Alamy vs Microstock
I now need two hands to count the number of people who’ve encouraged me to try Alamy. I’ve been kept away by high quality requirements and a lack of Internet upload facility. Now they have that Internet upload facility and when I checked out their quality requirements, I discovered my camera meets their minimum requirements. Just. So will I join?
Alamy is NOT Microstock
Why?
- They don’t sell at micropayment prices
- They sell photos with Rights Managed licenses (in addition to Royalty Free)
But “microstock” is just a label, not a reason not to join.
What’s good about Alamy?
- The commission is 65%
- Offers Rights Managed or Royalty Free
- Great website – clean, functional, and clear copy
What’s not-so-good about Alamy?
- Payment by check incurs US$8 fee
- Payment by EFT incurs US$11 fee
- No PayPal payments
- Payout limit is US$250
- Their RSS feed only provides headlines
What Else about Alamy?
- 4 test images required to qualify
- High image quality requirements
What Could I Expect?
I found a discussion about Alamy vs Microstock on the Alamy forums. From the experiences there, the sales at Alamy pay high amounts, but don’t occur very frequently. According to some Alamy contributors, some types of photos earn more in microstock than on Alamy. I wonder how quickly that discussion would have been censored in a microstock agency forum.
What Else?
The Alexa traffic statistics for alamy.com, while not a flawless measure, show that Alexa traffic has been declining since early 2006.
Photographer commissions were 85% until 2002, and 75% until October 2006. Now they’re 65%. While this puts them miles in front of most microstock agencies, the trend isn’t pleasing.
Contribute to Alamy, or Not?
If I upload photos that are available in microstock, why would an Alamy buyer pay macrostock prices? Maybe, as one of the Alamy contributors said in the forum thread I linked to above said, they’re lazy.
I’ve registered with Alamy and will attempt to qualify as a contributor. If I pass the test, I’ll upload a handful of my good photos to sell royalty free and we’ll find out how many Alamy buyers are lazy. However, I’ll concentrate of contributing images that are excluded from the microstock market, such as unreleased photos of people.
Alamy have their place in the market. They appeal to photographers who want to sell their images but can’t bring themselves to sell at microstock prices. However, from the evidence I’ve found, photos at Alamy don’t earn as much as they do in the microstock market.
Posted August 21st, 2007 by Lee Torrens
Topics: Alamy, Contributing, Macrostock, Reviews
Not only the market is different for Alamy comparing with microstock, but their business/sales model is quite different. My understanding is that most sales is done by Alamy agents and partners and not automatically via website.
Also the clients are bigger and they don’t mind paying higher price but do appreciate agent’s help to get quickly what they need instead of paying low money but spending long time searching through the websites by themselves. Probably (just a guess) some of these clients do (or will) use microstock more and more, but I am quite sure that some will stay if that added value will still exist.
I think this kind of mid stock will surely decline the next years. Quality in microstocks is as good as it is on Alamy.
Besides the fact that I see no future for Alamy, I think they don’t pay that well. In the dicussion on the forum someone said, and I quote : ” By my estimate (based on my 4300 pictures) 7,000 would be returning an average of $3300 a month ” -> that’s less than $0.5 / image / month.
I know many contributors to microstocks , including me, are well above this number.
But I’ll surely hear how things went for you
)
Greetz
Stefan
To me, the question is not, which is better, but is it a good investment of your time to contribute to Alamy? If you have the types of images they seel them it might be.
I own a small stock photography site and our overall numbers are not impressve but for the photographers who haven’t uploaded in a few years but are still getting checks, their time was well spent, even if they have moved on to bigger and better things by now.