Pure Reviews

123RF launches two new features to their site.  First up Audio is coming to the site and they will allow you to set your price points per a chart.  See below for how to upload your stock audio and the royalty breakdown.  Second they have announced a new image size of ML which will push everything up 1 credit from the Large price point.  A full chart is listed below.  Sign up for 123RF look for the link on the right size. Adding 'Audio Stock' to its list of endless digital creative content, 123RF is inviting Audio Composers and Authors to send in their audio clips, sound effects, music tracks and compilations to be included in its all-encompassing collection. You'll be able to access a worldwide clientele via the 123RF.com platform. 123RF can now be viewed as the ideal launch pad for audio professionals looking to market their projects to the creative industry. Contributors get 30% to 60% of the selling price. And the best part is, you get to decide how to ...

Alamy has adjusted their contributor contract for the coming year.  The biggest change was a 10% increase on commissions to Alamy from the Photographers side.  Alamy still has one of the highest payouts rates to photographers, but still following the trend of dropping royalty rates in the industry.  See Alamy writeup below. The latest version of the Alamy Contributor contract, published on 20th November 2012, included some important changes to our terms. For Contributors who registered before 20th November 2012, the new contract came into force on 5th January 2013, 45 days from the notification date of 20th November 2012. For Contributors who registered from 20th November 2012 onwards, the new contract was in force from the point of registration. What changed? The most important changes to our terms were increased Alamy commission on direct and third-party distributor sales. All key changes are summarised below, for...

Zoonar adds Getty Images to their partner distribution list.  Its interesting that they have it in their clause that you cant send the images to their biggest competition Veer and Corbis.  The second bit of news is they are dropping the commission rate by 10%  for partner sales.  Zoonar sales will still get commissions up to 80%. Dear photographers, we have important news for you: 1. We are pleased to present Getty Images as our new distribution partner. As of now you can only submit photos which don’t require a model or property release. We hope to offer you a new release management tool by the middle of 2012, which will make it possible for you to submit photos that require a release. Getty Images has generated high sales through its platforms Jupiterimages and Thinkstock which has made many photographers want to submit photos for this partner. We are expectant to see how many photos will be accepted by Getty Images. We have no figures based on exp...

So another month of 2012 is in the record books.  Below is the chart for February sales and this month was a great one.  I had a huge increase from last month and also a couple of EL sales at CanStockPhotos .  Other big leaders where Dreamstime , 123RF , Photodune and Depositphotos .  Like always, if I didn't have a sale on the site this month then they aren't listed.  Full list of sites I upload to is on the right of the blog.

123RF launched their new royalty rates that will go into effect on Jan. 1st, 2013.  Originally they stated that a new rate would be fore new contributors, but it looks like that might have been abandoned for this new system at the end of this year.  They are leaving plenty of time between now and the end of the year to hear the feedback.  Below is their breakdown of how your rates will be give.  Join 123RF here .  It will be hard to swallow $0.216 for the lowest sub sales in the industry.  123RF.com will be changing its Contributor Commission Payout on January 1, 2013. From now till then, 123RF.com shall continue paying our Contributors at a rate of: 50% net value for credits $0.36 per download for subscriptions From January 1, 2013 onwards – 123RF shall adopt the new Contributor Commission Payout schedule depicted in the table below :      123RF shall round the monthly cumulative earnings to the nearest $0.01. ...

Shutterstock launches a sensitive use license that will allow an increase of sales of up to $75 per image.  Unlike several other companies, SS is going to let you opt out of this feature which will keep your models from being featured in sensitive ads for healthcare or other topics.  This is a great new revenue stream and also gives photographers great control of how their photos should be used. To Our Valued Contributors, We would like to tell you about an important update with great potential to increase sales for you. We are updating our Contributor Terms of Service (“TOS”) to enable new sales with a royalty of up to $75 per image download. Shutterstock services both small and large buyers. In addition to our standard and enhanced licenses, we provide custom licenses to buyers such as large advertising agencies. These agencies require more rights and some flexibility in how an image might ultimately be used. That flexibility may include "sensitive uses." ...

