Last year I?d never heard of stock photography; ?micro? or any other type. I?m not a photographer. I?d never earned money from photography, but I enjoyed ?snapping? the family and doing a few natural history shots.

Looking for something to interest me in my approaching retirement, I did a bit of research and found what I thought was just a way for ?amateurs? to earn a bit from their hobby; the microstock photography website. I realise now that it?s a bit more than that!

Over the year I?ve joined more sites and I?ve probably got a couple of hundred half-decent microstock shots. Between them (mainly over the last 4-5 months), they?ve earned me between $400-500 (roughly $150 on LuckyOliver and SS, $100 on iStock and smaller amounts on Fotolia, BigStock and Dreamstime).

I soon realised after embarking on my microstock ?hobby?, that this is an area that generates a considerable amount of passion and controversy. Although ?hobbyist? shooters are well-represented in the microstock community, their photographs share the microstock portfolios with the work of well-regarded professionals and with others who are generating considerable earnings. I suppose this is part of the ?problem?. Photographers with a background in photo-journalism, fashion and glamour and ?product? photography etc, are sharing an industry with people like me!

I think that I might now be getting a better understanding of the business. I strive to improve my technique. I have a standard SLR, a few decent lenses but no studio or ?proper? lighting equipment. I would (naturally) like to have a bigger portfolio and to earn progressively more as the years go by. But you see the problem. Who do I listen to to get the best advice on improving? Who for instance amongst the contributors here, would describe themselves as a ?successful microstock photographer? and how is success measured?

What do people think? Is success measured in the percentage of submitted shots that are accepted? Is it the mean earnings from each shot exceeding some baseline figure over time? Is it just the total earning per year, regardless of portfolio size? I have no feel for this at all. For those of you who feel you have ?made it? in this game (and are therefore the people I should be listening to), what are your criteria for justifying the title of ?successful microstock photographer??

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LuckyOliver | Shutterstock| iStockPhoto | Fotolia | Dreamstime | BigStockPhoto | 123rf | StockXpert

Assuming that microstock is a serious business, I guess that total earnings is the only criteria which is important at the end. When reading microstock forums, it is clear that everyone is basically interested by how much he/she earns.

However, to know whether you are successful or not in microstock, I think you have also to take into account how much effort you can put in building your portfolio and how old you are in this business.

In order to take all those points into account, a very good measure of your success is the average monthly earning per photo in your portfolio. It is a good indicator of the "quality" of your portfolio, whether it is a small or a big portfolio.

If you try to analyse the situation of the most famous and successful microstockers, you will see that they probably earn $10-20k monthly with a portfolio of around 4-5k photos. These are just guestimates of course.

So, top earners have a average monthly earning of $3-4 per photo.

I think that this is a good indicator of your "success": if you have 100 photos in your portfolio and earns $500 monthly, you know that you have the skills needed to become a top earner... provided that you put enough effort to build a 4k portfolio with the same quality.

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Zazzle - iStock - ShutterStock - StockXpert

Thanks for your thoughts. I suppose that "success" means different things to different folks.

With respect to "how much effort you can put in", there is also much discussion about the amount of time it is sensible to spend per shot, getting it "microstock-worthy". I suppose it's what's called "opportunity costs" in business. While we're spending an hour Photoshopping a shot that will could bring relatively modest returns, you could be spending time on something more profitable. I'm not sure that would relate to me (or a lot like me) though. As photography is a hobby, it's not like I could spend the time doing a professional photoshoot instead!

As it happens, I don't even own a copy of Photoshop. Just use RSP and a cheap application for cloning. Perhaps that's where I'm going wrong!

Just out of interest Araminta, do you feel that you qualify for your own definition of success!? (I wouldn't necessarily expect you to answer that!)

Thanks again for your insights.

Ed ...

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LuckyOliver | Shutterstock| iStockPhoto | Fotolia | Dreamstime | BigStockPhoto | 123rf | StockXpert

I'm new to this but from a philosophical standpoint we all have our own measures of success. If you are in it for money, then income is the measure of success. If you are in it for fun, then money is secondary. Some want to make enough to at least break even with equipment so the significant other has nothing to b!tch about. Good luck with that one! :-D


I'm reading everything I can, practicing every spare moment, and trying to improve my skills and techniques in the hope of making money while having fun. So far I'm a big failure!

