Which stock footage sites earn money?
Perhaps you are just thinking about where to spend your time and effort with Stock footage photography. Or perhaps you have your collection of stock footage and now you’re ready to upload your collection. The big question is which stock footage sites earn money and are easy to work with? There are so many options for agencies these days and it takes time to get your collection on-line. How can you make the most of your time and effort?
Updated Jan 2020
The question is what other stock footage agencies pay out? Just a caveat if you click on some of the banners of these sites I will earn a referral income. I’ve only placed referral banners for sites that I recommend. If you decide to click on them a big thanks!
referral link to pond 5
Once you’re ready to start making some passive income with your videos Pond5 is a great start. Their site was easy to use, upload, and their review turn around is pretty fast. I’ve got my largest collection of videos here and I get paid from this site. I’ve created the “Stock Footage Masterclass Online Course” if you want to learn complete process on getting started.
shutterstock.com
Shutterstock was the second site I started using to sell my travel videos. Once you’ve started to share your video collection on-line it doesn’t take much more time and effort to start selling on another site. Because I choose a non-exclusive model I can sell on this site too. Shutterstock is a public company and has a high Internet ranking so I get paid out from this site. The site is easy to use once you figure out the system and they have a great blog for contributors. They tend to have a higher rejection rate and have a bias towards Aerial Footage.
Istockphoto ESP Getty
Their web platform is confusing and picky, but they have become a number 4 or 5 earner where I’ve uploaded some of my aerial footage. Their site only takes .mov files and it is tricky to understand their royalty reports, but my small portfolio on here does perform.
This Canadian company occasionally brings me a few sales every month for my portfolio of 5000. They are still around, but I’m not spending too much of my efforts with them these days.
Motion elements – Easy to work with
This Singapore company got me into the Stock footage game. I’m thankful for that. They approached me to provide a hard drive with Asian collection and the rest is history. Their website is very easy to work with in terms of uploading and using the CSV files. I can use the same CSV files for Pond5 on their site. That is super convenient, and a time-saver. They surprise me once in a while with a few good sales.
Storyblocks formerly VideoBlocks (inactive)
These guys are no long earning me income and no longer taking uploads. I think they went inactive.
Storyblocks went live on April 2015 and is perhaps the easiest agency to work with with support for Pond 5 and Shutterstock CSV’s. I read and heard they were an existing agency that were looking at a new plan to provide content. I’m not sure what the true story is, but in my experience their site has been a pleasure to work with. Easy to upload, accepts CSV files from pond 5 or Shutterstock, easy to submit to curators, excellent reporting, and fast approvals. They even have the highest payout in the industry. An example is that I receive $42.44 for a standard HD clip priced at $49US us. That’s almost 87% to the contributor and I get pay outs. They are an example of the new breed of agency that seems to be doing everything right. In recent years I’ve found them to be my 3rd highest paying agency.
A screen shot of a recent sale
Agency based in Tokyo,Japan
AdobeStock
Adobestock became a force a few years ago and with the tight integration with branding and resources as well as the Adobe Cloud Creative Ecosystem which includes Adobe Premiere, photoshop, and more I think it would be wise to invest time to get your collection on Adobestock.
BlackBox
Blackbox is a Canadian syndication platform for creatives. Currently it allows stock footage video contributors to distribute their clips on the top agencies and also allow you to outsource different stock footage workflow and automatically allocate revenue across agencies. Very interesting. Not my top earner, but last year I invested some time and effort to get 1000 clips online through blackbox as a test. Stay tuned and check out my independent review.
Join Blackbox: https://goo.gl/xm6hV3
License your own Footage Directly
I’m seeing diminishing returns with stock agencies meaning that a larger higher quality collection is not translating into higher earnings. I think now more than ever you have to take ownership for marketing your own footage if you have a collection of 2000 or more high quality clips. I know this is a tall task for some contributors. You need some marketing and technical knowledge to pull this off. In 2019 I believe you need to hedge your bets by getting your footage on the top agencies and licensing your own footage. For all the information that shares you the workflows, CSV’s, ins and outs of the agencies, as well as arming you with the business and marketing knowledge to license your footage directly you can head to my Travel Videographer Academy for online courses that will help you. You can use the code “2020creator” for a discount on the course bundle.
Pixta
The exciting news is that I got my first sale with Pixta with 700 clips currently online. Getting that first sale with a new agency is exciting to me as that is some real-life validation that what you are doing works.
This stock footage site based in Shibuya Tokyo Japan approached me recently to start contributing to their site. It took me a while to figure out their system, but it’s been efficient to get my files over to their their Japan FTP site. They also have a US FTP site. They accept CSV files; however it takes some data massaging and manual work to get it in their format. I have since visited their office and met the team. They were very friendly and accepting of the feedback of gave for improvements. They also gave me tips on what to shoot in Tokyo.
Visiting the Pixta team in Shibuya Tokyo
What is best place to sell stock footage?
In 2020 what is the best site to sell your stock footage in 2020. I would take a strategic diversified approach. Given Shutterstock’s change in payout structure there isn’t a lot of incentive if you are starting out or don’t have a portfolio that qualifies you for their best payout structure. Contributing to Blackbox is a workaround for this at the moment plus you get your footage on multiple top agencies like Pond 5, shutterstock , and Adobestock. Blackbox does have a high rejection rate so perhaps you can submit these reject clips to sites like Pond 5 and Adobestock. It’s also a wise idea to start promoting your collection directly and learning to sell your footage direct. The stock footage game has become a lot more competitive, but there is no reason to put all your eggs in one basket
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