload limit at IS is usually more than I can prepare for submission.

Earnings from Microstock Photography – 3 Year Trends

Marek — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:31:27 +0000

My adventure with microstock photography started in November 2007. For the first two years I used to report my monthly earnings from microstock in this blog. Nowadays, I am less obsessed with my statistics focusing more on producing new pictures. However, my 3 years in microstock is an occasion for a statistical summary.

Total Earnings and Portfolio Additions

I am submitting my pictures to 12 microstock agencies. 88% of my income is coming from the top 4: Istockphoto, Shutterstock, Dreamstime and Fotolia (see Big 4 in My Microstock Portfolio).

Above, I am showing my total monthly earnings from all agencies (thick yellow line – left axis) and monthly addition to my portfolio (gray bars – right axis) over the span of last 3 years. I divided growth of my earnings into three periods and added trends into my graph (linear approximation).

1st year (green line). Building my portfolio. Slow, but consistent, growth of earnings $19/month.
2nd year (blue line). More rapid growth of my earnings at $96/month. The only time period where I can see the response of my earnings to the increased number of pictures submitted.
3rd year (red line).. Slowing down … $50/month. More month to month fluctuations.

Let’s look at trends in the individual microstock agencies (the same scale is used in the graphs below).

iStockphoto

Portfolio: 1628 files. iStock was my first microstock agency. Submissions used to be restricted by a weekly upload limit. However, recently they increased that limit. At the same time I reached a gold canister level. So, right now, 30 images/week is usually more than I can prepare for submission. Acceptance rate ~75%.

I experienced a rapid growth of sales at iStock during 2009. Recent earnings are fluctuating, but are still growing. iStock provides 40-50% of my microstock income.

My sale commission at iStock will drop from 20% to 18% in January 2011 and, generally, perspectives for an independent contributor don’t look great there.

Shutterstock

Portfolio: 2269 files. I entered Shutterstock relatively late. It took me 4 attempts to get accepted. The first year was great and SS was my top earner for a longer while. During the last 1.5 year my earnings are fluctuating from month to month, but still shows a slow growth and are somewhat responding to the number of uploaded pictures. My portfolio at SS is the largest among the top 4 agencies. Almost all my pictures are getting accepted.

Dreamstime

Portfolio: 1,761 files. My earnings are growing with some fluctuations and Dreamstime provides around 10% of my total microstock earnings. However, I don’t really expect to increase that percentage. My overall acceptance rate is about 73%, but my effective acceptance rate during last year is only 50-60%. Too many photos/illustrations on the same subject or from the same series. or Image subject is too specific or niche-oriented are popular rejection reasons. I don’t submit all my pictures to DT any more. I feel that I am losing a lot of potential sales at DT.

Fotolia

Portfolio: 1614 files. FT provides about 7-8% of my microstock earnings. A slow growth. Overall acceptance rate ~63%. It seems to be improving recently. I don’t think it is due to any change in FT review policy. I simply submit more product and concept images and less landscape and nature ones. FT accepts all DT rejects.

Of course, this just one side of my microstock photography business – earnings from sales. Expenses and my labor time is another side. In previous posts I discussed a business model I am trying to implement. It may be time to review it.

What’s next?

Further growth? Reaching plateau? Switching to another activity? Looking for some more meaningful photography projects?

Can I use my numbers to make any predictions of my future microstock earnings? So far, I have seen a rather smooth growth of my income.

Related posts:
Big 4 in My Microstock Portfolio
Am I Really Making Money from Microstock Photography ? Part 1 and Part 2
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics, Panthermedia, CanStockPhoto, DepositPhotos, Graphic Leftovers

Big 4 in My Microstock Portfolio

Marek — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:48:44 +0000

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).

In my next post I will analyze the trends in performance of the Big 4 agencies. Is it possible to predict my income from the microstock business?

10,000 Downloads from iStockphoto

Marek — Wed, 26 May 2010 23:46:45 +0000

I started my adventure with microstock photography with submitting pictures to iStockphoto in November 2007 and, later, to other agencies. Today, I just reached the golden canister level at iStock. The picture below crossed that milestone of 10,000 downloads.

Nowadays, iStock dominates my microstock sales providing more than 40% of earnings with a portfolio of ~1300 pictures.

I am getting more upload slots, 25 instead of 20 per week, which is nice. I don’t think that I am really ready to upload more pictures to iStock, but the process will be more convenient. I am not sure if there are any other benefits of reaching the gold level in my case, i.e., not an exclusive photographer.

Some milestones in my iStock performance during last 2 and half years:

November 15, 2007	my first picture online
March 4, 2008	100 images accepted and $50 earnings
March 22, 2008	first $100 of earnings and payout
June 10, 2008	250 downloads (bronze canister level)
September 30, 2008	500 downloads
April 16, 2009	1000 downloads, 653 pictures online
August 15, 2009	2500 downloads (silver canister level), 840 pictures online
May 25, 2010	10,000 downloads (gold canister level), 1303 pictures online

Related post:
Microstock Earnings – First 30 Months

Microstock Earnings – First 30 Months

Marek — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:53:29 +0000

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.

