Do you want to sell your photos online and earn some money? Are you wondering which websites allow you to sell photos? As a photographer, if you know the right places to sell your photographs online you can easily earn some extra money (or even start a new career).
As with anything else, the better the equipment, the greater your experience and knowledge, the better your images will be, and the higher the chance to start making money.
There are dozens of websites that are willing to pay for your photos and often pay well enough.
Everyone has a different payment structure, but offers a great way to turn still images from months on your hard drive into a little extra money, without much effort, after editing and uploading them.
Whether you are a professional photographer or a lens enthusiast, we have selected the best microstock *sites to earn money by selling photos online. You will discover the way to build a whole new career, or simply find a second source of income.
A tip: a good software for editing help you enhance your images for better results, so it pays to find a decent program (and learn to use it!) So you can earn more with your photos.
*Per microstock means archive photography ( stock photography ). The sites that are part of this category of image banks that offer the chance for photographers to sell their photos online at low prices (from 1$ to 20$ ). The images that are sold are in high quality and have a Royalty Free license (that is that those who buy them pay a certain amount and has a photo of which you can make the use you prefer, with limited restrictions).
Fotolia
Fotolia is a website of stock photographs owned by Adobe. It’s integrated into many Adobe programs, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, which means people can buy your images from those programs.
Earnings between 20% and 46% of commissions on the images you sell via Fotolia: the better your contributor level, the higher the percentage commission you will earn.
On Fotolia, you earn credits, which you can redeem in cash. You can earn from 1 to 30 credits per image. And a credit is worth $1.40
The site accepts a wide variety of high quality images in all subject areas. But it encourages you to review the images of the best-selling artists to get ideas for photos.
istockphoto
As for the stock photography sites, iStockphoto is pretty well known. To contribute to your work, you must register for a free iStockphoto account.
You will also be asked to read a manual on site quality standards and respond to a short quiz. Finally, iStockphoto wants to see three samples of your best photograph.
It may sound like a lot of work, but if your photos exceed iStockphoto standards, it’s one of the best options for selling stock photography. iStockphoto has a much higher traffic than many other stock photography sites and sells more photos. You will get 20 to 40 percent of all downloads of your photos.
Marketplace 500 px
Five million photographers upload their stock images with 500 px, according to the site. You will receive 70% net for each license sold (standard licenses are $250) and your images may appear in big name advertising campaigns if you send them for commercial licenses.
To give a test of 500px Prime, first register on a free account on 500px. Then send your photos, activate your store and complete the required forms for each image (including model releases, disclaimers, etc.).
You will also have the option of selecting an exclusive or non-exclusive license for images. You will earn more for an exclusive license, but that means you can not license or sell the photo to anyone else.
123 Royalty Free
123RoyaltyFree is one of the lowest cost sites available. You can get between 30% and 60% of royalties on your photos, depending on your level of contribution. So, the more photos uploaded, the greater the copyright.
On the site, you get between $0.216 and $0.432 for image downloads. This is a rather low amount compared to other sites. But if you have a large catalog of images to upload, then you could make a decent amount every month.
Furthermore, the site image verification process is not as rigorous as other stock photography sites, so it is a good starting point for beginners.
Dreamstime
Dreamstime offers a compensation scale for photographs, based on the number of downloads. The best-selling photos are priced higher and photographers can get 50 to 60 percent of the selling price.
Dreamstime also offers bonuses in certain situations. To start with this site, you need to create an account and send sample files. Dreamstime then review your samples; if they are approved, those photos will be made available for sale immediately.
Shutterstock
Earn up to $120 for selling images on Shutterstock. This site has a rather complicated pricing structure, but the more you earn (“earnings for life”), the more you take home for each image.
In total, contributors have earned over $ 300 million from over 500 million downloads, so people definitely download these images. Shutterstock also sells videos, including HD and 4K videos, as well as images and vector.
You can also suggest to other photographers to use the site and get a small profit, usually around four cents, each time they sell an image.
CanStockPhoto
With CanStockPhoto.com, you earn between $ 0.50 and $ 12.50 per image. While the payment by image is quite low on CanStockPhoto, compared to other websites, it is easier to accept your images on the site
All you have to do is send three images for review, and the site will usually approve them the same day. The commission varies from 20% to 50%.
Alamy
A great platform to sell archival photos without strict rules and fast payments. Photographers can upload their photos without licenses or other copyright issues.
They pay a large royalty amount to photographers, which is why Alamy is known for being the best online places to sell photos and make a fortune.