Best Websites to Sell Stock Photos & Footage

 

 

If you are starting or considering to sell Stock Photos or Stock Footage online to make some creative, passive income you are probably asking yourself things like:

 

  • What stock agencies profit the most?
  • Should I upload to multiple stock websites?
  • What websites should I start with?
  • Is there a difference between Stock Photography and Stock Footage?

Well, CreativeInco.me is here for you!

 

The content of this article was recorded into the video above.

New Stock Agencies are being launched all the time, and though it is a good idea to diversify your income sources, it can be very frustrating wasting time uploading to agencies that will never get you a sale. That’s why it so important focus on the right stock agencies

With this article, my goal is to expose:

 

 

The stock agencies where I profit the most

I hate taking conclusions too early and assuming things are the same for everybody. After all, there’s a big difference in selling stock footage and selling stock photography. And that connects to what agencies will be the most profitable.

 

My Stock Footage Earnings:

On the Footage (video) side of things, I usually see that the best websites are Shutterstock, AdobeStock, and Pond5.

The image below was captured from my video and shows how Shutterstock is by far the most profitable one. I took the years of 2017 and 2018 to make that calculus.

 

Screenshot captured from my video: Stock Agencies that PROFIT the most

Adobe Stock is not that strong for me because it doesn’t allow editorial content – the biggest part of my content.

iStock/Getty could be something, if only their commission rate wasn’t so messed up – 15% for non-exclusive contributors. Plus footage sales for less than $1. Enough to make me give up on them.

There’s an article where I showcase my best selling files and how much they made in each agency, you can check that if you want to learn a little more with my own earnings.

 

Stock Photo Earnings

As mentioned before, things are very different between stock footage and stock photography. So we will take stock photographer Alex Rotenberg’s earnings into consideration. (Alex is the author of the Brutally Honest Microstock Blog and you should definitely check it out)

In this article, Alex broke down his earnings of April 2019. By that time he had a portfolio of 10,500 images on a total of 19 agencies which made him $896 that month (considering images only).

This is the breakdown of his April earnings (I took footage out of the calculus:

 

  • Shutterstock: 40%
  • iStock/Getty: 20%
  • Robert Harding: 18%
  • Adobe Stock: 10%
  • Alamy: 4%
  • Rex Features: 2.4%
  • 123RF: 1.5%
  • Dreamstime: 1.3%
  • BigStock: 1.3%
  • Pond5, Canva, Colourbox, DepositPhotos, Sign Elements: ~1.5%
  • Arcangel, Creative Market, Picfair, Storyblocks, Wemark: ZERO sales

It’s important to say that some are not really microstock agencies and will work in a different way (sometimes exclusive, sometimes Royalty Managed. I suggest you read his articles if you want to learn more about it.

Alamy is also a good agency to sell photography. Sales are not as frequent as they are in Shutterstock, but they’re known for getting the highest pricing sales. Many contributors have experienced sales above $100 there.

 

Google Trends

If you are already a student of our online course or subscriber of the YouTube channel you noticed how I’m a big fan of Google Trends.

This powerful tool allows us to compare how specific search terms are made along a given period of time. So I obviously compared how the most known agencies are being searched.

That is clearly not directly connected to how much you will sell on these agencies, but is still interesting data.

 

Comparing searches for “Shutterstock”, “Getty Images”, “iStock”, and “Adobe Stock” on May 2nd 2019.

This proves how Shutterstock is still the biggest player of the market having 57 points compared to Adobe’s 20, Getty’s 19 and iStock’s 14. All other agencies didn’t get anything close to these 4:

 

  • Shutterstock: 57 points
  • Adobe Stock: 20 points
  • Getty: 19 points
  • iStock: 14 points
  • 123RF: 5 points
  • Alamy: 4 points
  • Creative Market: 4 points
  • Dreamstime: 2 points
  • Storyblocks: 1 point
  • Pond5: 1 point
  • Deposit: 1 point
  • Video Hive: 1 point
  • Robert Harding: >1
  •  

 

What is the future for stock agencies?

And it gets more interesting once you analyze how the graph is evolving since 2004.

 

Notice how GettyImages used to be the biggest agency reaching a peak in June 2006 – pretty close to when they have acquired iStock.

