Like taking pictures with your phone? Why not turn it into a money making venture and possibly making some recurring income from those awesome photos you’v
e been snapping for the past few years. There are several websites that you can sell you photos on. Most of these you’ll get paid each time someone downloads the picture. There are a few general rules you’ll need to know when you get going like for instance, if you want to sell pictures of people you’ll have to get a signed release from them. Another thing you’ll have to watch for is
the use of logos and brands in your pictures. Most likely you’ll have to make sure you avoid having any of them in your pictures to avoid any copyright and trademark issues.
Companies use stock photos all of the time in their advertising, brochures and even websites. The opportunity is there and if you can find a niche taking pictures that people or businesses are looking for you may be able to create a nice side income job and make money selling photos. If you are really good you could even create a nice recurring income that replaces your current income.
Here’s a list of some of the top sites you can make money selling photos on:
IStockPhoto
To get started selling photos with IStockPhoto firstt you must join as a memeber. The second step is to read the training manual and then pass a little quiz to make sure you know what you’re doing. Finally youhave to uplaod a few samples of your work along with the application so make sure you send your best stuff. What can you earn? As a contributor you start witha a base fee of 15% for each file of yours that is downloaded and paid for. You also have the option to be exclusive and earn a 45% rate.
Shutterstock
Shutterstock has a process to get approved to sell photos too. One of the first things you have to do is submit 10 of your best photos. If you can get at least 7 out of the 10 approved you will get approved to be a contributor. Once submitted the photos are reviewed by professionals to make sure they meet the quality standards of Shutterstock. The review process can take up to 10 days to get through. Obviously you goal is to make money online selling photos so here’s the deal on how much you can make. First, you have to understand the tiered system they have, but know that the minimum you’ll earn per download is $0.25 and it goes up to $28.00 depending on the type of
license that is used for the download.
With Photostockplus the program is a little different. This is a program where you earn 85% of the sales price of each photo you sell, but there is also a monthly or annual cost to have an account. Pricing starts at $24.95 a month and tops out at $499.00 a year. If you are new to selling photos online you may want to consider using one of the free services to get started. If you are already a photographer with a following or customers this may be the place for you
Fotolia
Fotolia is part of the Adobe family so getting your photos on here may get you instant access to millions of people using the Adobe products for their photo needs. For every one of your images that is sold, you’ll receive a commission determined by your ranking and the exclusivity option you have chosen. For example if your pictures are sold via the Pay-As-You-Go system you will get paid between 20% and 60% of the sale price. If you sell a photo via the Subscription plan you will earn between 20% and 25% of the sale price with a minimum guarantee.
Here’s a new one, It’s called Foap. This one is designed specifically to use your phone to take and upload photos for you to sell. Foap has an app that is available on the Google Play store or the Apple App Store. It’s a simple program. They sell all of the photos online for $10 and you make $5 for each sale. You can sell the same photo over and over for an unlimited number of times.
Bigstockphoto
Signing up to sell photos with Bigstockphoto is free. Before you can start to upload photos you have to complete a tutorial for Contributors. Once the tutorial is complete you can upload photos, their team reviews the images and makes sure they are usable and adds them to the online collection. You always keep the copyrights to your pictures. Your earnings are based on the number of downloads as well as the size of the image. Basically you earn 30% of the amount they charge. There is also a tiered system that allows you to earn more based on the total number of downloads you’ve had during the preceding 12 months. With a lot of pictures you have the potential to make a pretty good income.
123RF
There’s not a lot of description on how this one works, but it’s a big site and has a pretty good payment commission. When you arrive at the site you simply register and then you can upload any of your original photos. They pay up to a 60% commission on any of your content that a buyer downloads. Granted it starts out at just 30% but the commission level climbs as the nubmer of downloads during the last 12 months does.
Make money selling photos
When is comes down to it there are many sites you can align with and make money selling photos, but with every opportunity there needs to be a plan in order to
succeed. Remember if it was as easy as pulling out your phone, taking a quick snapshot, uploading it and watching the dollars come rolling in, everyone would be doing it. Creating a good portfolio of pictures that people would want to buy may take some time. It may even be worth it to invest in a nice camera, some photography classes and do some networking with others who are already successful to learn the ropes. Most of all, like most things in life, this one will take some work and determination to persevere until you achieve the success you are looking for.