March earnings

Highlights

For the first time since I started this blog, I had a drop in earnings of 14% but I am still above the $ 200 mark. Three BME at FT, SXP and 123RF and an EL at FT. Regarding midstock this month only one sale of $ 7 to report at Zymmetrical which is not bad considering it was a small size.

Some news in the microstock world this month: SXP and 123RF followed IS and FT in the increase of prices which is good news for contributors. SS is expected to implement a raise next month and it was the subject of a lot of discussion across the forums.
I will be interesting to follow SS this year to see if they will stick to the subscription model: a lot of photographers noticed a significant drop in sales at SS this year. I observed this also despite having from 0.25 to $ 0.30 and the upload of new pictures.
Because SXP in their new price structure include a XXXL size I am still opting out for subscription. I did the same at Snapvillage and decided for the time being to put all my pictures at $ 50 treating SV like midstock not microstock. However I do not have any sales to report it there.

Microstock one by one

• SS (- 19%). A significant drop in sales this month despite a raise at $ 0.3/dl early this month. It looks like SS is slowing declining , hopefully the coming new price structure will compensate some of it. Global performance down to 32 % which is the lowest since I starting uploading there.
  

• FT (+13%). BME. A good month at FT where the effect of the price increase are still there with an average $/dl close to $ 1.5. Global performance of 9 %.
  

• 123RF (+31%) BME A surprise 3rd place for 123rf. A lot of credit sales with few sales at $ 3.75 which is much higher than all the other sites for a 5MP picture. Performance of 5 % but a good $ 0.89/dl this month.
  

• IS (-47%) IS did not continue its progression of last month after the price increase. Less sales and a slight drop in $/dl explain this result. Good performance of 16%
  

• DT (-38%). Despite the fact the DT is my 3rd largest portfolio among my leading agencies, sales are not really following. I still do not have any level 2 images but the $/dl is not bad at $ 0.85. Performance at 4% so less than 123RF.

• SXP (+85%) BME helped by the new prices in place at the end of the month with the highest $/dl of all the major sites at $1.5 . Performance 7 %

Less than 3 % of earnings
BSP, LO, SCP, CT(1 sale at $ 0.25). No sales at CSP this month

• Big 6 rankings

$: SS>FT>123RF>IS>DT>SXP

Performance: SS>IS>FT>SXP>123RF>DT

$/DL: SXP>FT>123RF>IS>DT>SS








Detailed earnings Figures in USD. Note: 100 % global performance is defined by a portfolio with an average of sales of $ 1 per picture.

First sale at Zymmetrical !

I wrote briefly about zymmetrical in a previous post: "Zymmetrical is another midstock agency with a pretty sophisticated multilingual platform. Photographers can set their own prices from $ 3 to $100 for the largest size and get a generous 70 % royalty fee. Up to 5 pictures can be submitted by http with a minimum size of 640 pixels. Zipped pictures can be sent by ftp as well. Some photographers @ microstockgroup have also reported some sales''.

Well I just had my first sale there and with only 33 pictures uploaded it is quite encouraging. I sold only a small size but due to the 70% royalty I got $7. To compare, the same picture on line now for 5 months at SS was sold 38 times and generated $ 9.50. I was hoping to sell there one of my pictures which is on the frontpage for several weeks now but it did not happen yet :(
You can use my referral link if you want to join zymmetrical

Here is the lucky image below

February earnings

Highlights

Very good month overall and with the help of my first referrals earnings I am now just above the $250 mark (+24%). 5 BME on the 5 main agencies. I saw this month a very positive effect of the price increase at FT and IS with return of more than $1/dl. I got for the first time 2EL at Shutterstock!

On a previous post I was speculating about the increase of the $/dl and it really happened this month with the highest I had so far with $0.69.

However nothing to report on the macro site this month, not a single sale despite the fact than one of my picture (green spiral staircase) is on the frontpage of Zymmetrical with few others.

Ranking $: SS>FT>IS>DT>123RF

Ranking performance: SS>IS>FT>DT>123RF

Ranking $/DL: SCP>FT>IS>LO>CSP

Microstock one by one

• SS (+37%). BME. My highest earner for the 7th consecutive month but % earnings continue to decrease down to 41% this month. I got not only one but two exclusive extended sales this month which is pretty unusual. Without them, SS would have taken just under 30% of earnings. Global performance 45%.
  

• FT (+29%) BME. A nice growth this month mainly due to the new prices put in place because I had less sales than the previous month. This is the highest $/download I ever had with $ 1.46 ($ 0.91 last month). Performance up to 8%.

• IS (+36%) BME. IS continue its growth and due to the price increase a very good return per image at 1 $/per download ($ 0.79 last month). I get more pictures accepted because of my better camera resolution now I think. Global performance up to 33%.
  

• DT (+71%). BME. A surprisingly good month with a significant decrease in subscriptions sales (4 out of 27) which gave a much higher $/dl than last month at $ 0.87

• 123RF (+40%). BME. I continue to be impressed by 123 RF , earnings are up this month again with almost a perfect split between subscription and credit sales.
• SXP (-11%) A slow month at SXP , sales did never really pick up since I started.
  
• Slow sites (less than 2% of sales each): BSP,CSP,CT,SCP,LO. LO and SCP are actually the best of this pack. Only sub sales at CT , I will pause my uploads there from now on.
  

• 379 pictures sold (229 on SS)
• Best day: $ 29.36 (25/02)
• Average per download: $0.63
• Global performance : 106 %

Detailed earnings Figures in USD. Note: 100 % global performance is defined by a portfolio with an average of sales of $ 1 per picture.