Microstock Earnings

The first thing everyone wants to know is: how much money can I expect to make from microstock? So let’s look at some income numbers.

Income

According to the excellent 2009 Survey by Tyler Olson of MicrostockGroup.com, the average income of a microstock photographer in 2009 was:

$10,654 a year

That’s $888 per month. This was for photographers that had about 1,000 images spread over six microstock sites.

“I think $1,000 a month is feasible, $3,000 with hard work. Remember that it is rather a long term thing so you might need 1 or 2 years to reach $3,000.”
— Laurent Dambies of Microstock Experiment

“$30–100 per month per 100 images you have had accepted on the top six microstock sites.”
— Steve Gibson at Microstock Insider

Images

How many images do you need online to get this revenue? Survey says:

1,156 images

Now these are accepted images. If we assume that microstock sites will accept about 60% of the images you’d submit, then you’d need about 2,000 images that you consider top notch.

RPI (Return Per Image)

An important metric that microstockers like to talk about is “RPI.” This stands for “Return Per Image,” which means the average income for one photo accepted online. Since each photo costs you time to shoot, process and submit, RPI is a good way to measure your hourly income.

In the MicrostockGroup survey, the average RPI was:

Annual RPI: $9.22

This is per year, and it’s tempting to think that you’ll get $9.22 each year for the rest of your life. But photos get old (just like us) and they grow unfashionable, outdated, and less popular (also just like us). If we assume that each stock photo drops in popularity by 20% per year, that gives us a lifetime multiple of about 5. So the lifetime income of a microstock photo is about 5 × $9.22 = $46.

Lifetime RPI: $46

Now we have a benchmark with which to measure your time. If you can create and submit one acceptable microstock photo per hour, that’s a revenue of $46 per hour. Maybe you could work efficiently and improve this rate. But if you travel, rent a studio, hire models, buy equipment, or incur other costs, you have to take that into account too.

RPI Reported by Photographers
RPI	Photographer
$38	Royce Bair, The Stock Solution in 2005
$22.56	Lee Torrens of Microstock Diaries in Nov 2009
$14	Royce Bair, The Stock Solution in 2004
$12	Laurent Dambies of Microstock Experiment ($1/mth)
$9.22	2009 Survey by Microstock Group (Tyler Olson)
$9	Lee Torrens at Microstock Diaries
$8.76	David “Skyhobo” ($0.73/mth)
$3	Steve Gibson at Microstock Insider
$1.08	Microstock Adventure ($0.09/mth)

“On average, contributors see $12–15 annual revenue per image (RPI).”
— Lookstat ( source).

RPD (Revenue Per Download)

How much you get when your photo is downloaded (licensed) by a customer.

RPD Reported by Photographers
RPI	Photographer
$2	David “Skyhobo”
$1.82	iStock forums
$1.40	Jim Pickerell for non-exclusive photographers at iStockPhoto

“On average, each download is worth around $2. If a photographer has 25,000 downloads since he joined in 2005 that means he’s earned around $50,000 from iStock.”
— David “Skyhobo”

Hi. This is the end! The remaining pages are just thrown together as I’m still developing this book. So it all looks like notes, which is what it is. Good luck!

Highest Income

$10,666 per month was the estimated income of Lise Gagne on iStock in 2006, according to David Walker of Photo District News.

Yuri Arcurs $9000 a month, on S.hutterstock alone

In January 2008 he earned $64,000 from microstock (source)

Each image is sold on average 100-120 times during its first year online. ( source)

i.Stock | 123RF | Photopreneur

$1.40 per download is earned on average by non-exclusive photographers at iStockPhoto according to Jim Pickerell “I believe the average gross sale for an image in the standard collection (not Vetta or video) is $6.50 to $7.50. … Non-exclusives earn 20 percent.”

$500,000 per month by Yuri Arcurs on i.StockPhoto alone in 2010. “Yuri Arcurs, the No. 1 producer, had between 357,574 and 367,574 total downloads in the last 14 months.” according to Jim Pickerell

Yuri Arcurs sells “about 2,000 [licenses] per day” (according to his website) “Yuri Arcurs Photography inc. has it’s headquarters in Denmark, Scandinavia and employs a dedicated full-time staff of twelve. Yuri has another 30 people in three departments around the world in South Africa, India and the US.”

MonkeyBusiness

Biggest seller photographer at F.otolia: MonkeyBusiness

Living

Can you make this a full-time job?

“I started back in late ‘05, early ‘06 — I was paying my mortgage by mid ‘07 and then went all out full time with the loss of my full time day job in mid-2008. [He now has] just a little over 5,000 stock images.”
— Todd Arena ofArenaCreative

“If you can place about 2,000 good images with the right microstock agency, you could expect to earn about $28,000 dollars (U.S.) per year (your experience will vary, depending on your images).”
— Royce Bair, The Stock Solution photo agency, 2004.

“Combined, these four micro agencies produced an income of about $38 per image per year. My original sampling was with only about 100 images with each agency, and your results will vary.However, if a photographer can place a group of only 2,000 similar quality images on these four services, he could potentially make about $76,000 per year.”
— Royce Bair, The Stock Solution in 2005.

Typical Microstock Photographers

How much do typical photographers earn?

Samples Earnings of Microstock Photographers
Month	Images	RPI pm	Date	Source
$3,158	1,253	$2.52	Jul 2010
$1,800	1,425	$1.26	2009	Marek Uliasz
$888	1,156	$1.30	Dec 2009	Tyler Olson
$826	874	$1.88	Nov 2009	Lee Torrens
$671			Sep 2010	Matt Antonino
$443	1,644	$0.27	Sep 2010	Luis Santos
$240			2006
$136			2007
$114	210	$0.54	Aug 2010	Anthony Shaw
$58			May 2010	Roberto Marinello
$31	151	$0.21	Mar 2010	Allen
$18	146	$0.13	Sep 2010	Someone