An update on RPI and $/dl

This an update of my post published last January about the evolution of  RPI and $/dl across my microstock agencies.

In 2008, my cumulative RPI was quite high (0.82) but constantly went down the second half of the year. In addition my $/dl was  flatlining pretty much all year long.

In 2009, RPI went  up again even if  the  average (0.65) it was significantly lower than in 2008. On the other hand , $/dl gradually  increased to reach $0.95 in december. As my sale volume did not change much compared to 2008, my earnings went actually up (+100 % increase between december 2008 and december 2009).

The increase  in $/dl can be explained by the following things:

• Microstock agencies increased their prices.

• A higher ratio of credit to subscription sales (the amount of pictures sold at Shutterstock  went down between 2008 and 2009).
  

• More  distribution channels:  I distribute my pictures to 16 agencies in 2009 compared to only 10 in 2008.

• Having a bigger portfolio (1000+ pictures) increases the odds of extended licence sales especially at Shutterstock.
  

• A higher  number of best selling pictures (especially on Istock).

24 months evolution of cumulative RPI and $/dl

RPI (Return Per Image) going down down :(

I recently had a look at my RPI (return per image) from January 2008 till January 2009.
RPI is calculated for each agency by divided total earning by the number on pictures of the portfolio at the end of the month (EL included, referrals excluded).

Cumulative RPI is calculated by adding the RPI of each microstock agency namely SS,IS,FT,123RF,DT,SXP,CSP,SCP,LO,BSP,CT so a total of 10 agencies to which I contributed during the period.

By looking at the graph, it is pretty obvious that despite the increase in commission granted by the main agencies to their contributors, RPI went up and down during the past year band took a hit in October 2008. My RPI was the highest in May 2008 (my BME) with a value of 1.11 and reach its lowest point in December 2008 with only 0.38.

In other words, upload new pictures does not produce any more increase in earnings.....

1 year evolution of cumulative RPI and commission per download (Jan 2008 - Jan 2009)

So how to increase RPI in microstock ???

• Join new agencies, a 0.01 bump in RPI is always welcome, but this is debatable.... CSP has contributed 0 to my RPI for a while now....
• The first option to increase artificially is deleting the non selling pictures on each agency. Once again you never know when a picture sells especially with a EL, RPI can go up quite a lot in this case.
  
• Produce more sellable pictures by finding a niche for sure will increase RPI over time, might take a while though....
• Focus more on quality than quantity....
• Another option is to increase the value of some pictures by analyzing past year sales and putting them as exclusives at FT or DT. I just did that for two of my best sellers in DT.
• Other way to increase the value of a picture is to upload the high res size but in agencies with sub and credit it is again debatable.

These points made it will be interesting to look at the evolution of the RPI in 2009, hopefully it will stabilize somewhere around 0.5!!

Feel free to comment, I would like to hear about your RPI figures !

Metrics to track your portfolio performance. A look at Shutterstock

The aim of using metrics is to monitor the performance of your portfolio month after month. Financial metrics are not the only ones to measure performance but non-financial ones can also help making decision about your photo production.

The obvious financial metric we all use is the total monthly revenue. Some photographers are looking at $/download and return per image (RPI). Each metric can give indication about how your pictures are performing on each agency.

To be able to use these metrics at the end of the month, you should compare them to targets you have set target at the beginning for example total monthy revenue and RPI to reach. $/dl is mostly useful for credit based agencies like FT,123RF,SXP (even if they do sub), does not bring anything for SS which will be $ 0.33/dl in my case if did not have EL.

RPI is a very useful metric to measure how your pictures are selling at a particular agency. Based on my portfolio (no people pictures, no vectors) my targets for RPI at SS are the following:

• RPI> $ 0.50 excellent
• RPI between $ 0.25 and $ 0.5 average to good
• RPI< $ 0.25 poor

The problem with RPI is that it a metrics related to new and old pictures from the portfolio. Anyway, I propose a modified RPI which I call batchRPI which like it says is related to your monthly batch. It is a direct indication of the quality of your batch and it can give also indirectly indication about the lifespan of the batch: the idea here is that if you maximize bRPI, you are lickely to see the benefits even the following month. Also , these pictures are likely to sell well on other sites like IS,123RF,DT,FT on the longer term.

How to calculate batchRPI ?

First evaluate the size of your batch accepted at SS: from the main page, click on waiting to be reviewed . Then on status of submitted photos click on the approved photos tab and count day by day.

Then the painful one... From the downloads stats open each day stat and count how did you earn for the batch.

bRPI = batch earnings/batch size

The way how SS works is that newly uploaded pictures sold straight away with more or less success then sell occasionally in the following months. Following this logic, a good bRPI in May is likely to have positive impact on the RPI in June.


Some graphs !

• bRPI March 2007
  

Initial bRPI was 1.14 which is average and represented 34 % of total earnings this month. Interestingly, this batch managed to kept his value in April with a bRPI=0.92. In June, however bRPI went down and will represent only 2% of the earnings....

• bRPI May 2007
  

This batch had a very good initial value with bRPI=2.08. It was a batch of 45 pictures which earned 2.08*45=$ 93.6 (73% of earnings!). Will this batch hold his value or not? So far I saw I bRPI in June was divided by more than 2.







------------------

bRPI> 1 : very good to excellent (new pictures made at least $ 1 in average)
bRPI between 0.33 and 1 : average
bRPI = 0.33 (new pictures sold only once in average)
bRPI<0.33>

SXP May 2008: bRPI= 0.26 (63% of earnings coming from new pictures!), RPI = 0.10

Enough for financial measures, the two non financial metrics I will follow will be the monthly acceptance rates at SS and IS. Looking at the other acceptance rates in their other will not bring much since they are too high or too fluctuating. As it is not useful to measure too many things I will discard as metric the sell through rate (STR) which does not say much about month to month performance.