Alamy sent me a congratulation email and suggested me to tweet about it but I did not.
To my surprise, my "big sale" was refunded in June then re-bought (probably by the same person) immediately at $300. For my first sale, it takes 45 days until it was cleared. Once Alamy receives real payment, not a "fake one", then the money will arrive safely, at last, in you cleared balance.
#Alamy stock photo websites for free
So basically they give away your picture for free with just promises from the so called buyer. Uncleared balanced is the money you may get "if ever" Alamy get payment from the "buyer". What makes Alamy "special" is that they have what they call uncleared balanced and cleared balanced. Like any other stock agencies, they have a minimum payment threshold which is $75. Before I continue, I want to clarify something about Alamy earning. It was a big sale of $280 which should bring me $140 once minus the 50% commission. It was not a big earning, just at the minimum payment threshold.īack at Alamy, I sold my second picture in May. Anyway, I kept uploading photos at Shutterstock, my portfolio was around 200 photos when I got my first payment, 3 months after I joined in. I had a feeling that some people find my picture at Dreamstime, Depositphotos or Istock then went to buy them at Shutterstock because the files I sold at Shutterstock were the most viewed at the other stock sites. I also thought maybe it is not bad to have some photos hanging around there. I was also trying to withdraw all my photo at Dreamstime but it did not allow me to delete all of them. I decided to withdraw all my photos at Canstock and Fotolia and cancelled my account. With all the time I spent manipulating, uploading and keywording those photos I’ve got $7 (All microstock sites combined). Canstock and Fotolia were still at big 0. By the time, I sold one picture, respectively, at Dreamstime, Depositphotos and Istock. A month after I sold about 1 a day at Shutterstock while having a portfolio of 50 pictures. Despite such disappointment, I kept uploading but my earning was not increasing at all. On the other hand, despite the same amount of uploaded pictures, the other sites did not give me anything yet! I felt like … and start to think that my work must suck. My first microstock sell was at Shutterstock. So I started to upload photo at those 6 microstock sites as well.
I was quite surprised, but let say I uploaded my very best shots. I signed up to become a contributor at Shutterstock, Depositphotos, Istock, Dreamstime, Canstock and Fotolia and was accepted right away.
What the … 6 cents a day, 24 cents/photo! OK, I decided to upload photo to microstock sites as well! I know my portfolio is not a typical stock shot, the Alamy experience seems to tell soo, but I decided to give it a try anyway. I have been with Alamy for 2 years and I got $47, which is about 6 cents a day or 24 cents/photo if each picture was sold once. I started to upload pictures to Alamy again. It was still below the minimum payout threshold ($75) but anyway, that first sale woke me up after 2 years of silence. , will you? Anyway, that first sale earned me $48 which is about 140 000 MGA (I am from Madagascar). It was one of those photos that made people laugh and said come on, you are joking right? You will not upload that piece of. This year, 2016, in January, I sold my first picture on Alamy. You can view my Alamy portfolio here and have a laugh at it! I uploaded about 200 pictures but did not sell any. I was uploading and uploading and waiting and waiting for some sells but nothing happened. Come on, what the heck 30 cents! Of course, I was aware of those reviews about microstock sites saying that the number of downloads would outweigh the "good pay" at Alamy but I was not convinced. Back then, to my knowledge, Alamy pays decent amount of money while microstock gives you 30 to 50 cents per image. I entered the world of stock photography in 2014 after a long thought (1.5 years) between Alamy and microstock sites. The idea of earning some money with something I like to do started to anchor in my mind. In 2012, I got my first DSLR and I though I was starting to take nice pictures. I got my first camera in 2007 as a gift, a Nikon Coolpix S10 with that funny fancy swivel lens design. My passion for photography grew when I was using my colleague's camera in 2005. The first time I used a camera was back in 2002 and it was not even mine.