I know that some microstocker (hi, Rinder) always argue that you don't have to spend more than X minutes on each shot, otherwise it is not "worthy".

Personnaly, I'm also a hobbyist and I don't care that much on how much time I spend on a shot... but definitively more than what I should

I also do quite a lot of 3D and this is a completely different beast... how much time spending on modelling an object assuming that it is then reusable?

Anyway, I do not fully agree on the X minutes things as what make stock photo business quite special is that you are not paid for the time you spend at work, but for how good is your work. So, the most important is to produce good work and not to know how much time you spent at producing it IMHO.

If your average monthly earning per photo is $3 and you assume that a given photo will sell for 2 years (?)... an average good photo will earn $50-100 throughout its "life". This is worth more than 10 minutes work I think, unless you expect to be paid $500 per hour of course.

Now, concerning your question... do I qualify for my own definition of success? I guess that what make me still an amateur and not a pro is that I agree to answer to the question ;-) Yes, I qualify.

I know that you are not supposed to give precise figures when you are a pro (are you?), but it is not that difficult to roughly estimate how much earn any microstocker... we have all the information neccessary

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Zazzle - iStock - ShutterStock - StockXpert

If you're going to talk "business" in microstock, then I suppose earnings are the ultimate indicator of success. Just as in any business, there are hobbyists, professionals, and very successful professionals. Aside from microstock, I'm a graphic designer in my 9-to-5 life. You could draw a similar comparison to microstock as I will draw here: There are people who dabble in Photoshop and make a couple of dollars form doing projects for friends. There are people skilled in various aspects of design, and make a living at it. And there are people who are rockstars of graphic design. They are well-known and make tons of money at it.

Same goes for microstock. There are hobbyists, pros, and the Yuris/Andres/Lises of the business. You can draw comparisons to microstock and just about any other business. It is, afterall, a business, just like any other.

My measure of success is mostly financial, however I also highly respect those who are successful with smaller portfolios. I think that Tom Nullens (sodafish) does incredibly well with a portfolio of under 400 images. That, to me, is exceptional success.

One other thing to note: It was mentioned above that top earners get $3-$4 monthly per photo. For illustrators that number should be more like $8-$10+ per image. Maybe even more.

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openpathdesign.com Microstock - A Crash Course

I have been about one month and a half on Shutterstock and so far I am earning about $0.50 per image.

Much lower on all other sites. Say 0.30 on iStock.

Success is when you meet your own goals.

I would guess that iStock should pick up for you eventually. I started out the same way. Sales were slow with istock, then all of a sudden after a couple of months they took off. I have about half the number of images on istock as I do SS, and istock is easily my biggest earner now. Earlier on it was the other way around.

If the trend continues, it might almost be worth going exclusive with istock. I never thought I'd ever say that, but if the numbers make sense, it could happen.

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openpathdesign.com Microstock - A Crash Course

Anything is possible, but, I started upload to iStock at the beginning of August. So, it is just not picking up, so far.

Thanks for your comments.

It would seem that there is some consensus that "top earners have a average monthly earning of $3-4 per photo". Looking back at my last 4 full months, my two best sites are SS (with an average of $0.39/image/month) and iStock ($0.40/image/month). Others sites are all below $0.10/image per month.

I have just two shots that seem to qualify for the "top earner" accolade, 1 with earnings of $7/month and the other $18/month. I mentioned initially that I thought I had around 200 "stock-worthy" shots. Looks like I was out by a factor of about 100!

Presumably, there are "top earners" contributing to this site. Are you meeting the $3-4/image/month target? I originally was pondering how to measure "success" in this field. Are there others who consider themselves "successful" but would justify that title with some other measure of success. All I know is that I had better get another couple of "top earner" shots in the bag PDQ!

Ed ...

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LuckyOliver | Shutterstock| iStockPhoto | Fotolia | Dreamstime | BigStockPhoto | 123rf | StockXpert