But then Shutterstock arrived and from then on it is clear that things haven’t been so good. Both Getty and iStock went down in searches and that is also reflected in contributors that More than a decade ago. Shutterstock is the top payer for almost every stock creator.

There’s no way to prove it, but I’m pretty sure that contributors had a strong part on the iStock decadence. The iStock/Getty group became the most hated among contributors because of their lack of transparency, bad commission rates (15% for non-exclusive), and low respect for the contributor. So you can see how both companies started to go down in Google Searches.

In the meanwhile, Shutterstock was growing constantly from 2006 to 2014, when the searches stabilized. And that’s probably because a new player joined the game –Adobe Stock.

Their growth since 2015 hasn’t stopped yet and that makes Adobe a very important agency for both Photo & Video. I really believe they’ll soon get closer to Shutterstock’s leadership.

 

Alexa Ranking

That gets clear when we use Alexa Ranking, another tool that can be used to analyze the most visited websites on the internet.

Here are their positions in the Global ranking:

 

  • Adobe.com: 64*
  • Shutterstock.com: 186
  • DepositPhotos.com: 940
  • 123RF.com: 998
  • iStock.com (or iStockphoto.com): 1.093
  • GettyImages.com: 1.790
  • Dreamstime.com: 1.562
  • VideoHive.net: 1.829
  • Alamy.com: 2.857
  • VideoBlocks.com: 3,984 (StoryBlocks.com is at 15,353)
  • Pond5.com: 6,151

It puts Adobe.com on the top because they use the “adobe.com” domain which is used for way more things than just Adobe Stock. That’s why they appear in the top 100 most visited websites. So you can’t really conclude that Adobe Stock gets more visitors than Shutterstock.

In this ranking, Adobe Stock and Shutterstock are clearly the best marketplaces. And they’re both good for Footage & Photography. Right now iStock and Getty get fewer visitors than DepositPhotos and 123RF, which I would say are better for selling photos over videos.

 

My personal advice

 

For photographers,

I would advise starting with Shutterstock and AdobeStock.

They have the best platforms, good reviewal times and will get you the biggest number of sales.

Shutterstock has a mobile app that lets you edit metadata and submit files from it. You can even upload pictures you took from the phone.

Then as soon as you get the taste of it, grow your portfolio to other agencies. Alamy would be the first one because of the high price sales I told you a little ago. Then I’d go to more agencies like DepositPhotos, 123RF, Dreamstime, and Pond5.

To then try all the other new or small agencies.

The best way to upload photo files to multiple agencies is by using Multi-uploaders like StockSubmitter or Xpiks. It’s not that hard to learn how to use and I do cover them in my online course.

 

For filmmakers,

I suggest this order: Shutterstock, AdobeStock, Pond5, and Storyblocks.

In general, that’s what I believe are the most profitable and also the easiest to deal with.

Video demands a whole different workflow and uploading through FTP. Not as hard as it sounds and I also cover the process in my online course.

I also got my eyes on other agencies like Vimeo Stock, Dissolve, and Film Supply, for high-end content. ArtGrid and Envato are also coming with quite interesting business models and might grow in the next years.

Just as in photography, I suggest you use a multi-uploader if you want to submit to multiple agencies. StockSubmitter works well too.

But for footage, we have BlackBox, a platform that submits your footage to 5 agencies at once. I wrote an entire article to help you learn more about it.

 

https://youtu.be/PZIiKTgJ6_Q

 

Thanks for reading

What about you? What are the most profitable agencies in your opinion? What do you think the future of microstock will be like?

Thanks for reading. Stay Creative.

 

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What is going on with Pond5 Exclusive?


I may be overreacting when I call it the Pond5 Bomb but this for sure is the only thing stock creators are talking right now. Is it a bad thing? It really depends on how you work with them.

In case you missed it, Pond5 did a Live Streaming on YouTube yesterday announcing important changes in their royalty structure. They also sent an email to all contributors right after that.

Here are my 3 objectives with this article:

  • First, to give you a summary of what changes Pond5 is doing.
  • Then insights based on real earnings to help you take your decision, I will even tell you how much Pond5 represents in my total income for 2018.
  • And finally my own opinion on all of this.

