Depositphotos Review
Posted by Lee TorrensNo microstock agency has come as close to joining the top earning agencies as Depositphotos has done in its mere two years of business.
But this agency is weird. Very weird! Here’s why:
They launched into a bloodbath of controversy due to association with a file-sharing network. They copied the best strategies of various top microstock agencies adding almost nothing new. And a policy of strict anonymity for staff and owners compounded suspicion and fed conspiracy theories.
Yet the company has been very successful. The strategies they copied were well chosen. And they spent a lot of money in all the right places. They’ve just passed 5 million files exactly two years after launch. And many serious microstockers report that Depositphotos is among their top 5 – 7 earning agencies.
Let’s take a closer look at this weird but successful microstock agency and see if we can help you make your decision about contributing to Depositphotos.
What’s [NOT] Different about Depositphotos?
There’s not much in the Depositphotos business model that we haven’t already seen in the industry. Here’s some of the winning strategies that Depositphotos chose:
- Smart search – most new microstock agencies lack variety and sort options when they launch but Depositphotos gave buyers great search results from day 1
- API – realizing just how many sales come via partnerships and system integrations, Depositphotos also had a functional API from day 1
- Lucrative affiliate program – new agencies can’t trade on a reputation for generating sales, so affiliate programs must make up for it which the Depositphotos program does, though a little weird (see below)
- Contributor incentives – boosting submissions with paid uploads got Depositphotos to a record-breaking 5 million files in just two years
- Taking submissions by hard drive – accepting bulk submissions with a release spreadsheets lowers the barrier for big contributors to participate
- Split site – contributors get separate accounts at a separate and familiar sub-domain: submit.depositphotos.com
This lack of originality doesn’t just apply to strategy. Site layout, logo design and terminology are all familiar to anyone in the industry. Even model release structure and wording are plainly derived from another well-known microstock agency.
But copying has its advantages. Their strategy was already proven so they launched with lots of confidence. And they backed it up with great programming and well targeted marketing. At launch, Depositphotos looked and felt more like the top agencies than a startup.
So what is actually different?
- Payment by SMS – buyers in certain countries can pay for photos through their mobile phone bill, replacing credits with SMS messages. This is an original innovation.
- Free Trial Subscription – buyers get a 7-day subscription for 5 photos per day free of charge, yet contributors still get paid for the sales.
- Credits actually cost $1 – most other agencies have complicated the pricing and pushed them up over time. However, at Depositphotos, 1 credit actually costs $1, and 50 credits costs $50. Discounts are available above 100 credits.
- Exclusivity is full ‘photography’ exclusivity, not just for Royalty Free licenses or image exclusivity. I’m not sure what the strategy behind that is, but Depositphotos isn’t pushing exclusivity at all.
Details
| Web Address | http://submit.depositphotos.com |
| Google Pagerank | 6 |
| Alexa Rank | 2,327 |
| Portfolio size | 5,000,000 |
| Minimum Image Size | 3.4 Megapixels |
| Vectors | Yes |
| Footage | No |
| Licenses | Royalty Free commercial and Editorial, and extended licenses |
| Compensation | 44 – 52% for credits, 30 – 35 cents for subscriptions, and 24 – 28 cents for SMS sales |
| Pricing | $1 credits, subscription plans from 3 day – 1 year with 5 – 45 daily downloads |
| Payment Methods | PayPal, MoneyBookers (Skrill) and Webmoney |
| Payout Threshold | $50 |
| Referral Program | Contributors: 3 cents per subscription sale (nothing for credit sales) Buyers: 15% of credit sales (indefinitely) & 4 – 10% of subscriptions |
| Application Process | Submit 5 sample photos |
| Exclusivity | Contributor exclusivity (see notes below) |
| Upload Methods | Web and FTP, or hard drive for large collections |
| IPTC Data extraction | Yes |
| Currencies | US dollars |
| Languages | English, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch |
| Headquarters | Fort Lauderdale, USA |
| Founded | November 2009 |
Depositphotos Background
Depositphotos was launched by Dmitry Sergiev, the current CEO, who previously worked with a file sharing site, Depositfiles.com. When Depositphotos launched, forum chat alleged it was possible to download pirated collections of stock photos from Depositfiles.com. Apparently Dmitry left Depositfiles before starting Depositphotos, and that was the extent of the association. Nevertheless, together with the connected names, it has been a constant public relations battle for the company ever since.
