At some point, every aspiring travel photographer hears the same tempting promise of stock photography websites: “Upload your photos. Earn passive income.”
But what does microstock photography really pay? How much can you earn, and is it worth it?
What is Microstock Photography?
We usually differentiate between Microstock and Macrostock and both have some unique characteristics. In this article, we want to have a closer look at Microstock as a business model, particularly for travel photographers.
First of all, what is Microstock Photography? Traditionally, Photo Agencies selected the photographers they worked with. They had catalogues of stock photos from which clients could choose. Mostly, agencies had networks of partners in most countries around the globe – something particularly interesting for us travel photographers since our works might be interesting for clients worldwide. In the digital era, along with the internet, things changed.
First of all, the demand for photographs skyrocketed. With all Social Media, you have more graphic content used in businesses than ever. And at the same time, photography became more and more accessible to many people. Microstock agencies saw a gap in the market and tried to provide clients with large volumes of photographs for way lower prices than traditional photo agencies do.
The downside for the clients is that the photos are often very frequently used and, therefore, can hardly be used for brand recognition as competitors might use the same picture, especially in the travel industry with infinite competitors. However, with a massive demand for image content, many smaller companies prefer this way of purchasing image rights to keep costs low.
How much can you earn with Microstock?
Ok, I can’t speak from my own experience. As you’ll read below, I never got into working with a Microstock agency – though I was close at some point!
When I talk now with other Travel photographers who, at some point, signed up with such agencies, what I hear is usually ridiculous. Mostly, they’re not talking about Euros or Dollars, but Cents!
That might be a surprise if you look at Microstock agencies’ prices. On iStock, you can buy credits for as little as 5,83€. When I looked for photos of Berlin, I found some offered for one and some for three credits. So a company pays 6-18€ and can use the photograph forever.
For the photo on sale for one credit, you can purchase an extended license for “Unlimited Reproduction / Print Runs” for an additional 18 credits. That’s 111€ in total, and you can sell up to 100.000 postcards or 10.000 posters with the photo.
If that sounds good to you so far, stay with me. This money doesn’t go into the photographer’s pocket right away. Of course, the agency has to get its “fair” share. 70/30 with the bigger side for the photographer? Or maybe 50/50, you might think, as the photo provides the value? Well, so did I before I earned my first cent with photography. No, the agency charges you – not kidding – 85% of what the user pays for the photo.
But wait, it gets even worse. iStock doesn’t only offer purchases via credits. Companies can buy a subscription to get access to multiple photos. In that case, it’s hard to identify how much a single photo costs. iStock guarantees you a minimum value for your image. And it is 0,10€.
Of which you get 15%.
Guaranteed minimum of 0,015€ per licensing! Time to cool down the champagne!?
And hence a situation that many photographers got to know. You get an e-mail, “Somebody just bought your image”! Celebration time, cool down the champagne. Your first money ever earned with photography. This is how you start; you’ll be a star! And the incredible disappointment once you open that e-mail and see how many cents you’ve earned.
I know many people who (used to) sell with Microstock agencies, and almost none of them earns more than 100-200€ monthly. Most earn far less with it.
I don’t go into the other Microstock agencies now, but they’re similar. If you ever consider one of them, have a careful look at
- their prices for credits/subscriptions
- credit need per photo,
- commission charges and
- minimum fees in case of subscriptions.
Work with Microstock agencies if…
- You see yourself as a photo producer rather than an artist and are planning on doing generic corporate photography with tons of volume all day long. It can work for niches.
Stay away from Microstock agencies if…
- You want to make a living with high-quality photography
- You spend more than 30 seconds to post-process your images
- You want to keep control over your Copyrights
- You do Travel, Cityscape or Landscape Photography
My personal experience and take on Microstock Agencies
As I mentioned before, I was close to getting into it. At some point, I grew frustrated, seeing friends selling their images on poster portals and microstock agencies, earning money with their photography while I didn’t. Somehow I had this idea in my mind that my photos must be worth more. I put, on average, 40min of post-processing into each of them. How could I ever sell it for a price of 5€? The math doesn’t add up for me.
Yet I was close, and I owe it to my wife who told me back then: Stop it. Forget about this. This is not the way for you.
And to this day, whenever someone asks me, I have to say: This decision to stay out of the microstock market was the best decision I’ve ever made in my photographic career. It turns out the market is broken. It wasn’t that companies didn’t buy photos from me directly because they didn’t like them. It was because they stole them instead.
For every license sold, there are probably a hundred photos stolen worldwide. And this is why staying out of Microstock was my best decision: The agencies don’t give a damn about you as the photographer.
Do you want to know who’s legally using your photo and who purchased your license? They won’t tell you. And because of that, you have a tough time telling which of your photo copies on the internet are used legally or illegally. I know many photographers who lost 20.000€ and much more in value because they can no longer go after copyright infringements.
Or other friends who now see their photo being used for postcards all over Berlin sold at 1€ each while they got maybe 10€ for it in total.
Suppose you have read this far and want to make a living from your passion. Please don’t fall for the temptation of quick money. I promise there are better ways to make a living with Travel Photography, and we’ll explore them in this blog.
And if by any chance you started with Microstock and don’t make a decent income with it – and with decent, I mean it pays for your rent – please take your photos off sale right now.
