It is impossible to say how much one person will earn being exclusive / non-exclusive... but yes there is a difference.  As an exclusive you earn a higher royalty and your images are shown to the buyers more often.  That said, to figure out the non-exclusive rating you'd have to add up all the numbers of the non-exclusive sites and compare that to the istock exclusive rating.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't make more money as exclusive and i wouldn't want all my eggs in the iStock basket (especially the way things currently are).. but I know some people have done well as istock exclusive.

Piens, the poll on the right is average, not top people.

Lets say you have 1000 SS artists here. People can make $15 a month or $1000 a month. It's the average.

Now for IS exclusives, the ones who stayed with the program are probably top % CV, they make the best rate (40 or 45% in many cases). But the people who dropped exclusive are now, on many other sites.

What I'm pointing out is many lower earners dropped Exclusive, which means you are more likely to only have high earning artists. Thus the poll will be much higher, and representing a small number of top people.

Look at the number for Independent IS artists? It's about the same as Fotolia.

Another way of putting this is, Exclusives stayed Exclusive because they get the best rate and make more money. That's why it's a much higher number. Anyone who didn't - dropped the program.

You can't draw any conclusion for someone new going exclusive, unless that individual would report personally how they are doing. 150,000 redeemed credits to make that 40% level. People invested time and hard work for years, as exclusives, to get that top rate.

Nothing wrong with the exclusives, it's nice to have one agency and one place to work and upload. Just pointing out that the top earners stayed and the rest dropped. Of course it's going to be a higher number. 

I was referring to the percentage tables, not something else. Just in case I was not clear?

Using the rate schedule from IS: http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/rate-schedule

Redeemed credits    Non-Exclusive    Exclusive
1,200,000    20%    45%
125,000    19%    40%
35,000    18%    35%
11,000    17%    30%
1,500    16%    25%
Default    15%    25%

Being an Indy at Default, I make no claims. 

Otherwise you make many good points Tick. More of what's wrong with the poll is how people interpret it, rather than the poll itself. Kind of like an antique or or collectibles "price guide" which is price for a motivated buyer, from a dealer, instead of real market value.

The poll figures on the right have caps for a reason. One person, Black Diamond, reporting at their 45% rate, would take things way over the top - for Average" There are caps on the other sites as well, only Leaf knows what the actual numbers are. That would be something possibly to extract, the median returns, instead of average. To level out the highs and lows.

As long as we're at the poll statistics, it's not just a problem for IS numbers. Lets say that 100 people are reporting DP sales numbers, and 50 of them are disappointed and drop the agency. Then there are 50 people, reporting high numbers and no one reporting low numbers. It's going to elevate the apparent returns for the agency. Same for FT where many people left and IS when there were protests and people removed collections.

So the numbers are not highly scientific or important, they are just a relative idea of returns. (see above, collectible values, are not in dollars as much as giving an idea, relative to other similar or related items)

With that, if the reporting for all the agencies, except IS exclusive, have the same limits and values, it's not dollars, it's just relative. And it's only based on people who report.

You can add me to people who often forget or don't bother.

Pond5 includes some people heavy into video. Most of the sites include illustrators and photo and who knows what else.

Something that should signal that it's just for amusement is Stocksy doesn't have enough people reporting to make the list. Canva doesn't either?  Are some people assuming these are "low earners"? I think not. It has more to do with reporting.

In 2008 (roughly) there were ten black diamonds. In 2012 there were 60. I don't know how that relates to RC levels, but I think the Exclusive numbers shown here are a good indication of the success of some exclusives on IS. I don't know if that number requires the same 25 that the rest do, maybe Leaf can answer how many Exclusives take the poll on average.

I'm not attacking the poll, but rather saying, it needs to be looked at for what it really is. A voluntary poll, not absolute science. What makes the top four more valid is the number of people who work those agencies and give a balanced number. Unfortunately many people have dropped FT and IS, so even those numbers are questionable.

They reflect the numbers for people who submit to those sites, and take the time to report here... not the expectations of performance for that site.

Anyway, if Leaf is reading, how many Exclusives take the poll each month for IS? That would be an interesting number.

The poll has lots of problems.  The reason I don't fill it out anymore is that it can't represent a lot of exclusives.  As an exclusive the top number you can enter in is $2500/month while a nonexclusive can enter in up to $115,000 per month and $32,500 per month for the sites that show numbers beside them.  If an exclusive has RM files at Alamy or videos at Pond5 then they count as nonexclusives.  Pete says exclusives are making 40-45% (that's rare and almost no one is making 45%), an exclusive making 45% would be making something like 2 or 3 million dollars a year or $200,000/month from credit sales alone and would be counted as making $2,500, a person making that as a nonexclusive would be able to enter many times that amount in the poll.  When leaf released yearly poll results before the average for exclusives was higher than the maximum possible that could be entered into the poll.