Lately, there’s been a lot of blog chatter about the finer points of selling microstock and how it’s a good idea. Well I, for one, want to start some chatter about how much of a bad idea it is.
Here’s a quote from a recent post at Photoprenuer.com.
“Take a Little Extra with Microstock
If the idea of spending your spare time drinking Champagne and eating salmon or chicken doesn’t thrill, then microstock could be a good alternative.We talk about microstock a lot here because it’s an easy way to make your first image sale. Remember though that to get the multiple downloads and permanent customer base that top microstock photographers rely on, you need to shoot commercial images that sell, not offer your top artistic shots and hope someone will buy them because they’re nice.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can shoot microstock whenever you want. While top-earning microstock photographers shoot full-time, you can generate some useful extra income by shooting at the weekends and editing and uploading in the evenings.”
The whole mentality that you should sell your photos for less than a fair value simply because your a part time shooter is seriously flawed. Microstock is an awful business model. By selling your photos on sites like this, not only are you devaluing photography prices in general, but you are losing money every time you sell a photograph for way under what it cost you to make it.
Think about it. How much did your camera cost? Your lenses? Your lights? You computer? Let’s just say $6000 for this example. Now, how much do you get paid an hour at your day job? For the sake of argument, let’s say $15/hr. Say you spend an average of 10 hours a week for a year doing photography “part time”. Your value for working 520 hours a year is $7800. Grand total for your first year of business costs: $13,800. Now how much microstock would you have to sell to just cover those first year of business costs? Ummm… average profit from a microstock sale is what, $.25? You would have to sell your stock photos 55,200 times just to break even!
And you know what the average pro is making from microstock? PDN reported in a survey that 58% of image makers “had an average of $3,900 in 2006 stock income, although 501 of them (58% of all microstock respondents) reported earning less than $1,000 from stock sales last year.”
Still think microstock is a good idea?
If you want to get a real idea of how much it costs to be a professional photographer, even a part time one, then do yourself a favor and learn about Cost of Doing Business. You’ll never sell a photograph for $.25 again.
Here’s a CODB calculator provided by the National Press Photographers Associaton: http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/cdb/cdbcalc.cfm
Also, if you do want to dabble in stock, join agencies like Alamy or PhotoShelter Collection. With Alamy, you can submit anything you want and try to sell it as stock. PhotoShelter is open to anyone right now too and they pay 70%! All their prices are based in reality, too.
Just my opinion,
-lincoln
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October 16th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
I made $300 on microstock this year and am very happy with that result. I have NO INTEREST in being a professional photographer. I enjoy photography as a hobby, and feel excited that my images were like by someone enough to pay for them. Even if it was only $1 that they paid. I purchased my camera gear for my personal enjoyment, not for the purpose of microstock. I think your argument is way too broad sweeping. Microstock is great for me because it is not work for me, photography is my hobby. And how great is it to have a hobby that pays for itself!
October 16th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Hey Wes,
I’m glad you enjoy photography. I do too. It was a hobby for me in the beginning, but now I make a living at it. And I have to say that it’s the best job I’ve ever had.
Believe it or not, the moment you sell a photograph for money, you have become a professional. Yes, it may not be your sole source of income, but cash is cash in the eyes of the IRS.
My point in writing this article was that I just don’t want to see photographers undervalue themselves anymore. You’re not paying for pixels when you pay for photography. You’re paying for hundreds and hundreds of hours of learning and experience. That’s where the value comes in. That’s why microstock devalues photography. It cheapens the effort you put into it.
You are worth more than $1. Much, much, much… more. Don’t sell yourself short.
And educate yourself. Start with the Stock Artists Alliance featured articles on Stock Photography (http://www.stockartistsalliance.org/info/news/reports.htm). You owe it to yourself to understand the industry you’re a part of now.
Good luck!
