2010 Microstock Industry Survey – First Look
The votes are in and 524 microstock photographers have spoken There are now 628 responses which are all included in further Survey analysis. Here is the first look at the 2010 microstock industry survey. First, a big thanks to everyone who completed the survey. It is great to have so many people take part, making the results more accurate and interesting than ever. Last year we had just over 400 respondents so it is great to see an increase by over 25%. Even though I am posting the ‘first look’ now, if you haven’t have a chance to fill in the survey, there is still time. I’ll include all new responses in future analysis.
Disclaimer
I am not a scientist, statistician nor mathemagician. This survey only gives a general idea of the current state of the microstock industry. I haven’t put in any controls to make sure I get a ‘random’ sampling of microstock photographers or that the results show the entire picture of the industry. What the results DO show however, is how 524 people feel about the industry and the results they are achieving. The 524 people are a good mix of pro’s, beginners and everything in between. The results will obviously be biased towards people who are interested and active in microstock photography and leaves out those who have given up or forgot they even had images online, but isn’t that want we want to know anyhow? We want to know how WE are doing, we who are trying to make this work. I believe these results tell us.
I posted links to the survey on the MicrostockGroup Forum, Shutterstock and iStock forums, and two other general photography forums. Links were also shared on twitter, facebook, and a big thanks to the Russian microstockers over at microstock.ru for their forum thread. I mention all this so it is clear that the respondents are not overly biased towards MicrostockGroup members. There is a healthy profile of respondents from various sites, countries and exclusive / non-exclusive status.
Now for the results…
The Microstocker Profile
Gender:
Male: 372
Female: 152
Average Age: 40.4
Oldest: 84
Youngest: 16
Media Types Submitted:
Photography: 460
Illustration: 163
Video: 61
Audio: 5
There is still a strong bias towards microstock photographers, with nearly 90% of artists selling photographs. 31% of artist have illustrations and 10% also sell video. A mere 1% sell microstock audio.
Are you exclusive to iStockPhoto?
Exclusive: 126
Non-Exclusive: 398
We got a great turn out from the exclusive photographers on iStock. 24% of the respondents (124 artists) were exclusive. According to the iStock Contributor Charts iStock only has a 14.63% exclusive profile. The overall results of this survey are slightly biased towards the exclusive iStock photographer.
Is microstock your primary source of income (over 50%)?
Yes: 129 (25%)
No: 395 (75%)
I’m happy to see 125 people making a living from microstock photography. I’ll use this question to break down analysis in the future. How much are the part-timers earning? How are those who rely on microstock for their income doing compared to previous years?
How many images do you have online? (460 photographers)
Average: 1450
Median: 700
How many illustrations do you have online? (163 illustrators)
Average: 525
Median: 250
How many videos do you have online? (61 videograpehrs)
Average: 82
Median: 15
How many audio files do you have online? (5 audio-ographers)
Average: 40
Median: 58
How many months have you been involved in microstock?
Average: 36
Median: 35
Max: 108
Minimum: 1
Microstock Income
Average 2010 microstock income: $13,439 ($2785 higher than 2009)
Median income: $3173
I’ll be breaking down and looking at income a lot in future analysis, but overall it is encouraging to see an increase from 2009. One popular critique of the earnings amount is people assuming there are 1 or 2 photographers with million dollar incomes that are skewing the results upwards. To that I’d like to say that Yuri did NOT fill in the survey 
The highest income was only comfortably within the six figure mark.
Highest reported income: $211,708
Lowest reported income: $1
Since the median income is so much lower than the average income, it is obvious that the results are pulled up by a ‘small’ number of successful microstock artists. The number of artists however isn’t that small though, and I would rather say the average is pulled down by an disproportionately large amount of part time microstockers. I’ll look more into earnings results in future blog posts.
Did your microstock income increase or decrease in 2010?
Increase: 450 (86%)
Decrease: 74 (14%)
Microstock Agencies Breakdown
What agencies do you submit to?
It is hard to differentiate between the colors, but the sites go from left to right and correspond to the list going from top to bottom. The site in the fifth position which is a dash, is StockXpert which was mistakingly added to the survey (carried over from 2009), then later removed.
Only one comment initially, I am surprised iStock is so much lower than Dreamstime, Fotolia or Shutterstock. This question was only answered by non-exclusive artists, so technically there is 126 more artists from the survey that are submitting to iStock. In regards to non-exclusive artists though, the iStock number is surprisingly low.
On which site did you generate the most income?
Which site gave you the highest return per image (RPI)?
I find it interesting that Shutterstock provides the highest income for nearly 50% of artists, yet iStock has the highest RPI. This is likely due to artists being able to upload a lot more images on Shutterstock, but makes me ask a lot of ‘what if’ questions.
More To Come
There you have it, the first look at the 2010 results. I’m looking forward to breaking down the results further, into exclusive / non exclusive artists, full time / part time artists, videographers vs photographers earnings etc.
If there is any breakdown you are interested in seeing in future blog posts, let me know in the comments below.
