If you’re a photographer looking to earn money fast or gain other kinds of benefits with top Sites To Sell Stock Photos it may be worth considering selling your work as stock photos. When surfing the internet in any way you’re bound to come across stock photos/footage when reading articles, watching videos, or even scrolling social media. So what exactly is a stock photo?
A stock image is a photo license online, which is taken for the purpose of embodying a certain characteristic or property, best used to visualize or describe a situation. Here is an example.
This image was found on Shutterstock under the search “Man Building” so for example, if you were a Shutterstock subscriber, writing a D.I.Y article on how to build something you may turn to a stock image provider to find an accurate image for your piece.
And if you were a photographer of any kind, you could upload your work to one of these stock image providers, with the relevant tags and descriptions, and allow writers and editors over the world to access your images, if relevant to them, make sense? So which stock photo providers offer photographers the best benefits?
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List Sites To Sell Stock Photos to Start Working With
1. Alamy
Alamy is regarded as one of the best stock photo providers in the world, for both the photographer and the user. With a diverse range of over 282 million photos, editors are sure to find the images they require.
Alamy accepts almost anything prides itself on the encyclopedic nature of its collections, so for photographers, this means you can send in any of your work with very few guidelines on what is accepted, and becoming a contributor takes less than 24 hours.
Alamy states that the average cost per photo is $90, although it can vary from industry to industry. Photographers will receive a 50% commission if the photo is sold, which is more than any other provider offers.
2. ShutterStock
Shutterstock offers editors over 350 million, unique images. Users can purchase, and have full editorial access to a wide selection of images on demand with a monthly or annual subscription plan, but for more advanced images, users will have to pay an extra fee for a so-called “enhanced license”.
Shutterstock operates slightly differently from Alamy and pays contributors based on a tier system regarding their lifetime earnings as a Shutterstock contributor. So the more you earn in your Shutterstock lifetime, the more you get paid, with photographers getting paid 50 cents on the average per photo.
3. Getty Images
Getty Images offers subscribers access to a limited number of downloads a month, based on how much they pay for their subscription. However, users have access to over 350 million pictures and they are licensed to use them however they please.
It is hard to determine exactly how much a photographer can make working with Getty Images, as no figures have been released by the provider in recent years, but based on conversations on photography forums, most images sell for around $50 with the photographer receiving a 20% commission.
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So Which Provider Is Best?
In our unbiased opinion with this data we have collected, it appears that selling images through Alamy Photos offers the best benefits to the photographer.
The upload process is extremely straightforward taking less than 24 hours, with the highest commission fees for the photographer, however, this is due to the costly price the editor pays to license an image.
So with other providers being more cost-efficient for the editor, would it be worth selling images with someone like Shutterstock? Maybe. With the overall price to license a picture being much cheaper based on subscription costs and other factors, it is acceptable to think Shutterstock would be used by more editors, downloading low-cost images more frequently.
Are there any other ways to make money selling images?
Yes, if you are reluctant to accept paying fees of over 50% to these stock images providers, some photographers may attempt to go independent, by either selling freelance work individually over Sites To Sell Stock Photos, accepting that they might not receive the same volume of customers, or even exploring different areas of photography, making money by shooting privately for clients.
In addition to this, there is also a wide range of stock image providers not mentioned in this list including smaller companies like Freepik, 500px, PixaBay, and Adobe Stock, so it may be worth trying your luck with smaller providers.
The revenue you receive for your images depends massively on the industry of which you are shooting, the quality of your images, the overall demand, and so many other external factors contributing to whether or not an editor would choose to use your work. Rember, art is subjective. Author at IPOS Design, a Creative Design Agency Operating Worldwide.
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