The advancement of the online world has brought about lots of avenues for making money. Photography was once one of the most difficult fields to market, but thanks to stock sites, you can showcase your photos to any part of the world and get paid for it.
Stock sites make it easy for you to perfect your photography skills and still gain money in the process. Well, not all stock sites produce good outcomes; that is why you need to choose the best sites to upload your content.
The best way of choosing the best sites is by doing some research to find out about the most favorable sites. Well, we have researched for you so that you can tick that off your to-do list. We’ve made a list of the best platforms with very good terms and conditions.
Here’s a list of stock sites you can trust:
1. Shutterstock
Shutterstock is one of the popular names in the world of stock photography. Everything about it is outstanding and unique. It offers 270 million royalty-free images to its clients and many other impressive offers and features.
The site has a good number of activities on it all time; in other words, it has a good number of visitors each day. This makes it one of the best stock sites to post content on, and it also means that there would be lots of competition for you. Your photos can easily get noticed on this platform, but you need to post photos that stand out.
How much can you earn?
This is obviously the first question that comes to mind when choosing a stock site to upload content on. Well, the answer to this question is not a favorable one. Shutterstock is a micro-stock, so the individual image price is sadly low.
Their most popular plan is a monthly subscription for clients for the price of $169, with the client receiving 350 images. This brings down the value of a single photograph to $0.48.
The amount earned is discouraging, but posting on the site gives your photos a good amount of publicity.
2. Alamy
Alamy is also one of the leading stock sites in the world of stock photography. It is a British photography website with all the right attributes.
The site has lots of visitors like other popular stock sites, meaning choosing the site will positively impact your photos.
How much can you earn?
The best part about Alamy is that it has a 50% royalty payment on each photograph it sells. Another good part is that it doesn’t require you to sell photos to them exclusively. What more can you ask for?
3. Getty Images
Getty Images has more than 200 million assets in its gallery, and this goes a long way in showing how efficient it is. The site is obviously part of the leading stock photography sites in the world, and it is also one of the oldest. Getty Imagine has been in existence since 1995.
They offer 125 million high-quality royalty-free images to their clients, covering a wide variety of topics, including editorial imagery.
For a great opportunity to see photos, Getty Images is a good option to pick based on the number of visitors they get.
How much can you earn?
Getty sells images in different sizes: small for $150, medium for $350, and large for $499. I guess the amounts listed got you more interested. Well, there is a major glitch to this, the agency puts a huge price on your potential earnings; 80% of each sale goes to Getty and only 20% to you. The higher the price on your potential earnings, the more you get. So, keep this in mind before choosing this site.
4. iStock
You stand a better chance of selling on this platform. iStock is a popular and trusted stock photography website. It used to be an independent agency till 2006 when Getty Images acquired it. Getty acquired iStock for the sum of $50 million.
It may be under Getty now, but it is still has a different pattern of operation. iStock is a micro-stock agency, and like Shutterstock, they are into low-cost stock photography.
How much can you earn?
Depending on the option you choose when uploading new visual content, the commission for the contributors varies from 15%-45%. Two options are available in terms of licensing, exclusive and non-exclusive.
You can get up to 45% commission for the exclusive option, based on the number of downloads. This simply means the more downloads you have, the higher the percentage.
For the non-exclusive option, you can upload images on iStock and other stock photography agencies, but you only get a 15% commission.
The percent you earn from the site completely depends on your choice, so choose whichever option you feel is preferable for you.
5. Depositphotos
Depositphotos have over 100 million high-quality, royal-free images. These images are divided into different categories: Photos, Illustrators, Vector Art, Backgrounds, Editorial, and News images. HD videos can also be uploaded and sold on this platform. The agency has been in existence since 2009 and has been growing fervently since then.
Images are very likely to sell fast on this site as it has good traffic on it. Depositphotos is a Florida-based company, but it also has offices worldwide, and it offers customer support in 20 different languages.
How much can you earn?
Depositphotos has a different mode of operation compared to the other listed agencies, hence saving it for the last on the list.
To become a distributor for this company, you have to pass a brief examination test.
Another piece of information you need to be aware of is the level system they use. The level is determined by the number of sales the particular contributor has made on their website. There are five levels: green up to 499 downloads; bronze 500 – 4,999 downloads; silver 5,000 – 24,999 downloads; gold 25,000 – 149,999 downloads and platinum 150,000+ downloads.
You earn based on the level you attain.
Closing Word
There are many stock photography agencies, apart from the ones listed above. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, we listed the best in the game right now. We will gladly update you if a better stock photography agency than the above listed comes up.
We have done our part by giving you a list of the best stock sites in the market, and it is up to you to upload high-quality images that can sell quickly.
Thanks for trusting our judgment.
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