February 4th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
i have contracts with 3 of the largest stock companies in the world (not microstock) and i also submit my work to a mircostock company. i won’t reveal how much i made from real stock photography last year, but i will tell you what i have made from mircostock from december 2005 to jan 2008. that figure is $75.20 cents. and i have a fair amount of images on there and the quality is of course high. microstock is like a pyramid scam. the owners of the company make the money and the corporations buying the imagery are literally having a field day lowering their expenditure on advertising costs using microstock sites.
now there are of course those you don’t care and just love taking photos. these weekend shooters are the life-blood of the mircostock industry and there is a never ending string of them that will sustain this bargin-bin spin-off for years to come. so what’s my point?
point is – photography is becoming devalued. those in a mircostock agency, wishing to aspire to the likes of getty images or corbis etc will go no further than they are now because the base price of a digital RF image has been set. istockphoto’s base price has been rising slightly over the last 2 years or so. that’s great news for the mircostocker one might be lead to believe. however, as soon as the base prices becomes large enough to be undercut significantly, another little micro-micro stock agency will appear and all those at the old micro stock agencies will be feeling the same as we big agency stock photographers feel now. if your base price is 15$ for the past 2 years would you be willing to let it drop back down to 1$ and start all over again? no. that’s why the base price cannot rise. the larger agencies already have business models in place to compete with microstock so microstock can’t go any higher. if you are a client – where would you buy your image if it were the same or very similar price? getty or dollabinjunkpixels.com?
so here we have a never-ending stream of amateurs with hard-ons for wanting to be published and not caring about income and thus a pricing limit for RF that cannot be broken. so mircostockers are stuck where they are. some may want to go onto larger agencies or even break into editorial or advertising work but they have only a record of selling their word on bargin-bin sites. if you are thinking about breaking into photography and want to make a living from it – mircostock is not a place to start. create fantastic imagery, decide what part of the industry you want to be a part of and go out there and get the work. some people may feel like they don’t have the confidence to do so and it’s easier to just upload stuff to a site…. it is easier. it is not hard work. and you will be paid accordingly.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
[...] 18, 2008 by myrmecos The rise of microstock photography has many established photographers wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth over how microstock companies are destroying the [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Hi Lincoln,
I liked your article particularly as you acknowledge it’s your opinion. I personally am new to the stock photo industry and while I often struggle to see things from the perspective of people such as yourself, I realise that it’s important to understand both sides of any debate and to at least try to see how things look when standing in the shoes of people with a different background to your own. For this reason, I’d like to offer some friendly but challenging questions. I’m interested in broadening my understand more than I am in changing your mind or proving you wrong, so please take my questions in that context.
Don’t you think that digital photography, having put high-res and high “auto everything” quality images within reach of anyone with just $1000 to spend on a DSLR camera and lens (ok, maybe a little more than that), don’t you think that’s lowered what is “fair value” for a stock photo, at least at the lower quality levels? Naturally hobbyists will never compete with established professional stock photographers with top quality equipment and professional well-staffed shoots. But at least at the microstock level of quality, it seems the value of an image came down before the price did. What are your thoughts on that?
And microstock has obviously brought in a massive quantity of new buyers who previously couldn’t afford stock photos at macrostock prices. Small businesses, charities and bloggers are the most often cited examples. It’s a fair assumption that some organisations who previously did buy macrostock are now buying microstock, but it seems like a separate sub-market where low-budget stock photo producers (hobbyists and pro-microstockers) are supplying low-budget buyers. And the buyers who’ve migrated from macrostock to microstock obviously didn’t need either the quality or Rights Managed / exclusivity options offered by macrostock anyway. At risk of grossly over-simplifying this otherwise long question, there’s obviously buyers for microstock, who without the supply of microstock contributors would be without a market.
…just in case it didn’t come through, I’m aware that there will always be large clients willing to pay high prices for top quality stock with Rights Managed licenses, and indeed top quality stock photographers to supply them.
In response to Steve’s comment above, I’m seeing lots of people using microstock as their starting place and/or learning ground. Indeed many macrostock agencies actively campaign microstock contributors wanting them to contribute. Many microstock contributors are often inundated with requests for contract work and other offers. And many are taking them up on their offers. Most of the top photographers in the microstock market now also have photos in Getty, Corbis and Jupiter. Let me know if you’d like me to show you examples.
Finally Lincoln, the comments above from Daniel and Egor are spam. Placing the article title in the comment is easily automated and if you check their links you’ll see they’re not ‘on topic’.
Hope that helps.
Again, I hope I haven’t upset you with my questions, but I’m interested in your opinions and I’ll be happy if you can show me some holes in my argument or show me a view I haven’t seen.
Respectfully,
Lee.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:38 am
Hi Lee,
Thanks for pointing out the spammers. I have removed those comments.
To answer your first question, the cost of cameras and the quality has absolutely nothing to do with the fee you should be paid for usage of the image you create. You can buy a pinhole camera kit for around $20 bucks and take a decent photograph on 35mm film. A scan costs about $5 bucks and you have a digital sellable image for way less than any DSLR. Does that mean you should sell it for $.25? No, what gives that image it’s value is the partly the subject matter and partly the perceived value. The quality of the image (or what camera it was shot with) has very little to do with it.
