Prompted from another thread, I'm sure I'm not the only one doing microstock? I've been a member of shutterstock and istockphoto for a few years but haven't been active due to being disheartened from high rejection rates. However I recently got active again after finding someone had paid $30 for a single image, and have had more success. Figured I'd post my findings below

The sites I'm active in are the following (In order of preference) (please excuse referral links, feel free to not use them, I figured it can't hurt to include them)

Shutterstock
http://www.Alamy.com
www.iStockPhoto.com
Dreamstime
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk

Shutterstock
I like this site. I've always found it easier to upload to than istockphoto. You can batch upload and then process photos (tags, description etc) before "submitting" for review. I had a better acceptance rate than iStock. Of my 20 initial images, I used to get 1 purchase a month at $.25 each ish, until the extended rights $30 purchase. In the last few weeks I've added about 40 images so my portfolio is bigger, and purchases have likewise gone up.

Alamy
Mixed bag this one. The process is like marmite. Rather than them reviewing every image in a batch, they spot check review a selection of each batch, and if a single image fails, they fail everything in your queue. My first 4 images I submitted were rejected, I tried again and was accepted, and thankfully haven't had any rejected yet. Small batches are a must so if one does fail you can just remove it and submit the rest. Annoyingly the images rights are handled differently so you can either choose to give rights managed or royalty free options, but not both.

iStock
This one is one of the first microstock sites, along with shutterstock it might be one of the more popular/better paying. However unlike shutterstock, unless you use their upload program you only have the option of doing each image individually, adding tags and descriptions as you go along. Very time consuming and I've had the worst acceptance rate here.

Dreamstime
This is a new one to me. They're meant to have a less stringent criteria, my acceptance rate is about 50%. They're more social based and have A LOT of photos (much more than istock, shutterstock, only alamy is close I think). I have my doubts about this site, but it always seems to get a mention online as one of the main contenders.

Getty
I've got a few images on getty, or I think I do. It happened through flickr. Problem is, getty requires (along with dreamstime and most other sites) various forms to be filled in and sent to the IRS in the US to get a non-US tax number thingymajig. Whereas other sites allow you to say it's "in progress" and just won't pay you till you have sent it all off, Getty seems to block my access to my account until it's all done, so I don't know if my images are on their site, and if so, if they've been bought etc. I'll get around to it one day


That's the overview of microstock sites in a nutshell. My current agenda is to finish going through my photostream (nearly there) and get online any photos that are suitable. Then I'm going to start using my light tent to try and do some more abstract shots with isolated backgrounds (as these are the main sellers I think). There's not much activity on my species specific photos!

I've been putting anything that I think will be accepted up there,  mostly nature stuff,  so not likely to sell well. You can pretty much forget about submitting anything that isn't technically perfect (exposure/contrast/noise) and then you need to consider whether anyone might actually use that photo. The final hurdle is trying to think of 20+ descriptive keywords!

also you of course need the highest res images possible

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Here's something to think on regarding the various algorithms. I've been focusing on shutterstock as I've had the most success with them. Up till the start of this month I'd had the same 20 photos on the account, and had about 1 purchase a month.

This month I've had about 80-90% approval and now have 96 photos in the account. I've also had 6 purchases, and we're only halfway through the month.

I doubt it's because the photos are better, and suspect it's due to my activity giving me more favourable positions in the search results.

(I've not had any joy with the other agencies yet though, if after a few months it's still poor I might go "exclusive" with shutterstock)