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?

How to Evaluate Performance of My Microstock Portfolio?

Marek — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:12:13 +0000

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.

Finally, I have figured this out. It doesn’t matter what pictures I got accepted by different sites. These portfolios will be changing. Microstock agencies will be changing. What matters is only what I produce for microstock and how much of efforts I am putting into it.

So, I will be using the size of my entire microstock portfolio, i.e., number of all files I produced for microstock for my future statistical analysis. It may be not comparable with performance results posted by other photographers, but it should be most useful for me.

The graph above (upper panel) shows a number of my pictures at different microstock agencies. The most important is the gray line – a total number of my microstock pictures. I just counted all processed jpg files in my Lightroom monthly folders. It includes some pictures which were not submitted to any agency for some reasons and also duplicates. I may have more than one copy of the same picture when I am resubmitting one with corrections.

The lower graph panel shows my monthly additions to the microstock portfolio. During first couple of months I was still submitting my old pictures, then my monthly additions stabilized at about 50-60 pictures/month (somewhat related to iStock uploading limits). In September 2008 I doubled my efforts trying to produce 100 microstock pictures every month. And, so far, my earnings curve responds to these efforts.

Next, I will try to look at my RPI …

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Pixels Away microstock » RPI

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

How RPI is calculated

How to Evaluate Performance of My Microstock Portfolio?