Microstock -

So you've decided to start selling your photos or illustrations as microstock. But with all the different microstock agencies out there, which one do you pick? And what exactly is microstock anyway?

Defining Microstock -

Basically, microstock is a way for you to sell your images online. All you have to do is provide imagery to various online agencies to earn money. The imagery can consist of photos, illustrations, or video footage.

Keep in mind that you will make more money with high quality imagery then you would with poorer imagery. Your images will be sold for a dollar to a few dollars over and over again. The goal with microstock is to sell a large volume of images consistently.

Obviously, if you only generate a few sales then you are not going to make much money at this. But with some effort you can earn quite a bit of money. Some people even make enough to quit their day jobs. Below are the top three microstock agencies for you to submit your images to.

Istockphoto -

Istockphoto is the one that started it all. This microstock agency started back in 2000, and it has the most clients. Thus, your chances of successfully selling your images on iStockphoto are very good. Istockphoto is also one of the more stricter of the microstock agencies when it comes to the quality of your imagery. This is partly due to the fact that Getty Images owns iStockphoto now.

For those of you who don't know, Getty Images is a company that sells high quality photos for large sums of money. But when Getty Images acquired iStockphoto years ago, the quality of the pictures was naturally raised.

However, if your images are good then you can expect to make quite a bit of money with this agency. The amount of money you make per image is usually between a quarter and a couple of dollars.

Shutterstock -

While Shutterstock may not have as many clients as iStockphoto, it is definitely one of the better sellers. However, Shutterstock is slightly different than most microstock agencies.

Shutterstock uses a subscription plan to sell images. Basically, you're payed twenty five percent for each sale. And like all of the other agencies, each one of your images can sell over and over again.

As for the buyers, they spend a few hundred dollars to aquire these subsciption plans. After this is done, they can start buying images for one dollar each.

Dreamstime -

Dreamstime doesn't sell as many images as iStockphoto or Shutterstock, but they are the third best in the industry thus far(personal opinion). However, don't expect to make tons of money at first.

You'll probably have to have around five hundred to a thousand images at Dreamstime(or any agency)before you make a decent amount of money. And you'll be paid between twenty five cents to a few dollars for each image that is sold at Dreamstime.

And when I say decent amount of money, I mean around a hundred or so dollars a month with five hundred or more images. While that's not much money, just remember that it's passive income. In other words, you will keep making that money(more or less) each month even if you stop submitting images. This applies to the other agencies as well.

As you can see, microstock agencies are an interesting way to sell your images. You may not make much money at first, but if you keep at it then you'll see better results with time.