Author Topic: Shutterstock photo sales revenue only 1/20 of Adobe Stock's. (Read 21015 times)

blvdone · « **Reply #125 on:** February 29, 2024, 17:36 »

For the February 2024 on Shutterstock photo sales, I'm 40% down in revenue and 10% down in number of downloads compared to 2023 February. I added about 1.5% more photos than February 2023.

tereit · « **Reply #126 on:** March 01, 2024, 04:46 »

Quote from: blvdone on January 17, 2024, 02:45

So far this month in January 2024. This is sad. It's on pace for only 1/2 the January 2023 sales. Shutterstock used to be the King. Whatever gone wrong there.
Shutterstock used to pay us $0.38 minimum for subscription sale like Adobe Stock does. Since they introduced wonderful $0.10 photo sub commission, contributor enthusiasm seem eroded. Probably Shutterstock nowadays doesn't get as many quality photos or videos as Adobe Stock does. They still own Pond5 now. So, they get the best stock videos on Pond5. But for the photos, Adobe Stock is the King now, no question. They totally had a wrong approach toward contributors belittling us while Adobe Stock is trying to work with us. Big mistake bonuscodesonlinecasino

Totally agree with you

odesigns · « **Reply #127 on:** March 01, 2024, 15:45 »

My February, 2024 SS income is up 157% from January, but is still way down from the heyday of stock earnings.

January, 2024 was a complete trainwreck on SS. Hopefully my February numbers are the start of a new upward trend.

DanielVisuals · « **Reply #128 on:** March 01, 2024, 19:23 »

Quote from: DaLiu on February 29, 2024, 17:18

My stats for this month:

SS downloads (mix) 2.5x more than AS
SS RPD (mix) 0.65$ (AS RDP is over 1$ per file (mix))
SS earnings 1.5x more than AS

I see a small decrease in income on SS side mostly due the video income, on images im doing better than last year, on AS I see an increase of income almost 30% in the first 2 months compared with the average of last year.

Overall both agencies are bringing more income montly than last year.

0 AI images.

You don’t upload to istock?

ADH · « **Reply #129 on:** March 02, 2024, 08:09 »

SS will not last more than 3 years, victim of AI and its own greed the infamous agency will have a slow death.

blvdone · « **Reply #130 on:** March 09, 2024, 00:43 »

So far this month only 1/14 of Adobe Stock's photo sales earning. On its way to less than $100/month earning on SS. I used to make average of $600/month from photos on Shutterstock. This is disastrous. I wouldn't recommend anybody starting stock photo today to upload to Shutterstock. Adobe Stock is the only site worth your time uploading and tagging. Sad.

Pacesetter · « **Reply #131 on:** March 09, 2024, 02:19 »

Quote from: blvdone on March 09, 2024, 00:43

So far this month only 1/14 of Adobe Stock's photo sales earning. On its way to less than $100/month earning on SS. I used to make average of $600/month from photos on Shutterstock. This is disastrous. I wouldn't recommend anybody starting stock photo today to upload to Shutterstock. Adobe Stock is the only site worth your time uploading and tagging. Sad.

Looks like video is headed in the same direction. I stopped uploading photos on Shutterstock months ago and now going to pause on uploading videos. I'll restart if video earnings-per-download pick up again but given the last 3 months of pitiful commissions it is not worth it. Video RPD on Shutterstock is now much worse than Adobe Stock.

DanielVisuals · « **Reply #132 on:** March 09, 2024, 03:29 »

Quote from: Pacesetter on March 09, 2024, 02:19

Looks like video is headed in the same direction. I stopped uploading photos on Shutterstock months ago and now going to pause on uploading videos. I'll restart if video earnings-per-download pick up again but given the last 3 months of pitiful commissions it is not worth it. Video RPD on Shutterstock is now much worse than Adobe Stock.

In 2024, I have the same video RPD on Shutterstock ($6.06) and Adobe Stock ($6.08), with Shutterstock offering lower commissions. However, my level on Shutterstock is about to reach level 3, so in the upcoming weeks, my RPD on Shutterstock will likely increase and surpass Adobe Stock.

