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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

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

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 …

Microstock Photography Earnings – January 2009

Marek — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:44:45 +0000

I was busy with shooting and submitting pictures to microstock in January. I didn’t have time to write anything in this blog, although, I have a few posts in a draft including summary of 2008 years and goals for 2009. “Volumewise” my strategy for 2009 is simple: focus on my three top agencies (Shutterstock, iStock, and Dreamstime), 100 accepted pictures per month in SS and DT, and all upload slots filled in IS.

I managed to increase my average microstock portfolio from 605 to 698: 104 new pictures in SS, 107 in DT, and 53 in IS (delayed reviewing of December submissions). My earnings went up 26.5% in comparison with December and/or November. I had only one extended license from Fotolia in January.

Microstock earnings and payments from January 2008 to January 2009

Shutterstock is providing now 57% of my microstock income. It is the only agency demonstrating clear growth in my earnings during last 6 months. It is great, but I would prefer more diversification. 10% of SS earnings come from on demand downloads.

A number of downloads in IS is going up, but earnings are going down. Small sizes and low payments are dominating my sales. A similar tendency is visible in Dreamstime. I had BME in January there concerning the number of downloads, but the earning didn’t reach the BME of November.

My other four agencies, FT, BSP, SXP, 123RF are showing more turbulent fluctuations from month to month. The combined earnings from them during last three months: $59, $48, and $66. No sales in Featurepics in January.

agency	portfolio size	downloads (EL)	earnings	% earnings
Shutterstock	815	594	$215.12	57.8%
iStock	534	59	$56.20	15.1%
DreamsTime	676	48	$35.10	9.4%
Fotolia	545	25 (1)	$21.85	5.9%
Big Stock Photo	755	23	$18.00	4.8%
StockXpert	805	39	$14.50	3.9%
123rf	759	25	$11.66	3.1%
Featurepics	796	0	$0	0.0%
	698 average	813 total	$372.43 total

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:
Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … jrtb … Driftless Ramblings … bankizdjec.pl … MeLastMohican’s Blog … Probably Due To Network Congestion

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Related posts:

13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings:
2008 January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August |September | October | November | December | 2009 January
What Sells in Microstock? My List of Picture Bestsellers
How to Get Accepted by ShutterStock? Don’t Give Up!
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics.

Microstock Photography Earnings – December 2008

Marek — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:27:53 +0000

December is traditionally a slow month for microstock industry. However, I managed to keep the same level of my earnings as in November despite of my wrist surgery. I increased my average portfolio by 49 pictures only.

Number of downloads in iStock, Shutterstock and Dreamstime was much lower in December than in November, but two extended licenses (SS and IS) rescued my savings.

Shutterstock is providing now more than 50% of my microstock income. I experienced a plaque of rejections from SS during the entire of December mostly due to “low commercial value” of my pictures any other than isolated products. These were all similar pictures to my bestselling ones. I managed to get accepted most of them, but it meant more work and extra frustration when working with SS. New reviewers? Policy change?

I stopped including Featurepics in my reports, but I got one sale in December – 4 sales overall during the last year …

agency	portfolio size	downloads (EL)	earnings	% earnings
Shutterstock	711	331 (1)	$149.79	51.0%
iStock	481	54 (1)	$66.81	22.7%
DreamsTime	569	31	$27.28	9.3%
Fotolia	465	24	$16.49	5.6%
StockXpert	683	17	$14.10	4.8%
123rf	683	18	$11.51	3.9%
Big Stock Photo	641	7	$6.00	2.0%
Featurepics	645	1	$2.10	0.7%
	605 average	483 total	$294.08 total

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:
Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … jrtb … Driftless Ramblings … bankizdjec.pl …

Anybody else?

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Related posts:

Growth of My Microstock Portfolio in 7 Agencies: IS, SS, FT, DT, BSP, 123RF, SXP
Microstock Photography Earnings in 2008:
November | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January
What Sells in Microstock? My List of Picture Bestsellers
How to Get Accepted by ShutterStock? Don’t Give Up!
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics.

Microstock Photography Earnings: November 2008

Marek — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:34:25 +0000

My first 12 months with microstock photography! I will be writing more about my experience, achieved goals and what I have learned, but for now I am just posting my regular earnings report.

