16. At last, we are selling !
Pwieeuwww, it took some while, but at last we are set for selling. And the best part is that you don't have to do anything for it.
All sites give a nice overview of which pictures have been sold and how much you did earn. Fotolia even sends you an email each time a photo is sold.
Some sites also list how many times your pictures has been viewed and on iStockphoto you can follow in how many lightboxes your photo has been put in. I found that the number of lightboxes your photo is in, give a good reflection on it's popularity. The more lightboxes, the more likely it will be selling.
Shutterstock however doesn't provide any of this. You can only see how many times a photo had been downloaded. I find this a big drawback for shutterstock.
The fact that you have direct feedback of which photos will sell and which won't is a great advantage of such microstock sites
over the traditional stock agencies at which you rarely have a 'feeling' with the customers.
16.1. At what price are my images sold ?
It's difficult to answer this question in a simple way. There are two reasons for this :
Firstly : all sites work with 'credits'. With those credits images can be bought. But the confusing thing is that not all credits cost the same. Even within a single site, there are differences.
Underneath I tried to give an overview of the different credit prices.
| |
Price of a credit in $ |
| |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Cheapest Credit |
|
0.97 |
* |
0.77 |
0.90 |
1.00 |
| Most Expensive Credit |
|
1.30 |
* |
1.00 |
1.00 |
2.50 |
note that there is no value for Shutterstock. Shutterstock only sells on subscription. I'll explain this later on this page
Secondly : the price of an image is mostly determined by the size you want to download. But again, every site has it's own price structure.
| |
Price of an image in credits |
| size in megapixels |
|
|
|
|
|
| 0.12 MP |
(400*300) |
1 |
|
|
|
|
| 0.48 MP |
(800*600) |
2 |
|
1 |
1 |
|
| 1.00 MP |
(72 dpi) |
|
|
|
|
1 |
| 1.92 MP |
(1600*1200) |
4 |
|
|
2 |
|
| 3.70 MP |
(2250*1688) |
|
|
|
3 |
|
| 4.92 MP |
(2560*1920) |
6 |
|
2 |
|
|
| 8.00 MP |
(3300*2475) |
|
|
3 |
4 |
|
| > 8.00 MP |
(?) |
|
|
4 |
|
|
| 11.76 MP |
(4200*2800) |
10 |
|
|
|
|
| > 15.00 MP |
(?) |
|
|
|
5 |
|
| 16.17 MP |
(4900*3300) |
15 |
|
|
|
|
| original size |
(?) |
|
* |
|
|
2 |
Again no values for Shutterstock. Shutterstock only sells on subscription. I'll explain this later on this page
To know how much your images will cost to the buyers you need to multiply the credit price of table 1 with the image price in credits of table 2
16.2. How much do I get for one download ?
Just a word about the pay out ratio at the different sites. The complaint most heard about those sites is that they only pay $0.20 for a download while the site holds $0.80 for themselves. But this is not completely true ?
Underneath you'll see a table with the royalty percentage on each site and with my average royalty a download for that site in the period March - August '07. These numbers included possible extended license sales.
| avg royalty per DL in $ |
|
|
|
|
|
| 0.70 |
0.30 |
0.85 |
0.81 |
0.76 |
As you can see it's not true that you only get $0.20 per download as often told. Of course, sometimes, when a small file size is downloaded, you'll get only $ 0.20. But in other cases, when larger files are bought, you'll receive $1 or more for one download.
The avg price at shutterstock is that low because they only sell only through subscription. But don't forget that these figure actually mean nothing. It's the check on the end of the month which counts. On page 7 we saw that shutterstock is the biggest earner for almost all photographers.
16.3. Subscriptions
At the moment 2 sites offer a subscription. With a subscription you can download a fixed number of full res images a day for a fixed amount.
: Shutterstocks lowest subscription is $159. The buyer may download 25 images / day. The photographers earns $0.30 for each download.
: Dreamstime has also introduced a subscription service recently. The subscription costs $90. The buyer may download 10 images / day. The photographers receives $0.25 per download.
16.4. Pay-out Ratio
The pay-out ratio is which percentage a site pays to it's contributor from a sale. For instance with a ratio of 60%, you'll get $0.60 for every $1 a site sells.
Not that this figure is that important. But it shows how "photographer-friendly" a site is.
| avg royalty per DL in $ |
|
|
|
|
|
| 20% |
? |
50% |
33% |
50% |
It's not clear what the payout ratio at shutterstock is.
Their smallest subscription is $159. For that price you can download 750, full size photos (maximum of 25 a day). On average this is only $0.21, while Shutterstock pays $0.25 to the photographer + $0.03 to those who referred that photographer, this makes a total of $0.28.
By this calculation, Shutterstock seems to pay out more than they receive. This will certainly not be the case.
I think they assume that not everyone downloads the maximum of 25 photos a day. The number of downloads during the weekend is certainly a lot lower than during the week. So not everyone is downloading his maximum.
16.5. Extended Licenses
Finally a word about the price of extended licenses. An extended License sale can influence your earnings big time because they earn you a lot more than a normal download.
Underneath a table with the royalties YOU RECEIVE if you sell a Extended License. The price for the buyers is of course higher.
| |
Royalties YOU receive in $$ |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Print Run
The number of copies allowed when publishing a book or paper. |
| # allowed by standard license |
|
500.000 |
250.000 |
500.000 |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
| Up to 2.500.000 |
|
|
|
25 |
|
|
| Unlimited |
|
20 |
20 |
|
standard license |
standard license |
Multi-seat license
Normally only the downloader may use the images.
If more than one designers of the same firm uses the images, a multi-seat license is needed.
|
| 2-5 users |
|
5 |
20 |
|
|
|
| unlimited users |
|
10 |
20 |
12.5 |
|
|
Items for resale
if you want the image included directly on an item you sell.
Selling the image itself is not allowed !!
|
| cards, posters, frames artwork, ... |
|
10 |
20 |
25 |
6.7* |
$ 3/20 ** |
| emails, screensavers, ... |
|
15 |
20 |
25 |
6.7* |
$ 3/20 ** |
| Buyout |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Full ownership |
|
|
|
image related |
image
related |
|
* At Fotolia photographers can set their own pricing to a certain extend. Therefore you can get different payout figures. The standard value for EL's is set to 20 credits, which makes that the payout will be $6.7 (33%).
** The payout of the extended licenses at BigStockPhoto depends on the sort of license the buyer bought. A single use earns $3, limited to 1000 copies earns $7 and an unlimited use is $20.
|
|
|
