Photography is a way of feeling, touching, and loving, and trading with them is as profitable now as ever. Making money through selling photographs is a very opportunistic trend right now.
For that, without any hesitation, you can sell them online. And to do so, you need to know about the most profitable marketplaces to sell photos online.
If you have got some amazing captures and want to turn them to some quick cash, then Alamy Photos can be your choice.
The Alamy Photos has got over 160 million videos and photos for sale online. Furthermore, it offers a 50 percent royalty payment on each photo sold for the particular photographer who has clicked the photo. Hence, if you sell a photo for $10, then you receive $5 and the marketplace receives the other $5. They also allow their photos to be sold elsewhere.
Owing to this, Alamy Photos has become one of the world’s largest marketplace for stock photos. They have a huge number of monthly visitors all of who are potential customers to them.
This particular marketplace is brought to you by Getty Images. If you need to know about the top-class photos to sell online, then you can browse the iStock Photo. It has got popular forums and also quite popular resources which will help anyone to find all the necessary info and how to deal with photos online.
Before you start selling your photos here, you need to undergo an application process where you need to submit a few samples of your work through the Contributor by Getty Images app.
Since the platform is by Getty Images, here also you get 20 percent sales commission per sale.
If you get accepted, then you may get accepted in either platform as Getty Images and iStock Photos are partners. However, it is not entirely certain here about what percentage you will earn but it is certain that you are going to earn off a certain percentage from every photo you sell.
Adobe Stock is a site where you get two different royalties for your images. You get 33 percent of the royalty for photos and 35 percent for vector art. After reaching a threshold of 25 US$, one is allowed to deposit the money into their bank account without any hesitation.
Best of all, since it is a product of Adobe, Adobe stock is integrated into Adobe’s different apps, which makes it more likely to get your photo noticed by the others.
To date, Shutterstock has paid over 500 million US$ to its contributors. No matter whoever it is, the person uploading the photograph to the site will still have the copyright and can thus earn up to 30 percent of the selling price of the photos. This amount varies depending on the size of the images which are being uploaded. At present, the starting rate is $0.25 and there are more beyond. This price can go up to $120 for custom images.
Photoshelter is quite different from the rest of the sites. Here, you get to sell your photos online but you make those sales through your own site. For this very reason, PhotoShelter is a really amazing tool.
The reason behind this is that it is an eCommerce platform which is completely photography oriented and can be integrated into almost any website without any issue. This acts as a vital reason why this is in high demand.
They pay commissions between $6 and $165 for each new paid PhotoShelter account. Furthermore, they have a monthly performance incentive system that makes it even more rewarding.
Additionally, the users here get cloud storage for storing their photos and they also serve social media integrations. So, there are a lot of benefits of using this platform. The primary one is you get to choose how your photos are to be displayed and another one is that you solely get to display your own photos rather than displaying your competitor’s one alongside.
Hence, you also don’t have to worry much about how much your competitor charges. But sadly, there is also a drawback as one has to pay a minimum subscription fee of $10/month which comes with the minimum features.
Can Stock Photo is another great place to sell your photos. If you are looking for an easy way to sell your photos and do not have a website as needed by PhotoShelter, then you can consider Can Stock Photo to be a viable and a crucial option for you and your resources.
To begin with, you need to submit 3 images to them which they will review and let you know within 24 hours. That means, to start selling you need to wait for 24 hours for your approval.
To add with that, when you upload your photos here, the site will also post your work with one of the largest databases of images, known as Fotosearch. You can earn up to a maximum of 50 percent for royalties on the site. For withdrawal, you need to rely on PayPal. Your money will be added to your PayPal account, once the balance of $50 is reached.
They have also got the option for a cheque which, if you want to have, you then need to wait until you have earned $100. After you reach the limit, they will mail the cheque to you.
This is an alternative to PhotoShelter. SmugMug Pro enables users to showcase their work and manage their orders for a year based subscription fee. In addition to that, this platform enables you to showcase your work on a massively customizable storefront.
SmugMug also has got an amazing feature that lets someone create prints on books, greeting cards, or other places from the pictures which you have captured. This is known as SmugMug’s printing service.
You also get the ability to create coupons, photo packages, and also built-in analytics. And a cherry on the top, you get to keep 85 percent of your revenue.
The 123RF site has over 110 million files to offer, and almost 100,000 files are added each day. Here your contribution matters as this are one of the deciding factors about how much you will get paid.
The royalty percentages that are usually offered vary from 30 percent to something as high as 60 percent, depending on your contribution. From this point, we can conclude that the more you upload, the higher you get as your payout.
Let’s split up the process further. If one adds less than that of 999 images, then he earns 30 percent per download. On the other hand, if one uploads a million images, then he will receive a royalty of percent.
Getty Images is a renowned platform where you can earn some good cash by selling your photos online. Here you can get commission rates as high as up to 20 percent per sale.
This is what makes the platform greatly demanded. Here all you need is to integrate their customizable API to your site and grab images, videos, and illustrations so that they catch the eyes of the customers.
Dreamstime has a great reputation in the market for stock photography. They, even after upload, ensure that all uploads are regularly reviewed and checked whether they ensure the proper quality and high standards or not.
Here you need to apply and wait for their approval. Once you get your photos approved, you will start receiving royalties. Here the amount may range from 25 percent to 50 percent.
