Acceptance ratios across all your sites

ozbandit · #1 (**permalink**) 05-29-2007, 05:25 AM

I've started my microstock adventure almost a year ago, staying exclusively with Fotolia for all that time. In the beginning it was more of a half hearted attempt, however as time passed I started learning more about microstock. One of the things that annoyed me about Fotolia (other then their slow server, horrible upload system, buggy msql, out of date website) was that some of my best images didn't get any sales, not even hardly any views. Admittedly not being people shots I realised there was limited market for some of those landscape images, however I still expected a bit better, even just a tad.

So I poked around and joined a few other microstock sites, mainly based on what I've read in here (thanks for your help guys). Suddenly my sales went up, my best images are my best sellers and I no longer turn grey and green on the inside every time I submit new batches for approval.

I have however also noticed one thing, that is in comparison with Fotolia, everyone else has a LOT tighter quality standards and rules on what they do and don't accept. This clearly also explains the high number of images on Fotolia.

For example on Fotolia I have 410 accepted images, out of 600 that I submitted. Out of those only 125 have been accepted into ShutterStock, meaning that my SS approval ratio is around 20% as opposed to 66% on Fotolia. I don't actually mind as this has also spurred me on (I love a good challenge).

I was curious to what everyone else here sees as their acceptance ratios for the respective sites that you submit.

Mines so far is

BigStock 100%
FeaturePics 100%
Dreamstime 85%
Fotolia 66%
123rf 64%
ShutterStock 20%
iStock 16%
StockXpert (application pending)

To be fair to BigStock and FuturePics I only have around 10 images there each respectively.

RTimages · #2 (**permalink**) 05-29-2007, 08:34 AM

I don't really keep detailed figures of my acceptance ratio, and to be honest the only two I am really interested in are SS and iS. I would say I have about 95% at SS and 90% at iS.

I find I get a lot of rejections at DT and SXP with the reason - 'We've got too many of this subject already' or 'Were not looking for this type of image'

The others's are up in the 90-100% range.

I submit the same photo's to all the sites except iStock, because of the upload limit I screen what I sell them, I'm kinda of learning the tricks to getting images approved there but still get the odd ridiculous rejection, and you will unless you're exclusive, if that happens submit a support ticket to Scout and it normally gets approved then.

nicemonkey · #3 (**permalink**) 05-29-2007, 08:40 AM

I find that most of the sites accept 99% of my images for DT and SXP which changes from month to month from 99% to 75% depending on the mood of the reviewer!

ozbandit · #4 (**permalink**) 05-29-2007, 12:22 PM

Nice guys, I guess I'm still a newb as far as microstock is concerned

rustyphil · #5 (**permalink**) 05-29-2007, 02:26 PM

Hi, my rate is now sitting around 80% for all sites, but it took me a while to learn what was expected (so long working how much sharpening was too much or not enough). Now I just need to get the noise balance right - ss reject an image for noise and then istock reject it for overfiltering

I also now grab all the rejects, check the reasons and resubmit the lack of commercial potential / we are not looking this type image type rejected images are few days later (biggest case was shutterstock rejected 41 out of 50 then resubmitted to have 39 of 41 accepted and they are selling)

Rgds
Phil

Gracey · #6 (**permalink**) 05-29-2007, 05:26 PM

At the moment I only still submit to three, of those (SS/BsP/FP) over the last six months it's 100% on all three (except for 1 keyword rejection on SS which they asked me to fix and resubmit, and it was accepted).

ozbandit · #7 (**permalink**) 06-05-2007, 06:21 AM

Having said that my acceptance ratio on istock has just jumped to 93% so go figure. I guess this is something that improves in parallel with the understanding how microstock works.

CJPHoto · #8 (**permalink**) 06-05-2007, 07:24 AM

I got a lot of knockbacks at the start and am now getting, too many of these photo rejections. Not sure if this will work out but here is a copy and paste from my spreadsheet:

83% 61% 70% 86% 57% 100% 96% 84% 80% 95%
Fotolia ShutterStock Dreamstime Bigstockphoto iStockphoto FeaturePics 123RF Canstock StockXpert Lucky Oliver

I will tidy this up latter when I have time.