Microstock revenue

World’s largest subscription-based online photo agency continues to thrive, adding over 70,000 high quality images per week

On November 3, 2008 – Shutterstock®, the world’s largest subscription-based online stock photo agency announced the landmark addition of its 5 millionth image to the company’s extensive collection of premium stock photos. Thanks to its popular subscription-based model, speedy review process, and consistent stream of quality submissions, Shutterstock continues to hit new industry growth milestones while maintaining high standards of image quality.

“Since January, we have added over 2 million new royalty-free images to our library, and our weekly library growth rate has recently reached more than 70,000 new images per week,” said Jon Oringer, founder and CEO of Shutterstock. “We are extremely proud to reach the 5 million image mark, especially while maintaining our stringent standards for accepting new images. We are certainly grateful to our global base of more than 120,000 talented submitters who provide our subscribers with a steady pipeline of great creative content.”

Shutterstock’s diverse library provides a wealth of fresh creative and editorial content, rivaling traditional stock photography agencies, yet at far lower prices.This has allowed the company to flourish despite the current worldwide economic downturn.

“As media companies and creative firms look for ways to save money, more and more decision makers are choosing Shutterstock to provide high quality stock images at significant savings,” said Adam Riggs, president of Shutterstock. “Since launching Shutterstock, we have remained committed to providing the best content at affordable prices. That’s why we’re confident that we will continue to meet the demands of today’s marketplace.”

The 5 millionth image is this one by Shutterstock contributor Catalin Plesa…

Yesterday Shutterstock announced that contributors will get a raise. If you have earned under $500 you still only receive $0.25 per downloaded image but if you have earned over $500 you get $0.33 per download. That is an increase with 3 cents from before. In addition to that those who have earned between $3000 and $10 000 will now receive $0.36 per download and those who have earned over $10 000 get $0.38 per download. The earnings for Extended Licence sales have increased with $8 from $20 to $28 per EL sale. That is a nice raise!

It’s a bit sad that those of us that haven’t yet earned $500 didn’t get a raise but when we eventually reach $500 it will be nice. Personally I have to earn almost $200 more before I reach $500.

Last night (in Swedish time) Shutterstock announced that they now offer monthly subscriptions to their Footage library! Earlier you had to pay for each film clip you wanted to download but that has now changed. As of yesterday you can buy a monthly subscription and download a certain number of clips during the subscription period. The person selling the clip will earn $13.25 for every high definition footage clip downloaded in a footage subscription and $8 for every non-high definition download.

I think this is fantastic! It will be very interesting to see if this will make the footage downloads more popular. It will also be interesting to see if it pays to send in new footage constantly as it does with pictures. If you stop sending in new pictures your earnings will drop (at least in my experience). Will it be the same for footage?

Personally I only have one single clip for sale (and one that is waiting for review). But this makes me want to start producing more film clips. I think this is very good news!

It seems like something has happened at Shutterstock the last couple of days. Many contributors are reporting rejections of whole batches of images for strange reasons. Most seem to be rejected due to limited commercial value and some because they are too similar (when there are no similar images). Yesterday the speculations where wild in the forum about what could have caused this. Some thought it was a software bug and some thought it may have been a new reviewer not doing their job properly. Finally a staff member told us that it wasn’t a software bug but a problem with the reviewer. Some time later they left this message:

“Unfortunately, some recent rejections were not reviewed properly. However, I am not stating that all rejections were, but some are very apparent and, again, these will be addressed individually with each submitter, as possible.”

I must admit that I had prefered it to be a software bug and not a bad reviewer. I think it’s easier to fix the software than the reviewer. I haven’t sent any pictures to Shutterstock this last week because I have worked with other stuff and now I’m glad that I haven’t. I think I will wait a couple of more days before I start submitting to them again. But it seems like they are reviewing all the images that has been rejected once again.

Shutterstock staff also said:

“Now, in regards to recent rejections & to allay any concerns with reviews: All reviewers are being reviewed for both quality approvals and rejections on a daily basis. When a situation like this occurs, I will do my best to address everyone’s concerns right away and will move to correct the situation immediately. I have done so today.”

It would be interesting to know the whole story. What happened “behind the scenes”?

In a thread at Shutterstock’s forum people show their photos and tell which material they have used for the background. It’s very interesting to see and I have gained a lot of good tips. One of the best tips was to use a photo as a background. I must try and print out a photo I took of the sky this last summer and use as a background for one of my photos.

Yesterday evening I got a message from PayPal that Shutterstock had sent me $194.35. That is the first payment I’ve ever received from any microstock agency. That feels so good! It took me 3 and a half months to earn that sum but I hope it won’t take that long to earn my next payment from them.