Comments on: Microstock Exclusivity

By: mahmoud mahdy

mahmoud mahdy — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:07:28 +0000

Thanks for your great posts here Lee
You are helping a lot
I would like to ask you about your opinion :
After the latest IStockphoto price change for exclusive Artists;
Do you recommend exclusivity for me ?
My IS revenue percentage is 55% of all sites
My IS port size is about 25 % of Others
And I now I must make this decision for myself but I ask for your advice
Thank you very much

By: Lee Torrens

Lee Torrens — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:43:39 +0000

Tuzen, that’s exactly the question. The additional marketing and search placement boost you mention, together with a higher commission rate, need to make up for the absence of earnings from other agencies.

There are people who believe they make more being exclusive, and there are people – like myself – who believe they earn more being non-exclusive. Both may be correct as it depends greatly on your subjects, style and how well your portfolio works with the algorithm of iStockphoto’s Best Match search.

Yuri Arcurs did some research and came up with a figure which he believed was the earnings boost for being exclusive at iStockphoto. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it was close to 40%. However, I wouldn’t rely too much on any insights obtained from a test with a single portfolio. Given the huge variations, I imagine you’d need a large quantity of portfolios to get any reasonably accurate estimation.

I’m often asked whether it’s worthwhile, and with the current makeup of iStockphoto’s exclusivity program, I always recommend people make the decision for themselves, based on how well their portfolio performs at iStockphoto.

By: tuzen

tuzen — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:22:14 +0000

Thanks for the great article. I think I understand the basic case against exclusive, but I also understand that exclusives recieve additional marketing, and improved search rankings that will further drives sales. I am very curious if anyone has tried to estimate how much of boost might be expected based on their experience.

By: lffile

lffile — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 08:02:05 +0000

Check out the Exclusivity bonus at LO. The rates shown on the Payout Page for Exclusive images have apparently been Overcome By Events according to the thread on Exclusivity in the Odditorium.

Exclusivity will apparently now yield 60% Royalties on sales of exclusive imiages regardless of total sales!!

Bryan said he would to get the info out on the site in the next push. fred

By: Lee Torrens

Lee Torrens — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:20:31 +0000

Thanks pdtnc, I plan to keep it up.

Good luck with LuckyOliver. So far they’re performing well for me given how young they are.

- Lee

By: pdtnc

pdtnc — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:43:56 +0000

Hiya…

I’m just about to try out LuckyOliver, and a couple of other sites… I like the look of the site but lets see how it compares
Keep up the excellent posting here its all good stuff

regards

pdtnc

By: Brad Hidwin

Brad Hidwin — Wed, 23 May 2007 07:23:02 +0000

Hello,

Thanks for you article. I would like to add something that you might forget. Concerning Fotolia, there are big advantages for beeing exclusive since you can increase the price of your image up to 100$, it is how exclusive fotolia photographers can get very high revenue despite of lower sales.

B.H.