For example, Terry Richardson (http://www.terryrichardson.com/). He shoots mainly with film point & shoot cameras with on camera flash. Yet, he’s an incredibly famous and sought after photographer. If Terry started selling his images on a Microstock site, that would devalue his credibility and thus devalue the fee he commands.
My point is, as a photographer (of any level), you have to be mindful of the company you keep. Placing your images on a microstock site will never get you credibility with any serious art buyers or photo editors. You sell your images cheap, then you’ll always be cheap.
Also, why would you want to let a Microstock profit off your learning experience? Your spending time and money to build a library of images and all they do is collect money off it. That’s just a terrible disrespect to your self. Do you not value yourself at all as a person?
Besides, the microstock business model probably won’t be able to sustain itself in a few years. Read more about it on John Harrington’s blog http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2008/04/not-so-luckyoliver-shuttering.html
Thanks for commenting!
Lincoln
August 25th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Thanks so much for this article!
I was so close to entering the stock photo game, but after seriously researching both sides of the coin, stepping back and looking at it from different angles, I have opted out. I had a growing enthusiasm for entering into stock photography that seemed unstoppable until I read some issues on the other side and slept on it before making a decision. I too love photography and see it as a hobby only, however, once you sell a photograph, it is not a hobby, that is just plain fact, you took cash for your “hobby” work and time. Now, my time, effort, knowledge and passion sold for a “quarter” downloaded a dozen times or os if it is one of the most popular photos? I think not; that is so disrespecting yourself as Lincoln has so kindly pointed out, and up to that point I was not completely on board with his view although was considering.
And the devalueing concept in itself is just plain fact by numbers and ideology. Why would we want to devalue our images, our work, time, effort! NO NO NO!
These stock photo companies are actually preying on, I only realized this after actually looking at everything involved. You do all the work, shoots, ideas, and the time spent on your library of photos and then uploading. It is work as I have worked with photo software and uploads just for my personal use. Well, you do all this for little to no change, they reap the financial reward of your so called “hobby”.
I am so glad I did not fall into this trap and disrespect my ownself and not contribute to the devalue of peoples art, work, “hobby”, however you want to put it. We just fall into this trap because we so bad want to make something for our efforts and pretend that we don’t have anything into it since we were doing it anyway, this is a false perception. You will have a lot more into it by way of maintaining a library solely for uploads to sell for a quarter or little more and the time of rejections and then trying to get it just right for them to accept and preperation for shots that, NO, you would not normally spend the time to do it.
Solution, do take your photos and be creative, but sell them on your own terms for their true value. I am ignorant to sites that do this but someone can jump in and take over this part. I am not willing to research anymore time into this subject.
Thanks again for the article. My age and wisdom allows me to look at all sides now before leaping into something that will potentially set me back.
December 16th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Hey, I liked your column on microstrock. I’m an emerging professional photographer. I’ve been an assistant since I was 15 and am now 26 and starting to get my own jobs and get my advertising photos published in some national magazines. As I enter the industry I am seeing nothing but people who are unwilling to pay a fare wage for creativity. A year ago I wanted to try iStockphoto and see what it was all about. I uploaded 5 photos and after one year and 13 downloads I earned $9.60. People obviously liked the photos enough to download them multiple times, but to have more downloads than dollars earned is pathetic. I decided to pull my photos down and post a scathing explanation in the forums to try and get people to see this for what it is, a scam.
For one, if you just want to try it out you must earn $100 before you can get a check. Otherwise all you can do with the money is buy credits to download other images. So basically, they just keep the money they make off of your images and you literally get nothing for it.
Obviously, the weekend photographers are what make up the vast amount of photographers on iStockphoto so undoubtedly they won’t understand what the professional feels, but put in perspective If you paid for an education in the arts, plus the education required after school, plus the equipment, plus the time, the software.. etc. etc. How can you condone giving your material away for free so someone else can profit from it? What a joke.