In contrast to Adobe Stock, I occasionally receive large value sales ranging from $60 to $130 on Shutterstock, particularly for niche content. In a crowded market, it is becoming increasingly crucial to find a profitable niche to succeed. To do so, one must use one's "unfair advantage(s)," but I assume most experienced contributors are already aware of that.

synthetick · « **Reply #133 on:** March 09, 2024, 06:21 »

Woah! Sad that Adobe's video RPD has dropped that low. Considering that video downloads are only worth 3x image downloads for their bonus program, does that imply they are expecting video RPD's to drop even lower?

blvdone · « **Reply #134 on:** March 09, 2024, 07:25 »

I started to price my top selling videos on Pond5 at $299/HD and $399/4k. I get 60% commission as exclusive. I did a research and found customers actually pay top $$ for quality content they really need. I already had a few sales at $299/HD this week.

https://www.pond5.com/community?thread=246291911&page=1

"Pricing is a difficult thing on Pond5. I see 2 successful high-price contributors.

FilmPac and FilmRaw. They are not related, I think.
FilmPac joined Pond5 16 months ago in late October 2022. They have nearly 100k videos priced at $299/HD and $399/HD. I checked their portfolio and found their clips have sold 954 times in those 16 months. If they were exclusive getting 60% royalty, my guess was their RPD would be about $200. 954 x $200 = $190,800. If I divide it by 10 to make it equivalent to a portfolio of 10,000 clips, it's $19,080. Divide it by 1.3 years = $14,677/year. I was actually surprised to see they are selling that much at the high price. Also looking at what kind of clips have sold, I felt like why not my clips sell at that high price too?
https://www.pond5.com/search?kw=salegt:0&media=footage&artist=Filmpac_for_Pond5

FilmRaw seems much more successful than FilmPac at similar $329/HD and $389/4k price setting.
https://www.pond5.com/artist/filmraw
49 clips out of 12k clips have sold 5 times or more. That's equivalent of 20 sales for regular price $79/HD clips. Also, 15 clips out of 49 clips with 5 or more sales are from 2020 and after if you sort by "New".
https://www.pond5.com/search?kw=salegt:4&media=footage&artist=FilmRAW

So, I'm experimenting by changing all my best sellers to $299/HD and $399/4K. At this price, if I sell more than 1/4 as often as before, I'll end up making more from those clips. I hope this will work well."

epixx · « **Reply #135 on:** March 10, 2024, 00:35 »

It's hard to understand how it's possible to destroy an agency so totally. It's 10th March, and I'm still not past the $2 mark at SS this month. Adobe and DT are already well on their way to improve drastically on last year's result.

Shalom from a Jew · « **Reply #136 on:** March 10, 2024, 04:23 »

Yesterday I got a new level (video). But!!! CC shows only 45 sales. There are no returns this year. According to the photo, I moved to a new level 35 sales earlier than the statistics show.

wordplanet · « **Reply #137 on:** March 13, 2024, 14:53 »

I was sorting through ancient files to discard/shred and "the old days" were even better compared to now than I recalled. I started with ss in late 2008 and by 2009, with 100 files I averaged $60 a month - I made roughly that much all year in 2023 with 600 images.

I know I have a small portfolio and I put it on hold after the 10 cent subs, so it was shockingly slow when I reinstated my portfolio in the second half of 2022, compounded by not uploading.

Eventually, I started uploaded editorial at the same time I add it to Alamy & DT, and some of those images sold within days of upload, but none are getting the multiple downloads that used to be common. Add to that SODs for 10-20 cents and it's just untenable. Income in 2024 is higher than 2023, but it is still really pitiful; not hard to see an increase when most months I only made enough for a cup of coffee.

Perennial low earner DT has consistently beaten ss every single month but one since I reinstated my account. I have 522 images on DT, so about 80 fewer images there.

I earn more most days on Adobe than I earn in a month on ss. I have 900 images on Adobe so 50% more than on ss, but I earn well over 10x as much there.