Microstock photography update

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It’s been about 6 months since I started selling images at microstock photo agencies so I thought it was timely to do a review and see how this mode of making money online did. I joined 5 main agencies and did not bother with the smaller ones as you never know if they are going to be around a year later or worse still, disappear off the face of the earth with your earnings or images, as was the case with Totally Photos.

I had joined them because of their big payout of US$5 an image instead of the measely US$0.50 payouts offered by other agencies, but because I did not have a single download, I deleted all my images and closed my account. Hardly a month later, the site disappeared with all the images and was never heard from again.

My earnings to date from the various microstock agencies are as follows:
Shutterstock: US$350.65
Fotolia: US$172.25
Stockxpert: US$140
Dreamstime: US$132
BigStockPhoto:US$21.50

Can’t buy a condo with that but considering that I spent about 2 months or so to create the images out of the 6 months that was earning me money, I’d say that’s not too shabby. Compared to paid blogging, this is my preferred mode of making money online as I only had to create an image once and it basically earns perpetually. Whereas paid blogging pays one time for a post and that’s it. End of story.

Also for microstock images, if an image is rejected by one agency, chances are there are others who will accept it unless it is really of bad quality or of a subject matter that is not in demand. For paid blogging, if a post is rejected, you can’t submit it to another paid blogging network. Time and effort wasted without recourse.

I’m definitely going to put more into microstock - microstock rocks!

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Tags: microstock photography, make money selling images

Comments

6 Responses to “Microstock photography update”

Money making sites I’ve tried and dumped : Some Useless Info - A Useful Make Money Online Resource on April 12th, 2007 1:28 pm

[…] Microstock Photography is my favourite form of making money online for all the reasons I stated here. If you’d like to give it a try, read some tips to help you get started. Also see which microstock agencies and get an idea of what requirements are needed generally. If you’d like to sign up for some of these agencies, please use these links: Shutterstock Fotolia Dreamstime BigStockPhoto […]
Flood of Dollars on April 14th, 2007 7:52 pm

How long did it take before you reached that much earnings from those microstock sites?
emigre on April 14th, 2007 8:02 pm

For Shutterstock, I reached the first US$100 payout within a month. The 2nd payout took longer because by then my contributions had also slowed down.

StockXpert, Fotolia and Dreamstime about 2 months to reach payout and BigStock is the slowest of them all.
Shutterstock increases payout : Some Useless Info - A Useful Make Money Online Resource on April 25th, 2007 9:58 am

[…] Related reading: Microstock photography update […]
Symbian software on May 23rd, 2008 12:10 am

Nice and unusual way to make money online. I never done this before, but now I want to try.
Some Useless Info » Microstock earnings set to increase on August 3rd, 2008 7:53 pm

[…] Selling images and photos to make money online from microstock agencies continue to be my favourite method among money making opportunities. It’s been a while since I reported on my earnings from microstock photography, and since then a few microstock agencies have increased their payout rates for members. […]