“Construction work on infrastructure for new Mayan Train project railway train network, near Campeche city, Campeche State, Mexico – date taken 23 March 2023
Quite often newcomers post on the Alamy forum and want to know about stock photography as an income source. They are always told that it is a marathon rather than a sprint and that, by and large, quantity and variety are key.
The picture above was taken out of a moving bus window – literally a snap shot – passing a bridge being constructed for the new Tren Maya railway in Yucatan, Mexico.
I’ve used it to start this blog because it was the first picture that I had taken in 2023 to be published via Alamy. My image reference for is 23IDM1225. 23 being the year, IDM my initials, 1225 the number of image uploaded in 2023.
It was reported to me as a sale on 29 June 2023. It sold very quickly by comparison because the subject matter was in the news.
In other words I would’ve been taking pictures, processing them, submitting them to Alamy for over 6 months before getting this first glimmer of success.
Here are the details
Country: Worldwide
Usage: Editorial, For editorial use on customer’s UK based websites and social media platforms
Media: Website, app and social media
Start: 29 June 2023
Duration: Unlimited
$ 9.60 ( $3.84 after commission)
Would a newcomer find that motivating? Yes and No. Sales are possible but it takes a long time and the fee….!
Alamy images sales in 2023-24 for images taken in 2023-24
I thought it would be interesting to imagine if I had started stock photography with Alamy in January 2023 rather than twenty years earlier. Our imaginary newbie stock photography may be far more talented than myself but I offer my data because it is all I have.
I’d estimate that I am ‘middle of the pack’ when it comes to Alamy sales performance. Nothing special but I work hard.
My Alamy sales spreadsheet for 1 January 2023 – 31 December 2024 shows 1058 individual sales from all my images. 516 in 2023, 542 in 2024
Stripping out all the older sales between 2003-2022 leaves this for the newer images:
( figures rounded to nearest $)
2023 4602 new images added to Alamy, 60 sales of these for a total of $590 after commission. The highest net fees $100, 53, 48, 37, 35, 34, 28, ( 2 year period 2023+2024)
2024 2292 new images uploaded to Alamy, 12 sales ( some could still be in the pipeline) for a total $66 after commission. The highest net fees $27, 11, 9, 5 then another eight, five of which for under $2. ( 1 year period 2024 only)
If I had started with zero images on January 1st 2023 I would only have received $656 income from 6894 images created in that two-year period.
BUT once images are on sale they stay on sale. It is a marathon not a sprint. The really big hiccup is how much more competition there is now compared with when I started and, most importantly, how very much lower the average fee has become. In addition, commission share has been reduced gradually from 65% to 40%.
I have only considered Alamy but in reality there is the option to uploaded the same images to other agencies and offer them non-exclusively. Whether that makes sense is a personal decision. I do it, others don’t.
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Interesting reading.
May I ask, what other agencies do you use?
I have images with Universal Images Group who have a global network of partners. Imagebroker for the German speaking market. There are a couple of others that I started in 2024 but so far without any sales. I stopped being image exclusive with Alamy around 10 years ago. No doubt I lose some Alamy sales when buyers shop around but I feel that it is best overall to diversify. Others have different opinions.
So nearly 7000 photos earned you £500 in two years. Pretty poor, even with future sales. Time and effort shooting, editing, uploading and keywording will be far less than minimum wage. Thats not even taking to to account travel costs and camera replacement and upkeep fund. Stock photograph is dead for newcomers unfortunately.
I tend to agree. I’m glad that I started 20 years ago!