Can you really earn money doing stock photography? Is stock photography dead? What is a realistic income from stock photography? And is it really worth it?

These are some of the many questions that you may be wondering at the beginning of your stock photography journey. They are all good questions but don’t really have a simple answer.

These 12 Bestsellers Earned $15K. Professional stock photographers don't reveal their trade secrets very often. That's because photography is a dog-eat-dog business with a low barrier to entry. Anyone with a half-decent digital camera (or smartphone) can sell photos online. But, only a fraction of those millions of photographers make a living. Photography stock site: Alamy. Alamy made it to number two on the list because it has over 155 million stock images, vector videos, and 360-degree panoramic images. Another reason why Alamy is a great choice to be a part of is that a girl named Helen Sessions makes well over $100,000 a year on this one website alone! You can read the article “8 Ways to Earn Money from Online Videos” for more ideas on how you can turn your videos into moneymakers. Make money by creating stock photos. You can combine your photography and Photoshop skills to create stock photography. The photos can be used as film or video production content or source material preparation. The royalty programs Adobe offers make them a preferred destination for those looking to make money selling photos. Photo contributors can earn 20-60%. If you want to keep most of your money, selling your photos on Alamy Stock is an excellent option as they let you keep 50% of your sales. While Alamy is not as big as some of the.

Yes, you can earn money from stock photography, BUT it’s getting harder each year as more and more photographers are stepping in and the market has become over-saturated.

No, stock photography is not dead. You can still do money with it, but you have to focus on images that sell. Easier said than done though…

What kind of realistic income you can expect from stock photography? That depends on a lot of your personality and how much you are willing to work for it. The more you work = More the income.

And is it really worth it? This again depends a lot on you and how much time and effort you think is reasonable compared to the results obtained.

I know photographers who make thousands of dollars each month solely from stock photography. However, these guys are professionals and have been building their portfolios for years so you can’t expect to earn the same amounts right away…

So what can you expect to earn? What is a realistic income from stock photography?

I can tell you my own story and how much I’m earning from stock photography and how much effort I’ve been given to it. It’s not a story on how to become rich quickly, but it’s a real and honest example of how much you can expect to earn from stock photography after a couple of years contributing.

What is Realistic to Earn from Stock Photography Today?

You can read my 2018 Stock Photography Earnings Report to have an idea of how much some random dude from nowhere can earn from stock photography in 2018. For short, my stock photography earnings in 2018 was approximately $1800. It is not much, but I’m happy with it. It covers my photography expenses and more.

The first 3 months of 2019 seems even better. My 2019 stock photography earnings have been around $200-$300 per month in my 3 best selling stock sites together. Those would be Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, and EyeEm.

This year I’ve also started to contribute to IStock, but I haven’t got any earnings from them yet as I’ve just started. However, I expect IStock to earn me some extra in few months increasing my total earnings for this year.

It has taken me 2,5 years to grow my portfolios up to 1000 images. That makes only 8 images per week on average. So I’ve been building my portfolios pretty slowly.

So is it worth the effort? I’d say yes as I’ve been building this beside my day job and still be able to live a pretty much normal life.

8 images per week are not much work, just 1,14 images per day on average. You could upload 50 images per week if you really have a heart for it.

However, I have to make clear that I’ve been photographing more or less since 2007 so I already know how to make good photos. That being said, you can’t expect to start earning or to understand photography just by buying a camera and starting to shoot. You need to know the basics first.

You need to understand Stock Photography also. Stock Photography is not just making pretty pictures. It’s about making pictures that have some sort of concept to them and sits well on advertisements, brochures, and commercial websites. This is something that I understood pretty late and therefore my portfolios are full of images of nameless landscapes that never sell.

Stock Photography requires a bit of strategic thinking and a business mindset. You need to understand supply and demand. A niche with high demand, but millions of images available may sell worse than a niche with lower demand, but not many images available. A person holding a wine glass sells better than a wine glass on the table without people.

People images and lifestyle sells well the experts say. However, I have very little images of people as I’m not so good at photographing them, but I’m still able to sell my images nonetheless. You may be doing much better if you can make people images with signed model releases.

These are just a few examples. You can learn more about how to sell your photos online from my posts Stock Photography – How to make money with photographyand Stock Photography Tips- Tips To Selling More Photos.

Stock Photography 2019 Q1 Earnings

Like said, my 2019 stock photography earnings in the three of my best selling stock photo sites have been excellent so far. However, Alamy has performed poorly compared to others. Alamy is a very different site though as it is more or less midstock site and more concentrated on editorial images. Usually, Alamy doesn’t sell much, but when it sells, it tends to be a pretty big sale.

Let’s take a closer Q1 analysis on the three of my best-selling sites Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, and EyeEm.

You can find my 2019 total earnings summary and chart at the end of this post.

Shutterstock Earnings

Shutterstock continues to be my number one money machine. After the November-December dip, the earnings have risen above $100 in January-March. The main reason for these numbers are the “biggie” sales that have made a return since October 2018.

“Biggies” are sales that sell usually between $20-$60 per image. I’ve been having those 1-2 per month in 2019 that have helped me to achieve these figures. However, these “biggies” are very uncertain and I can’t rely on having them each month. Therefore some dipping on earnings is likely in the coming months.

At the moment I have about 1000 images in my Shutterstock Portfolio.

Below you can see my 2019 Shutterstock earnings compared to 2018 earnings.

Adobe Stock Earnings

My Adobe Stock earnings are approximately only half of my Shutterstock earning. However, in my Adobe Stock portfolio, I have only 642 images and the earnin

Best Stock Photo Sites To Earn Money