New earnings structure for Contributors

[Pure Sight lab]

11 hours ago, chyworks said:

Over 200k quality images and only earn 3 dollars per day?

Dude i don't know... it really sounds tragic or are you being theatrical?

I bet the 3 dollars is just a hyberbole right?

Yes, this is from 200k portfolio.

[Oleksii Arseniuk]

Hi everybody. 

It’s been almost a week that I’m watching the situation over some forums and chats. For me it’s obvious that panic and aggressive conditions still overwhelms the constructive ones.

I'm full time microstock contributor and make a living with this. That’s one of the the reasons why my SS portfolio is still on air. The other one is that for the last days the new rating system has almost no negative impact to my earnings. I'm sure that I am not the only one with the same or similar situation nevertheless 3 days stats is not representative so I’ll wait for the whole month to calculate more or less appropriate statistics.

 I share the spreadsheet in this post (see attachment) – it will help you to calculate changes in statistics in accordance to the new rating system. I thank to one of our colleague who has kindly shared it with us. You are allowed to share this spreadsheet wherever you want, but do not share it from your name.

I’m not so pissed off of the new rating system but still I reduce the amount of uploads to the SS for now till I’ll have more statistics to analyze. At the same time I appreciate actions of those who already deactivated or deleted their PFs – it’s really strong position. My respect.

In all this madness we missed some major thing: within the last few days Shutterstock did for the global contributor community more than we did itself for the all time of microstock existing. Shutterstock made us to find ways of communication with each other. I mean worldwide communication but not the local ones.

For now I strongly support the idea of an open letter to the Shutterstock or smth. like that.

BUT!

I think that this should be not the “we the contributors want...” letter but “we the contributors together with the Shutterstock can…”. I think that we should to propose some concessions from the SS side (for exp: cancel the yearly level resetting or to rise the minimum payouts from 10 to 15 cents) along with some duties from ours (not to upload same content to dumping stocks/ not to spill dirt on Shutterstock etc.)

I want to make an offer of the collaboration but not the letter of requirements.

But in accordance to make this letter really good and representative I need help of other contributors – primary of those who make a living same as me and/or has an old lvl 4. Why you, because you have what to lose. Same as me.  So I hope that you too can see both sides of the current situation.

For those who want only to “push” and “destruct” – IMHO you are wrong. It’s your position. I respect it. And do not want you to bother yourself of convincing me that I'm wrong.

Peace.

Shutterstock_compare_share.xlsx

[Kevin Shine]

On 5/26/2020 at 4:48 PM, David Calvert said:

So I'm currently in level one. Instead of getting $0.25 per download, what am I going to get now?

You are going to get screwed is what you are going to get. $0.10. Less than half of what you got. I was getting $0.33 and now I just get $0.10, hardly seems worth the effort. 

[Kevin Shine]

2 minutes ago, mikroman6 said:

Believe me they really do!

Next year they will be billing us for uploads and storage costs.

[Kevin Shine]

On 5/26/2020 at 4:49 PM, Antony McAulay said:

This will be the death of shutterstock. 

It will never work 

 

Fully agree. I will suspend all further uploads and just move to another platform with better returns. I mean what other option is there now?

 

[eskystudio]

10 minutes ago, Oleksii Arseniuk said:

Hi everybody. 

It’s been almost a week that I’m watching the situation over some forums and chats. For me it’s obvious that panic and aggressive conditions still overwhelms the constructive ones.

I'm full time microstock contributor and make a living with this. That’s one of the the reasons why my SS portfolio is still on air. The other one is that for the last days the new rating system has almost no negative impact to my earnings. I'm sure that I am not the only one with the same or similar situation nevertheless 3 days stats is not representative so I’ll wait for the whole month to calculate more or less appropriate statistics.

 I share the spreadsheet in this post (see attachment) – it will help you to calculate changes in statistics in accordance to the new rating system. I thank to one of our colleague who has kindly shared it with us. You are allowed to share this spreadsheet wherever you want, but do not share it from your name.

I’m not so pissed off of the new rating system but still I reduce the amount of uploads to the SS for now till I’ll have more statistics to analyze. At the same time I appreciate actions of those who already deactivated or deleted their PFs – it’s really strong position. My respect.

In all this madness we missed some major thing: within the last few days Shutterstock did for the global contributor community more than we did itself for the all time of microstock existing. Shutterstock made us to find ways of communication with each other. I mean worldwide communication but not the local ones.

For now I strongly support the idea of an open letter to the Shutterstock or smth. like that.

BUT!

I think that this should be not the “we the contributors want...” letter but “we the contributors together with the Shutterstock can…”. I think that we should to propose some concessions from the SS side (for exp: cancel the yearly level resetting or to rise the minimum payouts from 10 to 15 cents) along with some duties from ours (not to upload same content to dumping stocks/ not to spill dirt on Shutterstock etc.)

I want to make an offer of the collaboration but not the letter of toddler cries.

But in accordance to make this letter really good and representative I need help of other contributors – primary of those who make a living same as me and/or has an old lvl 4. Why you, because you have what to lose. Same as me.  So I hope that you too can see both sides of the current situation.

For those who want only to “push” and “destruct” – IMHO you are wrong. It’s your position. I respect it. And do not want you to bother yourself of convincing me that I'm wrong.

Peace.

Shutterstock_compare_share.xlsxUnavailable

There is no enoguh data at the moment to draw any positive conclusions.

I know a couple of guys who started the first 2 days fairly well saying  'stop, you are overreacting, things are not that bad".
Their assesment was quickly changed in the next couple of days since saales and RPDs plumetted and they were swarmed with 10-11 cent downloads.

If you consider yourself a person with 'sober-minded' approach my advice would be the same.
Wait at lleast a month to see if your positive attitudes are backed with stats.