It was plainly evident that Depositphotos was launched with massive financial backing. And they used it effectively, building their portfolio with cash incentives, marketing extensively within the industry, and building a solid and functional system. They also took additional funding recently in the form of $3 million from Jersey-based TMT Investments.
The company now has operational centers in three different continents: Accounting and official headquarters in Fort Lauderdale; programming in Moscow; and, review, sales & marketing teams in London. And yes, headquarters in the US means we must submit the all-too-familiar tax forms.
Anonymity
Microstock agencies need contributors to trust them with their portfolios and buyers to trust them with their credit card details. Anonymity doesn’t inspire a whole lot of trust, but that apparently didn’t occur to Depositphotos until recently. They’ve been working on their anonymity issues since early after launch, but still haven’t figured it out:
- No staff are ever named on the website
- Email comes from anonymous addresses (service@, support@, marketing@, etc)
- No staff existed on LinkedIn (until recently, see below)
- Even their domain registration details are hidden.
However, we are finally starting to see the Depositphotos staff come out to play:
- Marius Klatt, Sales Manager operating from London, who we met at Microstock Expo
- Olga Kravchenko, currently manager of the partner program, was also at Microstock Expo
- Dmitry Sergiev, Founder and CEO, now finally on LinkedIn
- Elena Flanagan-Eister, head of US Sales & Marketing, attended Visual Connections NY
- Igor Kaliuzhnyi, head of Eastern & Western Europe, quoted in all press releases
- Vadim Nekhai, Marketing Manager
- Jamie Joyce, Marketing & Advertising Manager
- Shawn Rize, SEO Specialist
- Igor Shoifot, Advisor (via TMT Investments), also attended Visual Connections
Split Personality Social Media
It’s taken some time for Depositphotos to get their social media strategy on track, and it’s still not without major issues.
They initially registered their social media presence as a person rather than a company, becoming a Friend on Facebook and a Contact on LinkedIn.
Fortunately someone has woken up to how creepy this is and established a Facebook Page instead, which actually has smart and interesting content behind it.
Yet just when we though they’d figured it out, they start posting contributors’ images at high resolution and without watermark on their Facebook Page.
Contributor Incentives
Depositphotos is currently paying 10 cents per accepted file for the first 500 of new contributors, making a maximum possible upload incentive of $50. Previously the amount was 20 cents making the maximum $100.
But what’s even more appealing is the assistance given to qualifying contributors through their Special Program for Large Contributors. Not only will they negotiate terms, they’ll take your portfolio by hard drive and categorize, attach releases and submit it for you.
Referral Program
While appearing generous on the surface, the Depositphotos referral program reveals more of the weirdness of this agency
- Payment for referring contributors is great, but it only pays for subscription sales, not credit-based sales. Weird, right?
- 15% buyer referrals sounds great, but it’s calculated after subtracting the contributor royalty!
- It doesn’t specify that referrals are paid for the life the referred account, but it doesn’t specify an expiry limit either
- The cookie duration is a mere 3 days while most other microstock agencies set theirs for 30 days
The Verdict
Depositphotos seems to have proven itself trustworthy over the past two years, operating without any major scandals. And that the staff are coming out and attending events provides more comfort.
Their ability to generate sales is also well proven based on public comment from established microstockers.
With a solid submission process and an open invitation for serious contributors to submit in bulk, there’s also little risk of not getting a return on the effort of uploading.
Add all that together and it seems like it’s now both a profitable and safe decision to contribute to Depositphotos. You can register here.
Posted December 27th, 2011 by Lee Torrens
Interesting review. In regards to being “launched into a bloodbath of controversy”, I think Robert Scoble’s comment in the link below may be appropriate. “Hating something gives it more credibility….When I attack something, there is no more powerful force. More people will visit that thing than if I say I totally love it and use it every day.”
DP certainly received a lot of attention and not for the reasons they would have wished, but it certainly helped to put them in the spotlight and ironically may have ended up benefiting them.
http://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-there-a-legitimate-critic-in-Silicon-Valley-for-early-stage-startups/answer/Robert-Scoble-1?srid=OQY
That’s a great point Komar. Personally I doubt they intentionally fabricated the controversy to get more attention, but I agree that it may have ultimately been more beneficial than detrimental. Great point!