As 2011 is now at a close, its time to reflect on the past year.  Several things have changed over the last year in the stock photography industry.  Everything from the several pay cuts/ changes at Fotolia , user fall out at iStock , to the new up and coming sites like PhotoDune and DepositPhotos .  Over all the year was down for me compared to last year, but I continue to grow that image count on several sites.  Hopefully 2012 will be a big year of uploading as I have several images backlogged from several trips.  So here is to 2012 everyone and let the charts begin. Actual dollars received (does not reflect money still locked in accounts due to payout minimums) compared to 2010. Snap shot of sales through the last 12 months, December was the lowest month of the year. Total percentage of sales per sites for the last 12 months.  The top sites that ranked for the last year is as follows: Dreamstime (22% or 34% if you include referrals), ...

Envato has given a non-exclusive rate increase across all their sites and it is now officially live.  Typical marketplace authors where making 25% and will now they will be making 33%.  While several of the larger stock companies (Fotolia and iStock) have been giving us pay cuts, I am glad Envato is giving us a raise for our images.  If you are new to the Envato family check out their site here .  You can sell or buy several types of things from them, not just stock images. Non-Exclusive Rates Increase: Now Live! There's some exciting news for our non-exclusive Marketplace authors. We've increased the commission rate for all non-exclusive Marketplace authors from the old 25% to 33%. This means our non-exclusive authors will earn about a third more on each sale they make. Non-exclusive authors have no need to do anything and will automatically receive the higher commission rate for all sales made.

Alamy has started accepting Paypal as form of payment for your royalties.  This is great news for several people who already use the service and this will allow for users to get access to their royalties even faster.  Sign up for Alamy here . Dear Contributor, Good news – we have made some improvements to the way in which we pay our contributors. We are now offering PayPal – we can pay you in GBP, USD or EURO’s via PayPal. If you opt for PayPal we will send your payment so that you do not pay any PayPal fees. If you do not have a PayPal account or would like to know more please see the PayPal website . If you already have a PayPal account and would like to be paid this way please enter your PayPal details by logging into My Alamy , selecting Change your Payment and Tax details and then selecting Change details . To be paid by PayPal in the October payrun you need to update your details by October 2nd. For more information on how we pay you please...

YayMicro is going through growing pains as it site is back up and running again.  They had to shut down FTP uploading and have had a slower site then normal the last few month.  Traffic has increased 10 fold with more then 650,000 unique visitors.  Below if a formal letter from the CTO of YayMicro talking about the new servers and future improvement that will be coming to the site.  All this is great news and we look forward to the growing success at company.  Sign up for YayMicro here . YES, uploading is now up and running again! :) You can upload by FTP ( ftp.yaymicro.com ) or use the web interface. Recently we have experienced a huge increase in traffic to our site. We had 650.000 unique visitors in August, which is a decuple (yes, its a word and means 10x) since January. In August we also started our corporation with ddp images in Germany which opened our database to huge amount of searches from photo buyers all over Europe. In mid September...

Dreamstime launches a student promo.  If you are a student and need some great stock photo's all you need is your student ID to get a discount of 25% off any plans.  Also they are giving away 5 ipads also, which 2 are will to go to student who buy images during this campaign.  5 more ipads will be open to student or regular members who refer any members.  New to Dreamstime, join here . Are you a STUDENT? 25% OFF for all images! Need A+ images for school? We know all about your sleepless study nights, scrambling to prepare presentations, pre-exam headaches and tight budgets. Your projects deserve the best visual support. We can't write the term paper for you, however we can certainly take the image prices down making it easier for you to produce quality work! We've got all images you need at 25% OFF, and you can win one of five iPad 2s! Any registered student will get 25% off all images and image packages for the month of September. Registr...

Depositphoto's is rolling out more marketing features to bag some large profile contributors.  Very similar to when they launched their site they are offering features to help bring over your images to their platform.  One of these feature is getting a $0.10 per image, up to 500 images.  Also something I am not as thrilled about is higher positions in search results for large clients.  This is something I am sure several companies do, its just not something advertised.  If you are interested in joining Depositphotos click here.  Personal ranking of the site for me is between 3rd and 5th when it comes to earnings. Depositphotos offers individualized collaborative terms for those photographers who have a large portfolio and would like to upload it to our site. If you are a skilled and talented photographer or illustrator working with different stock photo agencies, and you have a large portfolio ready to upload to our site but no time to spare, we are ...