My average portfolio grew up in November from 466 to 546 pictures (17% increase) and my total earnings went up by 16%. I calculate size of portfolio for reporting purposes as an average from 7 agencies where I have any sales. This average portfolio is dragged down by Fotolia with notoriously low acceptance rate (50% or lower).

I have 3 agencies (SS, DT, BSP) going up in November and 4 going down (IS, FT, SXP, 123RF). The earnings from the last 4 sites went down by 17% despite of the downloads number going up by 4%. Much more sales in small and X-small sizes, especially, at iStock. No ELs in November.

The following 4 agencies provide 88% of my microstock income:

1. Shutterstock. 100 new pictures added, downloads – 14% up, earnings – 42% up.

2. iStock. 36 new pictures added, downloads – 7% down, earnings – 16.5% down.

3. Dreamstime. 93 new pictures added, downloads – 36% up, earnings – 23% up.

4. BigStockPhoto. 90 new pictures added, downloads – 83% up, earnings – 160%

November was a good month in receiving actual payments from microstock agencies. I got my first payments from SXP and 123RF.

agency	portfolio size	downloads (EL)	earnings	% earnings
Shutterstock	649	386	$134.71	45.8%
iStock	450	68	$61.68	21.0%
DreamsTime	522	38	$38.09	13.00%
Fotolia	404	18	$15.22	5.2%
StockXpert	622	25	12.90	4.4%
123rf	612	11	$7.78	2.7%
Big Stock Photo	569	22	$23.5	8.0%
	546 average	503 total	$293.88 total

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:

Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … jrtb … Driftless Ramblings … bankizdjec.pl …

Anybody else?

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Related posts:

Growth of My Microstock Portfolio in 7 Agencies: IS, SS, FT, DT, BSP, 123RF, SXP
Microstock Photography Earnings in 2008:
November | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January
What Sells in Microstock? My List of Picture Bestsellers
How to Get Accepted by ShutterStock? Don’t Give Up!
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics.

Microstock Photography Earnings: October 2008

Marek — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:03:34 +0000

I was really busy with shooting and contributing to microstock portfolio in October. My average portfolio grew up from 392 pictures in September to 466 (18.8% increase): 62 new pictures in iStock, 98 in Shutterstock, 70 in Dreamstime. However, my total earnings with 503 downloaded pictures ($0.54 per picture) went up only 12.5% in comparison to September. No ELs in October.

I reached several milestones in October:

$500 total earnings from Shutterstock in less than 8 months. It gave me the 33% raise for new downloads. SS took the lead last month.
$50 first payout from 123RF in 11 months. 123RF was not doing so great in October
$50 first payout from StockXpert in 6 months. The same performance as in September.

iStock performance was fantastic in October, but … only for the first 3 weeks. The last week went almost without sales. Overall earnings were slightly higher than in the previous month, but I am concerned about the future of my IS portfolio.

I got a very nice growth of earnings from Dreamstime which clearly took the #3 position. SS, IS, and DT provided 79% of my microstock earnings.

It was not so bad month for Fotolia despite the fact that I managed to add there just half of my pictures accepted by SS.

There were no more sales in Featurepics despite my efforts to promote that portfolio across my blogs, e.g, Old Wooden Scoop … or Bent Shaft Paddle and Outrigger Canoe.

agency	portfolio size	downloads (EL)	earnings	% earnings
Shutterstock	549	336	$94.48	37.4%
iStock	414	73	$73.88	29.3%
DreamsTime	429	28	$31.02	12.3%
Fotolia	359	22	$18.63	7.4%
StockXpert	522	21	15.20	6.0%
123rf	508	11	$10.33	4.1%
Big Stock Photo	479	12	$9.00	3.6%
Featurepics	507	0	$0.00
	466 average	503 total	$252.54 total

I am getting close to one year in microstock phtoography. I will be posting more analysis of my portfolio and efforts trying to figure out: Can I make any real money from microstock?

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:

Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … jrtb … Driftless Ramblings … bankizdjec.pl …

Anybody else?

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Related posts:

Growth of My Microstock Portfolio in 7 Agencies: IS, SS, FT, DT, BSP, 123RF, SXP
Microstock Photography Earnings in 2008:
November | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January
What Sells in Microstock? My List of Picture Bestsellers
How to Get Accepted by ShutterStock? Don’t Give Up!
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics.