Fotolia is a microstock photography agency that is based in New York, New York. It was started by Oleg Tscheltzoff in November 2005. The company also has offices in Seattle, Washington and Paris, France.
Fotolia is the first worldwide social marketplace for royalty free stock images, allowing individuals and professionals to legally buy and share stock images and illustrations.
Fotolia offers the largest image bank of free and affordable royalty free photos and illustrations perfect for any medium, web or print.
Fotolia challenges the traditional closed agency model by offering to everyone hobbyist or professional the opportunity to monetize their talents, whatever their fame, status, or size of portfolio.
Fotolia offers low-priced royalty free images using our credit system (1 credit = £0.57). A member can buy credits and download our images at the inexpensive rate of just £0.57 (1 credit). Contributors who sell images will be paid a commission based on the type of license purchased. The average commission is around 40%.lick here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
Advantages
+ no entry test or exam
+ no photos to approve, after uploading ID you can start upload
+ you can choose currency to be paid in
+ you get your own FTP upload account
+ there's no limit to the amount of images that you can submit at one time
+ payments in checks, Paypal or Moneybookers
+ Photographers receive up 80 % of the image sales price. (average 52%)
+ An exclusive buyout sales price does not depend on rank or sales volume. You have your own exclusive buyout sales price between $100 and $2000.
+ Fotolia already has a local presence in 5 major countries: USA, France, Spain, Germany, and UK.
+ Thanks to their automatic translation system photographers can upload and describe their images in English and then sell them in all Fotolia languages overnight
+ Photographers may cash out their credits at anytime via PayPal with as little as $2 in their account
+ Digimarc protection - Image protection technology provides security for photographers and helps with image tracking
+ contributor sets his own price - A photographer may set their price according to their rank, price range and image exclusivity
+ Photographer ranking system - a photographers rank is determined by the total number of photos sold. There are 8 levels that represent the photographers rank and the number of photos sold. + Uploading images is completely free
+ The Fotolia search engine automatically translates all the keywords
+ starting at 2,400 x 1,600 pixels
Disadvantages
- if you set the categories for the photos the Fotolia system doesn't allow you to open more than one window in a time (unless it crashes :-)
- Images only in a JPEG format
- Panoramic files should have a ratio between 0.26 and 0.5 (small side / large side)
- Files must be smaller than 20 MB
- they send checks quarterly for amounts over 100 USD
Sample Credit Download Calculation:
A photographer may choose to sell photos with Fotolia on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis. When a photographer chooses to sell an image exclusively through Fotolia, the minimum commission earned is 50% of the sales price.The photographer may earn additional commission depending on the photographers rank.
When a photographer chooses to sell an image non-exclusively through Fotolia, the minimum commission earned is 33% of the sales price. The photographer may earn additional commission depending on the photographers rank.
The tables below outline the license, resolution, commission, and price range a photographer may sell his images based on the photographers rank and exclusivity.
Bigstockphoto is one of the world's leading microstock image sites in USA.
Advantages
+ easy entry test
+ no photos to approve - after passing the test you can start to upload
+ you get your own FTP upload account
+ payments are sent out via bank checks, PayPal and Moneybookers.
+ File Formats Accepted - Images, Art, Vector and Bitmap: JPG, EPS, AI, PSD, PNG and PDF.
+ you receive commissions whenever your total reaches $30 or more
+ starting from 800 pixels across (but 2500-4000 pixels across or more is preferred)
+ Adding a good clipping path to your image in Photoshop creates more value to the downloader and boosts your chances of selling the image. If you don't understand how or are confused about Clipping Paths, no problem, this is NOT a requirement in any way, just a suggestion that could help boost your sales
Disadvantages
- JPG, PSD, EPS, AI, PDF or PNG files only, 10 MB max. file size (this will be raised very soon). Files such as PSD, EPS, AI, PDF, PNG must be from current software programs, as some older graphics software creates images that are not currently to spec for these file types.
- New users with less than 20 total approved images are limited to 20 images in the Admin Approval Queue at a time, until 20 images are approved.
- Users with an approval percentage of 50% or less are limited to 20 in Admin Approval Queue at a time
- Users with an approval percentage of 70% or less OR less than 40 approved images are limited to 30 in Admin Approval Queue at a time
- Users with less than 80 approved images are limited to 80 in Admin Approval Queue
- 10 MG limit per photo
Sample Credit Download Calculation:
Make 50 cents or $1.00 per normal image download - or much more on Special License downloads Whenever a person downloads one of your photos under our normal Image Usage Agreement, your account balance increases by 50 cents for smaller downloads or $1.00 for large file downloads. When your account balance reaches $30 you can request Paypal withdrawal to 'cash out' your account, or when you reach $50 you can request a check be mailed to you.
Make up to $60 per download with Special Licensing sales If you have joined any of our Special License deals and buyers are purchasing your photos that way, you will earn anywhere from $2.50 to $60 PER download.
There is unlimited potential for earning. We pay at this time $0.50 commission per 1 credit image sold and $1.00 commission per 2 credit images sold. Commissions are paid upon request as soon as your account reaches at least $30. If you decide to take part in Special Licensing (you should!) you can earn up to $60 per image download. Average Special Licensing commission is about $12 per image. We highly recommend you opt-in to Special Licensing.