What sites are you talking about?  I have heard people call mostphotos and alamy "midstock" but they have a big difference in price.  I stick microstock photos on mostphotos but not on alamy, they get different photos.

Zeus,

The main difference is the pricing. We let our contributors decide at what price they would like to license their images. The result is that the average price is higher than microstock. Not as high as macro/traditional RF but not as low as micro. Thus the appellation "midstock" .

Our users can also change their pricing ( once every 8 days at the most) if they feel they are too high or too low. We do have some similar images than microstock but we also have images not available in those sites. We receive a lot of submissions from pros, for example, that do not wish to subscribe to microstock pricing but still would like to get their feet wet in lower pricing than they were accustomed to.

Finally, the lightly higher pricing allows us to give back a higher percentage ( 70% in our case) making each sale more lucrative for the photographer or graphic designer.

Hope that helps

I havent searched carefully many other midstock priced agencies but for speaking for our agency (midstock) vs. microstock there is atleast two great difference.

1. With the little higher price customer will get the largest file size, many microstock you get only small file size of that price, if you want that XXL you pay quite same difference in price compared to midstock.
2. You dont have limited print runs or limited the usage in some other similar ways.

I don't understand exactly what you mean by "big enough". Do you mean that don't have enough photos for sale or don't make enough sales in total ?

Every agency has own differences, you have to just search the right ones you want (like most) to make the deal with. To some photographers the money is most important and they work hard to build a great portfolio to accumulate cash flows, some could find the community thing (discussion forums etc.) more important than the bucks flowing in.

I really think that it is kind of wasting time trying to understand the whole picture as a photographer. At this time there is probably hundreds of businessmen thinking about how they could turn things up side down to make another million dollar business by establishing a new agency which is selling photos in some different way. Just going to few grocery stores and comparing prices and you end up with the question "Why ain't all same products are priced same in the grocery store?"

Just focus what is most important to you personally. Just think the key points on how you want your photos to be sold, RM or RF, in traditional agencies, midstock or microstock and what are your goals. Content of your portfolio is also very important, what kind of photos it contain or will contain in time.

If the money is most important aspect, does it really matter is your photo sold either RM of RF, in micro, macro or midstock for a dollar or 100 dollars? All and all ain't it the total sum of commissions after a certain of period which counts.

OK. That was very clear. Thanks.

I don't see myself so distinct differences between micro and macro. That is true that some photos sell better in macro and vice versa but that could be just the case between few agencies not thought to be a rule.

Photographers should think it more straight forward process. How to spread portfolio in most effective way not to use too much time for the submitting process. Stock agencies should be more concerned about the volumes photographers and photos taken in.

One general rule should apply when talking about any agency. Photographer should get about 1-2 euros per photo per year basis. If that rule doesn't apply there is some reasons behind that. It can be that agency has just started, it could take 2-3 years to develop reasonable business. Portfolio could be weak either in size or content matter. Agency might generate a plenty of sales but customers doesn't need the content photographer has in portfolio, other photographers can earn multiple times compared to others. Usually agencies inform what category images sell well, if photographer cant produce that kind of material it is very likely to fall under that general rule revenue annually.

Generally micro is more volume business but selling photos in macro isn't shortcut to earn same money more easily. If you want to generate a steady sales monthly basis you have to have decent size of portfolio, when thinking about that the general rule is very good that expectations doesn't rise too high. 500 photos should earn you a 500 euros in a year per agency. Now think about is it better to submit those photos to one or five agencies if possible?

Yes, you're right. Though in my knowledge, either micro or midstock they're always selling RF. RM licenses are a different story.