Ok, here’s the summary.

Pond5 is changing the way royalty is paid to contributors. Our revenue used to be 50% of every sale. After this change, you will have to decide between being exclusive or non-exclusive with Pond5. If you go exclusive your commission rate will now be 60%. If you choose to be non-exclusive, your royalties will go down to 40%.

  • Exclusive Contributors: Royalty is increasing from 50% to 60%
  • Non-exclusive contributors: Royalty is going down from 50% to 40%

The revenue-share isn’t the only difference. Here are a few more:

  • Although they promise that ranking on searches won’t change, there will be an extra “Exclusive Branding” on those clips. This should be similar to Shutterstock’s “Select” branding
  • The curation time should be smaller
  • The marketing & support should also be a little better, though I don’t see it as a big deal. This means being part of curated collections, the Pond5 blog, social media pages, and emails sent to customers.

The Pond5 Move

To me, it’s pretty clear what they are doing. Even though they are one of the most honest companies, they are still a company and will make all they can to maximize their profit.

You probably noticed there’s a good number of companies exploring a high-end niche of the stock footage market. Stock Footage & Stock Photography did become commodities but that doesn’t mean there aren’t buyers willing to pay more for premium content.

It’s easy to prove that. Shutterstock has Offset and the Select collection. Vimeo launched Vimeo Stock. There’s also Film Supply, Dissolve, etc. They are all made of unique content that is priced way above the standard $79.

And if you watch the entire live streaming and other videos they posted, you’ll notice that they’re focusing on this exact group of experienced stock filmmakers that produce premium content and like to price it higher.

To these guys, it might be a good idea to go exclusive. Vimeo Stock is not that big yet and Shutterstock Select isn’t that easy. So Pond5 is actually a good idea.

Now, should you go exclusive?

Are these benefits enough to make you decide? I will show you how much Pond5 represents in my total income.

Not all of us are owners of studio or cinema cameras like RED or Blackmagic. Most contributors have mirrorless or DSLRs and work on stock footage as a side project. So in these cases, we are rarely producing footage that could be priced at $200. And that’s just fine.

Going exclusive will only be a benefit for those who shoot incredibly unique stuff – not only quality but stuff that is hard to reproduce.

And to be honest, I don’t see myself in that. I do what I can to improve the quality of my footage, but I don’t see myself hiring a whole team or getting a cinema camera to produce stock footage of that level. I just want to have fun and earn.

And that’s the beauty of it all because it’s ok. You don’t have to be the best filmmaker in the world to make money with stock footage.

We have a group on Facebook called Stock Creators. It would be awesome to have you there. I posted what is Pond5 share on my total income there and I’m inspiring other members to do the same to get a general idea.

In numbers, what is Pond5 to me?

To me, Pond5 represented 22% of all my stock income selling stock footage in 2018. The portfolio was pretty much the same in Shutterstock which represented 54%. So you can see why I wouldn’t get off Shutterstock to get 10% more on Pond5.

Here’s more data to help you decide.

  • The Microstock Group forum has a poll on earnings per agency. Pond5 is the 4th, with almost 4 times fewer points than Shutterstock.
  • And there’s more, let’s compare searches on Google for Pond5 along the time. In fact, it did grow since 2008 and then started to decrease after 2016. But let’s compare it to Adobe Stock and Shutterstock. In average, Shutterstock had 27 times more searches than Pond5. Let’s make it clear that this is not connected to stock footage sales, it’s just a comparison of searches on Google. We all know that Shutterstock is also strong on images while Pond5 specialty is video. But even if we compare the search terms with the word “footage” in the end, we will see that Shutterstock has more than the double of searches. Even the triple considering the last 12 months.

All of this makes my personal choice of not becoming exclusive, but I do understand the company move and the contributors who prefer to do so. Until today we only have seen prices going down and is good to see actions going the opposite way.

It’s just bad that we will lose 10% for not being exclusive. What would be nice in this transition is the ability to choose exclusive clips instead of being 100% exclusive. Then we could measure the results before deleting our content on other agencies.

One way to do this, and I still don’t know if it is against the rules, is to create a second account that is exclusive to try this out. This way you won’t have to delete files that are already selling on other agencies.