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.

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.

Related posts:
Earnings from Microstock Photography – 3 Year Trends
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

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

Yesterday, I reached 1000 pictures in my Dreamstime portfolio with this image of green peas from my garden. It feels like just a few days ago I was shooting quite different picture of the same peas. A stormy spring in Colorado with a lot of hail was not very kind for my garden.

Today, I requested my 7th payout from Dreamstime, so it looks like this microstock agency is working pretty well for me. It is on the third position in earnings after iStock and Shutterstock.

However, the growth of my Dreamstime portfolio slowed down during last few months. My effective acceptance rate dropped down below 50%, i.e., I am submitting selected pictures only, and they take only 64% from them. “Too many shots of the same item or from the same series” is the rejection theme. It seems that for some inspectors the main picture subject is not important. The same prop (e.g., my wooden scoop) may be a reason for a rejection.

Here is how my Dreamstime portfolio compares to some other microstock sites. ShutterStock accepts almost everything what I submit. The size of my iStock portfolio is kept down by their uploading limits, but my acceptance rate stays the same at 75-80%. My Fotolia portfolio is also quite small due to rather low acceptance ratio. It used to be really low last year, but improved during recent months.

I started my microstock photography in the end of the 2007 with iStockPhoto followed by a few other agencies (Fotolia, Dreamstime, BigStockPhoto, 123RF). 4 months later I was accepted by Shutterstock, and after another couple of months by StockXpert. This year I started submitting pictures to CanStockPhoto.

After 18 months I have my portfolios in 8 agencies with some regular earnings. These portfolios differ in size and, also, in content. The differences will grow in time. I expect to to have two times more pictures with SS than IS soon.

How to evaluate performance of my microstock pictures?

You can derive different statistics like the return per image (RPI) for each microstock agency. Some photographers (e.g., Lee Torrens in Microstock Diaries monthly earnings reports) are adding the statistics from different sites together, but this is not formally correct. I was trying to use as a reference in these calculation an “average size” of my microstok portfolio, i.e, a number of files averaged from all working portfolios. However, it is also not such a good idea due to growing differences between my portfolios at different agencies.

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

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