Stock photography sites continue to race to the bottom when it comes to royalty rates.  Fotolia has announced they are working hard to lower your earnings by dropping the royalty rates.  They are now aligning themselves with iStock , which had a large number of complaints when they lowered their royalties and became one of the more hates sites.  However iStock did not see the large fallout that was talked about and it appears that Fotolia has noticed that.  The biggest hit was to vectors, who royalties dropped almost 80%.  This also marks the second time in one year for contributors to drop in royalties at Fotolia , as they changed their ranking settings in the spring, which dropped several users down on earnings. We've been hard at work for the last few months adding features to make the site more convenient for both contributors and artists. With this latest release, we're also revising our subscription plans to align with what's happening in the marketplac...

iStock is revamping their referral program in the very near future.  Currently they have given us a little taste of what is to come by bumped the reward from $10 to $20 for new buyers if they make a 26 credit purchase in 30 days.  To help convince the buyer to join they are also giving them 15 free credits to use.  There newsletter shows a third box about winning a trip, which goes to the two top users that refer the most new customers by August 31st..  Stay tune for the latest update.  Join iStock here In a couple of months, we're going to be launching a completely redesigned and rebuilt referral program. We've already made several improvements to streamline things, but most importantly we're doubling the referral bonus effective immediately. That means you can earn $20 (USD) for each and every new customer you refer to us, and as long as they make a purchase of 26 credits or more within 30 days of signing up, you're in the money. We'll even help you mo...

Bigstock launches a new way to make purchases of your images, via Pay As You Go.  Contributors get 30% out of the $0.50 USD credit.  See the little chart below for the price breakdown via credits/ pay as you go.  This new feature includes your extended license images and went live on June 2nd.  All pay as you go credits can use major credit cards, see Bigstock for details.  To sign up and join Bigstock click here . Checkout their video here: Video Pay as You Go Credits (just like before) Small $0.90 $0.50 Medium $1.50 $1.00 Large $2.70 $2.00 X-Large $3.90 $3.00 Vector $3.90 $3.00 Extended License $29.70 $25.00

Attached is the chart for Febuary sales.  The month was ok, nothing to exciting to report.  Top three earners are: Dreamstime , 123RF , and Shutterstock .  For a full list of sites I am on, check out the links off to the site.

Dreamstime time has launched a image geo mapping feature that will allow contributors to start tagging their image locations.  You can do this by editing your images or if you have a camera that has auto GPS recording and the feature is turned on the geo tag info will be attached when you upload your new images to the site.  I can only assume that this will become a future feature for buyers will be able to near searches by.  Of course this could take a while if you have several images on the site.  Sign up for Dreamstime here .

     The wrap up of 2010 is complete and the sales numbers are in, see charts below.  I started off 2010 with a total of 22 sites.  I personally added 2 new sites, but dropped 5 sites who either performed poorly or closed their doors.  We will start the 2011 year of with a total list of 19 sites...which have links off to the right.  Over all I would say that 2010 was a successful year with an increase in revenue by 78%.  Top earner goes to my powerhouse Dreamstime , then iStockphoto , Shutterstock , and 123RF .  Click on the charts below if you wish to increase the size.  If I can do another 75% jump in 2011 I will then be ecstatic, so here is to hoping. December Sales Chart: Year End Chart: Current Image Count per Site:

German stock photography site Zoonar has added the Alamy power house to their growing list of partners.  If you have not heard of Zoonar they have both Micro and Macro stock photography options.  Currently their other partner lists are: Polylooks, APIS Network, and Fotofinder.  After your photos are accepted they become Rights Managed images, but you can click edit and choose Royalty Free images if you wish.  Sign up at Zoonar here .

iStock announced last week changes to their contributor royalty percentage break downs.  I did not immediately post this as I was waiting to see what kind of reaction would come out of their heavy users.  I myself have small sales numbers at iStock , so any changes are considered minor for me personally.  After this announcement though several of their big exclusive contributors have announced they will be leaving iStock as its a slap in the face to their earnings.  iStock how ever states that this will increase earning on several accounts.  I am no math expert, but starting at ground zero every year vs a built up over time does not seem it will have a increase in earnings.  This all takes place on January 2011 and your 2011 credit number will be set as of a few days ago.  Here is a link to take you to the percentage breakdown.  They are also adding another category like Vetta.  See the full write up below. We are adding a new premium co...