Anyone who has a requirement for an image for a commercial use has a number of ways of obtaining that image. They can create the photograph themselves, in-house, if they have the skills, equipment and time to do so. They can commission a photographer to take the image for them, to their exact specification and at an agreed cost. Or they can search through the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of images available from one or more stock agencies. These agencies offer their clients a vast range of images to choose from at a range of prices according to the client requirements.

Stock agencies first build a strong collection of images taken by a number of photographers – these images are their stock library. This is an ongoing process and most stock agencies are open to new submissions.

The photographers loading their images are able to select which license programme they would like to sell their images under (see later) and can sometimes enter further restrictions on usage. Photographers also enter keywords to describe their image and the concepts, locations, activities and objects represented.

The agencies present their stock to potential clients in a number of ways. Many now do so via the web, where they allow clients to search through their entire library of stock online. Some create brochures and CDs to send out to clients on request. The clients search by entering keywords related to their requirements. The search results are usually listed with a thumbnail of matching images, any of which can be opened into a preview-sized image.

Clients select an image, based on the preview, or sometimes ask for a larger sized file of one or two images in order to make their final decision.

Pricing is usually based on the client’s intended use of the image. It takes into account the size that the image will be reproduced, the volume of distribution and so on. It’s generally a decent chunk of money.

The stock agency keeps a percentage of the price as commission and the rest goes to the photographer. The exact percentage taken as commission varies between different stock agencies.

Traditional stock agencies vary a great deal on their criteria for submissions. A few are only now starting to accept digital images. Others have been accepting digital files for some time. Some are willing to accept images from any photographer provided the quality is good enough. Others want work only from photographers who can supply a large volume. All those I have looked into naturally favour photographers with decent equipment since they require high resolution, high quality images.

For short-hand in terms of writing about this, I’m going to refer to traditional stock agencies as macro stock agencies.

In the last few years a new breed of stock agencies have also broken into the business. These use a very different price model indeed.

Micro stock agencies also build up a collection of images but have much less stringent criteria, particularly in terms of minimum image size/ resolution. This makes it possible for photographers using non-professional cameras to pass Quality Approval. All images are usually sold on a Royalty Free basis.

The sales models at these sites are the main difference between them and macro agencies. Many sell their images in two ways. They offer any single image at a fixed price (often around the $1 mark) or they offer their clients a fixed price subscription that allows them to download a certain number of images.

The photographer receives a fixed fee each time one of his images is downloaded. These fees vary from site to site but are approximately 20 to 50 cents.

You can probably imagine the standard reaction to that last bit of information about pricing. Surely photographers are selling themselves short by accepting such low prices for their images? Surely these micro stock agencies are devalueing the work of professional photographers? Surely micro agencies are rendering macro agencies obsolete?

In response to the first of those comments, I’d like to point out two things. Firstly, the photographer tends not to make just 20 or 50 cents from an image. Because of the low prices, sales volumes are high and a good image will sell regularly. Over a year the photographer might easily make at least $20 on a single image, if not more. Secondly, the photographer has likely (if they’re being sensible) loaded to the micro sites only those images that simply would not cut the mustard at a macro site. In which case each 50 cents is 50 cents the image wouldn’t have earned otherwise.

Neither do I believe that micro stock agencies signal the end of the road for macro stock agencies or for the professional photographer. The market is quite different. There are many, many, many smaller commercial and non-commercial organisations and publications that would never dream of spending hundreds on an image from a traditional agency but are happy to pay a dollar or two for an image for their newsletter or website or brochure. To my mind, this is a whole new market. Likewise, when the big players require absolutely top quality, very high resolution images for a big campaign, they will likely still look to the skills of the professional photographer.

The approach Pete and I have taken is to save what we call our hero images (taking a phrase from Bruce Fraser) for sale via traditional stock agencies. We know we may not make many sales but we value these images of ours enough to go for gold.

We also have a huge number of images that are not suitable for macro agencies (wouldn’t pass QA) and these we sell via micro stock sites. Most are images that were taken on older digital cameras or scanned (at unsufficient resolution) from film negatives at the time of processing. Some are newer images that aren’t quite good enough, in our eyes.

We would recommend a similar approach – after all, selling in two different market streams gives you twice the chance to make a sale as selling in only one.

We have only loaded our images to one macro stock agency so far and that’s www.alamy.com (based in the UK). Currently, they make no rejections based on content but have strick technical quality guidelines that are clearly laid out on their website.

Most of the other agencies we’ve looked into require higher volumes of images than we can currently provide and/ or take only slide film submissions and/ or have other criteria that we cannot achieve.

Note that submissions are currently accepted by post only though they are trialling an FTP upload system.

We started loaded images to a couple of micro stock agencies in May/ June. We have joined additional agencies only recently and have increased the number of images gradually. Our sales are not huge as we don’t have enough images loaded but we’ve so far made approximately $110 so far.

Please note that where the agencies have a referral program in place, the link I am providing is our referral link. This means that, should any of you sign up (and make a sale), we will get a referral fee. You will not earn any less yourself than you would if you signed up normally; the referral fee comes out of the agencies’ profits. I hope you don’t mind my posting these links rather than straight links; I figured it wouldn’t do any harm!

www.istockphoto.com has provided us with one of the highest volumes of sales thus far.

http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=8656 (a referral link). Shutterstock has provided us with the highest volume of sales (although not in terms of income). Pretty good turnarounds – Pete (who manages our stuff on these sites) says this site is probably his favourite to use.

www.dreamstime.com/res22397 (a referral link). Dreamstime is the highest earner, by virtue of the higher commission - 50 cents minimum per photo rather than 20 cents – though we’ve sold less images here than at shutterstock.

www.bigstockphoto.com/?refid=dEYIBZRf81 (a referral link). Bigstockphoto gives 50 cents per sale but the sales have been MUCH slower here and their approvals process is very sluggish.

www.gimmestock.com is a very new site and as a result, sales are currently very slow. Approvals are also very slow.

www.fotolia.co.uk/partner/13010 is a site we’ve just signed up to. It sounds interesting - has the concept of ‘exclusive to site’ for individual photos, which increases the price. You can actually set (within pretty small limits) the price you sell at. No idea (yet) what the approval times are like.

http://submit.123royaltyfree.com/ is another site we’ve just signed up to. It uses a slightly more interesting model (it’s complicated, but basically you get a minimum of 22c per sale and possibly more... We’ll let you know how it goes). This site has higher resolution requirements (they like 6mp+) than most micro stock agencies.

www.canstockphoto.com?r=12644 (a referral link) is another fairly standard site but also seems to have some sort of exclusivity thing. Again, we signed up very recently so can’t yet comment further.

— Article written by Kavey