December 27th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Meh, I do both microstock and macrostock. I use RF licensing for my microstock images, and RM licensing for my macrostock ones. Despise microstock all you like, but it’s not going anywhere. That’s one of the reasons why I joined. Just for the record, the amount you’re paid depends on the agency. At Shutterstock, it’s about a quarter for a normal download, two dollars for an OD download, and around thirty dollars per EL (print license) download. EL license downloads always pay more. Not that this is a lot or anything, but it’s more than a quarter. Five EL downloads a day equals averages to around a hundred and fifty dollars. Rare but possible. Oh, and this is after a commission of around seventy percent. Don’t kid yourselves though, microstock isn’t going away. Sure smaller agencies will fall, but the bigger ones will be around for a long time. Easily as long as macrostock agencies. And they might even replace them. Who knows?
July 1st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Hello
I agree totally with the topic, microstock is not worthy. I have been a microstocker since four years now, and always the industry search new limits to devaluate your work. your portfolio never will be proud, or will be a presentation card, even famous people in micro are trying to sell it and move one, even the creator of Istock had left the business few moths ago….
When you are submitting an image to microstock, you are losing the idea. A crowd of vultures will copy your idea, improve it and then your image and your time will cost nothing.
At the beginning was simple, was only for fun, then with a lot of practice you become better and better. But nowadays, the people in the forums didn’t want to teach you nothing, and now you can realize that normally the microstock sites are feeding by mountains of shit. No one is original.
Bad quality, the same concept copied a thousand times, no place for creativity, because creativity is lost in the “copy space” of a microstock portfolio.
Some months ago one of the biggest agencies tell the non US submitters that in summer they will loose a third of the incoming, why? because this agency didn’t pay her taxes!!! is not a fair issue here, is take the money and run!! and they will not think that you are human, they will treat you like what you are: an easy way to make them richer….
And agencies are always trying to sink the people that is not exclusive, maybe is time to let the photographers to sell photographies
Maybe someday submitters will realize that is not worthy to spend time with this kind of people. That they don’t deserve your holidays’ pictures for 0.25$ a sale. But this is an American concept of business, and Americans are a big part of submitters, maybe not the most intelligent people in the world. For that reason the only way is show the people who buy images in micro that is not far from slavery concept.
And try to make an union in microstock, to increase control in the agencies. Photographers ruling microstock agencies is the only solution. with enough power to delete the “big agencies” out of the web if they don’t pay a just prize…..
Just Say No To Microstock !!
August 20th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Well let’s calculate some fees and revenue with one random example here:
Let’s take a subscription and calculate how much they give back to contributors. Let’s say
one buys an XXL file through subscription. That file price would normally be $7 and if
fotolia(in this example) would give you at least 30%, how they say, then they should give
you $2.1 from the simple calculation:
$7 – 70% = $2.1 — so, they should give you “at least” $2.1 (30%) for an XXL license !
BUT instead, you take something like this:
$7 – 95% = $0.35 — so, from all your work you get less than 5%, from them !!!
And fotolia takes the rest of 95% of your work, basically. Now tell me, how do you see this
?
You giving your work for almost nothing, basically, while they make millions and millions
from your work and you get, almost nothing, while 95% of work is yours ! So, tell me other
more profitable business than these ones ? To give your work to some pigs, basically. They
could at least pay 50% and they’d still be millionaires !!! Where on earth you can get away
with over 95% profit ?!?!?!
Let’s say, that servers and all other costs, with employees and everything are of about 15%
(at most, in reality, around 5%). Fotolia has 10 editors, so they all should be millionaires
from those numbers and basically your work. All that, while you take 5 for your image, on
subscription at least. And on Fotolia, most are subscriptions and you can’t opt it out.
So what’s with all that crap :…we’ll give you 30% of the picture’s price AT LEAST !!!
ahahahahaha. More like 5 is THE TRUTH.
You people should rethink your photography strategy. You shouldn’t let these scamers to live
on your back like that, it just sucks, big time. You maybe, should organise, those with
strong portfolios and change this situation. It looks more like a scam than “royality free
photography”…. Isn’t it, or is just me, being crazy ?
100 pictures sold, with $7 XXL RF license, equals $700. From that, you get $30. Isn’t it
COOL ?
Now, they sell subscription at $250 a month, where you can download 750 images with it.
Usually with $250, you can buy 35 images, at $7(XXL).
But do they tell you that 90% of downloads are subscription ?! No, sure they don’t and you
end up selling your images for which you work hard, for 30 cents !
Your XXL images is marketed like ~$7, while actually is sold with ~$0.35.
This is microstock today and the only ones who benefit from it, are the microstock business
owners, treating the contributors in a miserable way, under evaluating much of their work.