Review: Shutterstock, Stock Photo Provider

Anyone who is interested in stock photography has probably heard about Shutterstock because of the high number of sales they have. However, Shutterstock is not for everybody. In this article, I will review the microstock agency called Shutterstock.

What is Shutterstock -

Shutterstock is one the many microstock agencies that exist online. A microstock agency sells your digital images for a certain amount of money. However, not just any photograph will be accepted. Snapshots or touristy photos will be refused by most agencies. Many nature photos will be rejected as well. If you're going to submit nature photos, make sure the photos are really unique. Otherwise, the nature pictures are likely to be rejected.

Becoming a Submitter -

If you want to submit photos to Shutterstock, you will have to register with them. This is a fairly painless process until your reach the testing phase of the registration. Basically, Shutterstock will ask you to submit three photos that you think are stock worthy. If Shutterstock deems them acceptable, you will go on to the next phase of testing.

If Shutterstock feels that the photos are not good enough then you will have to submit a few more photos. Unfortunately, after Shutterstock accepts three of your images you'll have to take another test. This time you will be asked to upload ten photos with a title and some keywords. It seems that Shutterstock is much more picky about the photos they accept from this second test.

In order to pass this part of the test, you will need to have seven of your ten images accepted by Shutterstock. And this can be a very difficult thing to do. What's worse is the fact that Shutterstock will disable your uploading privileges for a month if you don't pass this second test. It takes some people five or more tries to pass the second test. And some people just give up.

Earning Money with Shutterstock -

Shutterstock pays you twenty five cents per image that is downloaded. That may not seem like a lot, but Shutterstock has a great deal of clients. And don't forget that you keep all the rights to your photos, so each image can sell an infinite amount of times. So if you sell one hundred photos a day, you'll have earned twenty five dollars. And since Shutterstock has such a large amount of clients, a hundred photos a day is quite possible.

Another way to earn money with Shutterstock is through their affiliate program. Basically, you have a link from your website that takes your visitors to Shutterstock. And when one of your visitors buys an image at Shutterstock or signs up as a new customer, you'll earn royalties from whatever they buy or sell.

As you can see, Shutterstock is one of the many agencies out there that pays money for your images. It can be a very difficult agency to get in with, though. But if you persevere then you will have an agency that has a history of making lots of sales. Good luck.