Selling images on microstock sites

Stock photo agencies are sometimes referred to as photo archives, picture libraries, or image banks. As modern stock photography distributors often carry vector illustrations and video, none of the existing terminology provides a perfect match.

A few years ago a new type of stock photo agencies has emerged. These new image banks, known as ‘microstock’ sites, have allowed anyone from the amateur to the professional photographer to sell images easily. These sites take images from individual contributors, and photographer gets a commission for each image sold. The microstock photography market was pioneered by iStockPhoto and followed by Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Fotolia, BigStockPhoto, and many others. You will find an extensive list of microstock photo agencies on our site.

Microstock agencies sell royalty-free images starting at as low as $1, and while the fees on each image are low - typically less than a dollar on each sale - the companies sell large volumes of images. The mindset of microstock is that quantity will prevail and the photographers will end up making as much from many small sales as they would from a few large sales on a traditional stock photography site. Quality and quantity of images will determine how much an artist will earn. Each site employs a team of reviewers who check every picture submitted for technical quality, as well as artistic and commercial merit.

These sites are appealing to beginning photographers providing a great way to get exposure of their work, to improve their skills, and to get to the professional level of selling photographs. Microstock sites typically offer message boards, peer feedback, and charts of which images are selling best. All these sites are free to sign up and don’t charge anything for hosting images. Most of these sites accept and sell photographs and vector illustrations, and some sell videos as well.