-Lee
The only thing that keeps me from contributing to Depositphotos is their ridiculously low priced SMS payment options, which leads to a low contributor share.
Nice review Lee. You touched on a lot of points and set a lot of things clear that people have been wondering a lot about.
In regards to referrals, they have the overall referral earnings on your general stats page
http://submit.depositphotos.com/seller_statistic.php
but also show the individual user referral earnings on the referrals page
http://submit.depositphotos.com/affiliate.php?page=referrals
which is really quite a nice stat to see.
Thanks Tyler, I tried to delve deep and expose some things that I wanted to know, assuming others wanted to know the same things.
I hadn’t spotted the monthly total for referral earnings under the seller tab. I’ll update the post.
Well, Im one of DepositPhotos fans
DepositPhotos is not depositfiles and in fact ALL sharing sites have tons of illegal material including stock photos. The problem is not the sharing site but bit**y designers who download our pictures and then share them. I cant imagine way how to inspect every single file submited to such sites, especially if those are usually password protected ZIP/RAR files.
I also understand the anonymity. Maybe it is not politicaly correct but western folks still do not trust russian or “east” europians. Even some EU countries are very very racist about eastern part of EU. Revealing 90% of russian staff in such case will not make you very trusthworthy. The other thing is safety problems – reveal you are CEO (or otherwise succesfull businessman) and you are not very safe in countries like Ukraine or Russia.
Regarding sales, Depositphotos pays 30 cents for most downloads. That is more then 25c for beginners on Shutterstock and MUCH more then ridiculous partner sales on our beloved IStock. In fact average IS sale for me is less then 30c because of these partner sales. Depositphotos is #4 after SS, DT and IS.
Excellent points Zbynek, thanks!
I see the discrimination you’re talking about, but I presume people are more likely to trust a business with 90% Russian staff than an anonymous one. I still can’t see the justification.
Also, I believe that Dmitry is now living in the US, though I do take your point about safety.
-Lee
Hey Lee,
thanks for the review. This is Marius from Depositphotos.
By the way (and to further show that anonymity isn´t really an issue for Depositphotos) our CEO Dmitry Sergeev started his own Twitter account, where you can follow the latest developments of Depositphotos.
Maybe you can even update the review with it.
Here is the link to the account:
https://twitter.com/DVSergeev
Thanks,
Marius
When I was laid off from my web designer job in 2009, I considered returning to my earlier profession as vector illustration, only this time as a microstock contributor. But with all the hoops to jump through and agencies squeezing contributor income downward, I returned to freelancing as an independent contractor instead. That said, I remain an avid buyer of microstock for my clients and for personal use for class projects in school.
That said, and knowing that contributors swoon over fair treatment by DepositPhotos, as a subscriber, DepositPhotos is the microstock agency from hell. I had difficulties with this company in 2010, but the issue was eventually resolved and I decided to give them one more chance, so I signed up for a monthly subscription of 5 image downloads per day per month. BIG MISTAKE!!! Every few days I have no access to my download allotment of images. If you don’t download your allotted number of images, you lose them, no matter whose fault it is. When it happened once, I let it go, but it continues every few days. When they do give you extra credits to make up for the loss, they don’t notify you so you don’t know you have those credits until you happen to notice your total number of invoices has increased. Thinking there were unauthorized purchases on my account, I was surprised to find additional “free” credits, but that were already expired because I didn’t know they were there!!!
And stopping the recurring subscription after dissatisfaction with poor service is indeed an issue. It doesn’t matter if you deselect the subscription with Paypal, DepositPhotos keeps taking funds anyway. The only way I could make it stop was to either let the credit card expire, or shut down use of that credit card with PayPal completely to keep DepositPhotos from taking funds. The idea that stopping a subscription is the subscriber’s problem is ludicrous! I have other subscriptions through Paypal and the companies bill one month at a time. There is always an option to renew automatically or manually, which is good business. DepositPhotos is still in business only because their subscribers have no way to stop them from stealing their money without a whole lot of grief and frustration. Rip-off IS their business model. BUYER BEWARE!!
Thanks to your review, I decided I’ll give them a chance. Been uploading my vector portfolio for the past few weeks. Very easy process. Categories are a bit too much. But other than that, we’ll see.
For some reason or other Deposit is no longer accessable with Internet explorer on my pc?
Anyone else having this problem?
Still the same problem!