Trends in my microstock sales from November 2007 to May 2010:
green bars – monthly additions to my portfolio, thick yellow line – total monthly sales,
green, blue and red lines – linear approximations of sales (trends)

Green bars in the above graph represent my work invested in microstock – monthly additions to my portfolio. These are all jpeg pictures processed for microstock including rejects. Thin yellow line shows my total monthly earnings. I approximated that curve with segments of a straight line to show some trends. I can see three distinct periods.

1. Green line – 10 months from February 2008 to October 2008. Slow, but steady growth at about $19/month. In March of 2008 I got accepted to Shutterstock, so I was submitting to all major microstock agencies. At that time, I was producing around 40-60 pictures every month.

2. Blue line – 12 months from November 2008 to October2009. It was a year of more rapid growth in my sales: $96/month. I believe it was a delayed response to the increased number of picture submissions. Between September 2008 and June 2009 I was making from 80 to 120 pictures every month. My earnings were dominated by Shutterstock, but iStock contributions were growing and passed SS in June 2009.

3. Red line – 8 months from November 2009 to May 2010. Slowing down in total sales! $45/month. IS is still growing, but SS sales showing a stagnation since BME in October 2009. I am producing and submitting fewer pictures during recent months, only about 60 per month. But, wait a minute! My pictures are not supposed to be better now? I am spending a similar amount of time shooting and processing with improved skills, a better camera, more expensive props …

Well, I will not try to make any predictions here. Next, I will show some trends in different agencies. iStock dominates my earnings nowadays. OK, but now, back to shooting!

Not many photographers are ready to reveal their financial data, but maybe you could share one piece of information. What percentage of microstock earnings do you spend to cover your expenses including investments in photo equipment?

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Some related posts:
Am I Really Making Money from Microstock Photography ? Part 1 and Part 2.
December earnings report
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics, Panthermedia, CanStockPhoto, Graphic Leftovers, Deposit Photos

Microstock Photography Earnings – December 2009

Marek — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:52:41 +0000

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.

Microstock earnings, payments and profit after expenses from December 2008 to December 2009

A little experiment. Let’s repeat the above graph, but with a logarithm scale for earnings. Anybody here has bad feelings towards logarithms?

Now, we see beter the performance of my smaller players like Fotolia, StockXpert, 123RF and BSP. My earnings from CanStockPhoto and Veer Market Place are not very consistent.

I don’t have clear goals for 2010 yet. I am probably going to keep my microstock involvement at the same level, i.e., 1/3 of my time or ~60 hours per month. My general goal is to improve my microstock productivity in terms of anhourly rate and try some new things both in photography and marketing.

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:
Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … MeLastMohican’s Blog … Microstocking or Ministocking

Related posts:

13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings: November | December | 2009 January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November
My Favorite Camera and Lens for Microstock Photography
My Microstock Pie – Earnings Split by Agency
A Reverse Look at Microstock Sales from My iStock and Shutterstock Portfolios
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics, Panthermedia, CanStockPhoto.

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Microstock Photography Earnings – November 2009

Marek — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:29:47 +0000

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).

Microstock earnings, payments and profit after expenses from November 2008 to November 2009

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.

DreamsTime. 11% of earnings. 54 new pictures added, $1.13/download. A pretty slow month, but my earnings were saved by an extended license in last hours of November. Abandoned farm house on Colorado prairie is one of my favorite HDR pictures.

StockXpert is going down, but there were still sales from Jupiterimages (30%), Subscriptions from Photos.com are gone.

Fotolia is going down since BME in September.

CanStockPhoto. One big sale from PhotoSearch and a few smaller one.

Veer. $35 from 31 sales and I am ready for the first payment.

123rf. Much slower than October.

Big Stock Photo. Same as October.

Featurepics. I reached the payout level in October after 2 years, got my payment in November. One sale worth $2 last month indicate that the next payment will be in the end of 2011 …

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:
Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … MeLastMohican’s Blog … Microstocking or Ministocking

Related posts:

13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings: October | November | December | 2009 January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October
My Favorite Camera and Lens for Microstock Photography
My Microstock Pie – Earnings Split by Agency
A Reverse Look at Microstock Sales from My iStock and Shutterstock Portfolios
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics, Panthermedia, CanStockPhoto.

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

2 Years Ago: Starting Microstock Photography

Marek — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:36:47 +0000

Two years ago in the middle of November 2007 I started my adventure with microstock photography by submitting a few pictures to iStockphoto, and then to Dreamstime, Fotolio, 123RF and Bigstockphoto. It took me much longer to get into Shutterstock (4 attempts) and StockXpert (5 attempts).

On November 28th, 2007 I got my first sale at iStock just 8 days after uploading this picture of a hot air balloon shot a few weeks earlier at the Hot Air Balloon Harvest in Greeley, Colorado.

Here are my first two posts related to microstock (I moved them from the old blog):
Starting Microstock Photography
Polaroid Transfers for Microstock?

These two years passed really fast …