29 Apr 2007 StockXpert
Update February 2010 – new owners of StockXpert, Getty Images, have announced the site is now closed to new registrations and uploads and will stop sales later this month. Contributors can keep their portfolios online with StockXpert to enable sales through the partner program with newly re-launched subscription site ThinkStock.com
I feel quite out of the loop with StockXpert. I’m continually coming across other microstockers who have their portfolio of photos on this site as well as the other sites I use. In forums I’ve even seen them compared with Fotolia in terms of revenue results. On one of the microstock forums they appear in the “Big 6” list! So, it’s time to review StockXpert and see whether they’re for me.
But first, the big thing about StockXpert is that they’re a subsidiary of Jupiter Images, one of the players holding the oligopoly on the traditional stock photography market. What implications this has, I’m not yet sure. But I imagine we’ll find out over the next twelve months if there’s going to be any consolidation in this market as it matures.
Here’s the table:
| Web Address | www.stockxpert.com |
| Google Pagerank | 7 |
| Google Backlinks | 8,550 |
| Alexa Rank | 3,492 |
| Image Stats | Not found |
| Minimum Image Size | 800×600 pixels |
| Vectors | Yes |
| Footage | No |
| Licenses | Standard Royalty Free and Extended Licenses |
| Compensation | 50% |
| Pricing | Scales per size, starting at $1 |
| Payment Methods | PayPal, iKobi, Check |
| Payment Delay | 3 days for electronic payments, checks processed at the start of each month and posted mid-month |
| Referral Program | 10% of buyers’ purchases for three months |
| Application Process | You need to complete a reasonably extensive profile about yourself, your equipment and your photographs. You are then required to submit five of your best images for assessment. They take “a few days” to assess you and notify you via your profile page. |
My Comments on StockXpert
StockXpert accept very small images relative to the other microstock websites. This makes them an easy entry point for people with cameras only capable of low resolution capacity.
Despite the fact they don’t offer a total quantity of images on their website (that I could find), the number of people who I speak to or read about who are using them is considerable. This alone may be enough to justify uploading a few images to see how they perform.
The structure of StockXpert gives me the impression they don’t value their contributors as much as some of the other websites. For example, you are required to apply for each component of their site. That’s fair enough, and other websites do that, but this is the most rigorous application process I’ve come across with a four-part profile to complete and five images to assess. Another example is that they don’t notify you of your assessment outcome by email. You need to log in and view your profile. That seems lazy on their part, and it’s not so convenient for contributors. On the upside, they do pay contributors a high commission percentage relative to the other microstock websites.
Conclusion
Yes, I’m signing up with StockXpert. In fact, I already have. I submitted my application and example photos three days ago now, but haven’t yet been assessed. I applied as both a contributor and a referral program participant. No response on the referral application yet either.
Nancy Rennie
Posted at 12:13h, 08 MayWhat’s going on with stockXpert.com? They’ve been “MOVING to a new site” since Saturday. Are they out of business? What about the $$ in credits on account?
Lee Torrens
Posted at 20:54h, 09 MayHi Nancy,
The StockXpert site was down for a short while, but has been working fine for me since the update finished on Sunday. Though I had to remove the StockXpert cookies to get it working again. Try that and see if it helps you.
Cheers,
Lee.
lucian
Posted at 18:56h, 12 Januarystockexpers sucks terrible since Jupiter took over.
However they do $100-150 a month with +1000 images online.
Costumer service is inexistent after 20-30 email I sill have for review some images since june 2007.
Even the new 2008 didn’t wake up them.
I wish you luck guys.
Regards
Jim
Posted at 19:09h, 07 JanuaryI submitted my application and samples before xmas, and was accepted in a few days. I uploaded my first images to Stockxpert 1/2/09, they accepted all but two or three the the 34 images, and within 3-4 days I sold two images. (images which were rejected by the other agencies.) I have images with Dreamstime, generally have a 40% acceptance rate, and have yet to sell any images in the month I’ve been with them. Fotolia finally got around to choosing my images and picked 3 out of 16. Acceptance rate with istockphoto and Shutterstock have been zero, apparently due to digital noise. It is interesting to see who chooses what since all the same images were submitted to all the agencies.
So far I can’t complain about Stockxpert.
Jim
Terry Morris
Posted at 18:04h, 13 JulyI just thought I would throw my 2¢ in here. I notice it’s been some time since the last response to this review.
I just signed up to Stockxpert a few days ago. They did send me an email telling me I passed and within 12 hours none the less. I started uploading and within an hour I had uploaded 30 images and another hour and half of them had been accepted. Woke up the next morning to find all of them accepted.
So I uploaded more and now have around 60-70 images up and noticed the turn around time for acceptance is very fast (hours). So far I have 100% acceptance but I am on some pretty tough acceptance sights and still get into the high 90’s%.
Now I have not sold anything yet but it’s been less than a week and I am sure it takes awhile for the images to get into the system and get found. I have about 1,000 images in my arsenal and will keep uploading to stockxpert and see what happens.
I would love to hear from some of those that have been there awhile to see what they think. Since they don’t have a forum it’s kind of hard to tell what’s going on.
Lee Torrens
Posted at 14:05h, 03 AugustHi Terry,
StockXpert are in an interesting situation at the moment. Everything is in flux. Their parent company Jupiterimages was sold to Getty Images. Getty have redirected the partnership with Jupiterimages Unlimited and Photos.com away from StockXpert and over to iStockphoto. The traffic from the popular free photos website Stock.xchng has also been redirected away from StockXpert to iStockphoto. Additionally, StockXpert’s key contributor relations staffer, Steve Kapsinow, moved back into Jupitermedia prior to the sale of Jupiterimages and hasn’t been replaced.
While it’s still very early, many contributors – myself included – are finding StockXpert revenue holding steady.
Getty Images haven’t said publicly what their plans are for StockXpert, but given the above changes it doesn’t look like they plan to invest anything going forward.
-Lee
latoga
Posted at 23:29h, 03 FebruaryAs of this week, it looks like StockXpert is redirecting everything over to iStockPhoto. Look like Getty is consolidating their operating entities (finally). Not sure what this means for those who have portfolios for license via StockXpert but for buyers it means you need to take action to trasnfer any credits you have outstanding to istock (looks like you may have until August to transfer your account and then…you lose it? (They don’t say specifically)
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