However, the contract is not only restricted to that. They can also be raised to 60 percent for which you need to sign up for an exclusivity contract. If you sign up for that deal, then, as an additional bonus, you will receive $0.20 for your first 100 approved submissions.
PhotoDune is the name of one of the largest online photo selling platforms. This is because it is part of the largest online platforms of contemporary time – Envato Market.
It gives 30 percent of the commission on every first purchase that is made by the customers. All items which are listed for sale in here are reviewed by the officials of PhotoDune, to ensure that they are in good working condition and are easy to use.
If you are an event photographer, in particular, especially one who takes photos at parties, gigs, festivals, and weddings, then Snapped4U is the perfect platform for you. The reason is that this platform help and allows you to sell all of your party photos online.
Here the process is a bit different even though the starting process is somewhat similar. To begin with, you have to upload photos here and start selling your photos online. However, the difference is that here you do not need to deal with a lot of this which might turn out to be troublesome for some of the photographers. They include processing, printing, and postage.
Snapped4U will do all of them for you. The revenue process is somewhat like this. For each photo costing $5 or less, you need to pay a $0.05 royalty fee. On the other hand, if the image is sold at a cost of more than $5, then Snapped4U will charge you a commission of 10 percent.
Over here, you get the right to retain your copyrights. This is a creative community app that lets you upload your photographs and sell them online.
And most importantly, this platform allows 50 percent of royalties whenever someone buys an image.
When your platform is EyeEm, then you get a lot of exposure for your images as this platform pairs up with other image marketplaces as well. The more exposure you have, the more possibility you have to earn money. They have also got a blog that helps them motivate other photographers who are running dry on ideas.
Stocksy also pays quite high to its contributors. As a result, this has also turned as one of the best sites to sell your photos online.
To apply here as well, you need to go through some basic screening. First of all, you need to send 25 images and also need to add some info alongside. After all of these, if you get accepted, then you can earn royalties which range from 50 percent to something as high as 75 percent.
Furthermore, Stocksy is also renowned for recruiting the top category photographers with high-quality images so that they can be resized and used in any size as needed by the user. Thus, before applying, one should always bear it in mind, that Stocksy requires all of its images to be exclusive.
Crestock can also be your passive or main way to earn some cash by selling photography online. Here, the application process is not much of a hassle. You need to create an account here which is free and then upload your photos there.
After that, their team will evaluate the images. If you pass that test, then they will add up your images to their database so that those are also displayed to the customers when they come to buy them.
Not only that. You have also got the option to add specific keywords and descriptions to the images in particular, which increases your opportunities to be approved in the image screening test. In addition to that, your descriptions and keywords will help the users distinguish your images from a plethora of other images.
They have got two different processes for making their commissions.
You earn 25 percent commission on all purchases made by customers you recruit. But there is a restriction. The recruiting has to be made within the first 6 months of their membership.
You get a 10 percent commission on all royalties which are paid to contributors that you recruit. This is also for 6 months.
500px is an online platform that helps you to earn money by selling the photos you have clicked online. It is one of the best places to sell photos online as you get to set up your portfolio on their site.
This platform makes use of the “Pulse Algorithm” that helps in increasing the exposure of photos for the clients. They have a “Discovery” page, which is regularly viewed by thousands of visitors each and every day.
You can also track your progress here. They have analytics that you can use to check how fast your images are being sold, in comparison to your competitors. They also have mechanisms in their site which helps you to check how many clicks and impressions each of your images receive.
You would be glad to know that 500px offers an affiliate commission rate of up to 60 percent which is quite high.
TourPhotos is a platform where you find images related to tourism and adventures. To be more accurate, many tours and travel agencies use this platform to upload photos of their different adventures.
Besides a photographer, if you are a traveler, then this is a golden platform for you which you can long for. This serves as the icing on the cake.
TourPhotos charges 19% commission* of your sales. The rest is yours.
(*transaction fees may vary from 2,9% to 6% and come in addition. Maximum total charge is 25%)
Fotolia is another great platform for selling photos captured by great photographers. This platform has the guarantee of a minimum amount of commission to be paid to the contributors.
It might also be worth for you to know that this platform was purchased by Adobe Stock. They have a Pay-As-You-Go plan and another plan for subscriptions. Pay-As-You-Go can help the customers to earn up to 20 percent to something as high as 63 percent commission.
Foap is another platform that enables users to work online. Here, the user needs to give a brief and then launch a mission. One needs to attend regular FOP missions, which as per the terms and conditions usually require specific products in photos/videos.
There is only 1 winner in these missions.
Your photos can either be purchased for $10 each on a regular mission and on special missions, they can cost up to $60. Hence you can earn accordingly. Here the rate is divided on a 50 – 50 basis. For a picture that sells for $10, you get $5, while the other $5 goes for FOP.
They also give the brands and agencies the opportunities to request specific photos and videos as assets from their community. That is what they call Foap Missions. Here you get the opportunity to get visual content you need and engage your fans.
Conclusion
Photographers possessing various different levels of photography skills are in demand now. Their demand is at the peak now, more than ever. Hence, if you are thinking of making some quick cash, then you can immediately start selling your photos online.
Just to let you know, even in this situation of such a global pandemic, we are fully operational. You can learn more about our COVID-19 update from here.
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