Author Topic: Free Online Stock Photography Income Calculator (Read 11682 times)

fotorob · « **on:** October 11, 2009, 17:14 »

Hello,

I published in my blog a free Online Stock Photography Income Calculator:
http://www.alltageinesfotoproduzenten.de/stock-photography-income-calculator

After entering some information like downloads and earnings so far this year and the size of the photographer's portfolio, the calculator shows the projected income until the end of this year and the next year. It also accounts for the portfolio growth over time and allows adjusting different currencies so the income from different stock agencies can be better compared.

Additionally other statistic data like "return per image/year" (RPI), "return per download/year" (RPD), "downloads per image/year" and more will be calculated.

More information and help provided on my blog.

If you have any ideas for improvement or suggestions, please let me know.

Bye,
Robert

litifeta · « **Reply #1 on:** October 11, 2009, 21:46 »

Well at the moment it is a fun gadget, but no more useful than doing this in Excel.

For it to have value you really need to get some statistics on seasonal trends, and follow the economics situation as far as spends in advertising etc..

fotorob · « **Reply #2 on:** October 12, 2009, 05:54 »

Thanks for the comment. Yes, you could do the same calculations in Excel (I actually do), but it's a "quick and dirty" way to get the desired numbers.

I agree that it would make sense accounting to seasonal trends, but I doubt that there has to be a direct correlation between ad usage and stock sales since advertisers are only about half of the users.

Bye,
Robert

RacePhoto · « **Reply #3 on:** October 12, 2009, 10:52 »

Quote from: fotorob on October 12, 2009, 05:54

Thanks for the comment. Yes, you could do the same calculations in Excel (I actually do), but it's a "quick and dirty" way to get the desired numbers.

I agree that it would make sense accounting to seasonal trends, but I doubt that there has to be a direct correlation between ad usage and stock sales since advertisers are only about half of the users.

Bye,
Robert

Thanks, it's entertaining to play with the numbers.

fotorob · « **Reply #4 on:** October 13, 2009, 09:03 »

Thanks.

Anyone have any idea what numbers what makes sense too for a calculation?

Thanks,
Robert

gostwyck · « **Reply #5 on:** October 13, 2009, 10:05 »

I've tried it and it is surprisingly good overall. Well done!

I have found that in the annual calculations though it is rather over optimistic and I think the flaw may be that all months are considered 'equal'. This of course is not the case as December can be 30% down from the peak of Sept/Oct and November can be bad too relative to the growth throughout the year. My Decembers are generally about equal in earnings to the January at the beginning of the year.

I've already estimated my own years total (based on previous years experience) and your calculator's annual total is likely to be about 5% too high.

This error is then compounded in the 'Next Year' calculations which I think are roughly 13-14% too high. (I'd be delighted to be wrong on that though!)

If you could somehow factor in those seasonal variations then I think it might be quite an accurate tool.

fotorob · « **Reply #6 on:** October 13, 2009, 10:56 »

@gostwhyck.

Yes, month are considered "equal" and I know it's not true.

My problem is how to factor the different month. I started microstock about two years ago, so I have not enough data on my own. I have much more data for macrostock sales, but the month cannot be compared there since my macrostock sales mainly get reported after they get paid and there is a delay of some days to several month between download and payment date, so this data doesn't help me too much for microstock...

I know that Yuri published a diagram how the different week days influence sales, but I haven't seen a similar one for month. Anybody an idea?

Thanks,
Robert

gostwyck · « **Reply #7 on:** October 13, 2009, 11:52 »

Hi Rob,

I've been doing this about 5 years (just under 200K licenses) and I am starting to see a fairly definite pattern developing in my annual sales.

If you count the average month in a year as '1' then over the full year each month is worth approximately the following value relative to the average.

Jan   0.8
Feb   0.9
Mar   1
Apr   1
May   1
Jun   1
Jul   1
Aug   1
Sep   1.2
Oct   1.2
Nov   1
Dec   0.8

It is almost impossible to define hard figures though as it is also dependent on % portfolio growth and also price rises by the agencies. Clearly small portfolios can grow much faster than large ones. Price rises have been hugely significant over the last few years too but we are already seeing that slow down.

The above figures really only apply to my last two years anyway __ before that growth accelerated throughout the year as I increased my portfolio.