Are you using istockphoto.com?

Are any of you using http://istockphoto.com to monetize your photography? If you are, do you find it profitable? Are there better places to use?

It looks like they pay 20 cents per dollar until you get exclusive (500 uploads?) and then you get 40 cents per dollar. That doesn't seem like the best payout for granting royalty free reprints.

Thoughts?

 

I really like that site ---- I hope the photographers are doing well, I'd hate to loose it as a place to get photos...

 

That would have to one of the best places on the web for budget photos for websites or whatever. At one dollar for a low resolution download, royalty free, there are few better deals around.

Obviously there are plenty of protographers willing to put pics there since it has a few hundred images in the database.

 

I looked up some of the guys there. I can't say for sure, but one guy had sold about 1400 downloads of approximately 30 images. If they were all 800x600 then he made 280 dollars.

Interesting site and business model. I'm kinda biased because I have labored at photography and would be kinda upset to only make 20% on images which are then royalty free.

I guess it's kinda like here. Some people will write high quality articles for 1 penny a word.

All that being said, I still thinking about joining and seeing what I can do with some of the work I never planned to sell.

 

I use www.stockedphotos.com

They're a membership site, I don't know if they pay per download, but they're looking for photographers:
http://www.stockedphotos.com/PhotographersWanted.html

I think it's rather expensive unless you use it a lot, but they're trustworthy as they're made by BoxedArt, who are an extremely popular website template company.

 

I've been using there service a bit the last couple of weeks, like most things when it comes to the web - if you want qulaity its worth paying for. However, its got me thinking I should also get some of the acres of unused but good enough photos I have on my PC - even if its a low price, its better than getting nothing for them. If I could just find a spare five minutes to sort some out, I'd be laughing.

If you want a free alternative, but without the range of isp - www.morguefile.com is a good source. But seldom has the depth and quality of the stuff on isp.

 

As far as pirce / quality / selection is concerned, its the best place I have found.

 

The amount of pay depends on several factors - the number of total downloads you have, and the resolution of the photo downloaded, and the usage of the photo.

The highest amount you can make on a photo for a regular license is $16.00 per download. If a print campaign is going to have more than 500,000 copies printed, the usage fee can be considerably more.

The also have istockpro where the photos are more exclusive and cost quite a bit more, up to several hundred dollars - of course that means a higher royalty to the photographer- but you aren't going to have a photo that gets thousands of downloads.

 

Istockphoto pays 20%, so the photographer makes 20cents for the small resolution downloads, 60cents for the medium res and 1$ for the high resolution.
I have been selling my photos to microstock agencies for about a year now. I use Dreamstime , www.shutterstock.com www.fotolia.com www.canstockphoto.com www.bigstockphoto.com and a few others. With a relatively small and not that great portfolio I have made almost 2500$ in a year from my hobby which is much more than I ever expected.

 

I buy a lot of images from iStockPhoto. They have got a great selection at very good prices.

IMHO, it is a place primarily for amateur photographers to sell their photos. Anyone can sign up and sell images. That's why you see so many crappy images, but there are a lot of diamonds in the mix, as well. You just have to dig for them.

 

20% is the base. The new pricing structure pays up to 40% and very large files run up to 40 credits, so the pay can be $16.00 per photo for a regular license.

 

The initial registration process is fairly stringent. The test is easy, but the uploaded photo requirements are strict. I don't think there is much QA after someone is approved to upload pictures, which is where all the crappy pictures come from.


The other thing I don't like about istock, is the search function is limited, and the amount of pictures per page you can display is limited. I would like to display about 100 or more, but it is limited way below that. Probably for bandwidth conservation, but still annoying.

 

gettyimages.com will allow 90 thumbnails, which is the most I've seen. The overall quality is higher, but so are the prices.

 

istockphoto has recently put prices up, I wonder if flickr is after istockphoto at some point of its history