[Natwood]

4 hours ago, Yanas said:

I see that the new conditions have become a big disappointment for fans to load any garbage

Oh, really? You think, portfolios of all those photographers who are disappointed by the new structure are worse than yours? Wow!

[Kev Gregory]

6 minutes ago, eskystudio said:

There is no enoguh data at the moment to draw any positive conclusions.

I know a couple of guys who started the first 2 days fairly well saying  'stop, you are overreacting, things are not that bad".
Their assesment was quickly changed in the next couple of days since saales and RPDs plumetted and they were swarmed with 10-11 cent downloads.

If you consider yourself a person with 'sober-minded' approach my advice would be the same.
Wait at lleast a month to see if your positive attitudes are backed with stats.

Attachment unavailable...?

 

[Rick Rupert]

On 5/26/2020 at 9:36 PM, Scott Heaney said:

It isn't as clear cut as that though, and thats why it would make sense for SS to disclose some data on what percentages of sales come what subscription packages. If the majority of your sub downloads are from 350 or 750 image packages, even tier 6 contributors will earn a max of .23 per download. 

Sorry for the late reply. You are correct. I did not look at it that way. Still, if you have 500 sales per month, you are back to your level in a few weeks. 

[Jane Rix]

1 hour ago, eskystudio said:

I understand, regardless of circumstances you will be always polite. You can try explaining this approach to perople who were fired by a company HR department due to medical conditions in order to avoid paying insurance or in order to  cut down worker compensation.

Same about the motto about always having good manners. Try explainging it to your children when they are being bullied.

Same about the argument 'I was brought up in a sepcific way". I was brought up in family that was trying to teach me to treat people as inferior goblins and to care only about my financial success. (Now that you are on the victim side of the fence - you know exactly how it feels to be treated by the people who only care about the monetary gain)

Speaking about 'just a messenger'. I worked in corporate environment for a very long time (in management positions as well). In my expeirence every company very, very carefully chooses its 'messengers'. Especially those who are facing the general publc, including social media - those have to be the most loyal company employees that no matter what will sdhere to company guiseliens and justify their actions.
You might be right that this is completely innocent and good person of course. But you present it as a clear cut scenario - and in my experience it is really not the case.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I respect your opion and voiced mine only when you posted a question. 
I'm just trying to point out 2 things.

1. How inapplicable your (rigid) argumetns can in a real life scenarios, inclufding the one that you brought up.
2. How insesitive your words and actions can be to people, even though you don't seem to see anything wrong with your approach.

Now you've got 5 upvotes and (unlike in the previous post) you have received a necessary validation of your approach 
Let's leave it at that, you've got different opinions, its up to you to choose what to accept or reject.

P.S.

You take a look at the post below: 
"I'm a single mother. I lost 2/3 of my income. My son and I will literally have nothing to eat. "
I wonder if this person wouild be really comfortabele with you being cozy with 'just a messenger"

 

 

 

I'm not sure of why you are so hell bent on reprimanding me for saying thanks to someone who did a job for me, but whatever your reasons, knock yourself out if it makes you feel better. I will, however, reiterate that spitting vitriol at Kate, (or me), is totally unnecessary, as neither she nor I are in any way responsible for the new pay schedule anymore than you are. 

Please don't presume to know anything about me or my current circumstances. 

[Olena Zaskochenko]

Quote

There is no enoguh data at the moment to draw any positive conclusions.

I know a couple of guys who started the first 2 days fairly well saying  'stop, you are overreacting, things are not that bad".
Their assesment was quickly changed in the next couple of days since saales and RPDs plumetted and they were swarmed with 10-11 cent downloads.

If you consider yourself a person with 'sober-minded' approach my advice would be the same.
Wait at lleast a month to see if your positive attitudes are backed with stats.

It is not hard to calculate that if the price of most downloads fall on 73%, then the earnings totally will fall. Today Ive got 1 dollar from SS and 10 dollars from Adobe. Customers who hear about that autors leave SS will leave SS too.

I don't panic, SS is just a place where we sell our work. There are many other places. For a long time SS was a good place to sell content, but things changes and it isn't anymore. When the house in on fire, people take out as much values as they can. If the director sells his shear, so he must be knowing something.

[Olena Zaskochenko]

9 minutes ago, Natwood said:

I see that the new conditions have become a big disappointment for fans to load any garbage

I think quite opposite, people will load 0.1 dollar garbage, who will spend a lot of time for creating something good for such a low price

[Natwood]

8 minutes ago, Olena Zaskochenko said:

I think quite opposite, people will load 0.1 dollar garbage, who will spend a lot of time for creating something good for such a low price

Awkward... It's not my words... I just responded to it. Don't quote it as mine, please. I would not say that.  

[novak.elcic]

This is also a small price to pay for a photo from your phone
ShameStock

[eskystudio]

4 minutes ago, Jane Rix said:

I'm not sure of why you are so hell bent on reprimanding me for saying thanks to someone who did a job for me, but what ever yours reasons, knock yourself out if it makes you feel better. I will, however, reiterate that spitting vitriol at Kate, (or me), is totally unnecessary, as neither she nor I are in any way responsible for the new pay schedule anymore than you are. 

Please don't presume to know anything about me or my current circumstances. 

A person who rejects arguments and percieves them as personal attacks only proves the point about impossibility of presenting him with a different point of view. 

I don't think there is anything left to be addressed here.

 

[Maxal Tamor]

32 minutes ago, Kevin Shine said:

Next year they will be billing us for uploads and storage costs.

Next year they will be (a very little) part of Adobe Stock…

[Anna Yefimenko]

7 hours ago, Vivitta said:

Wow, amazing works (Супер!). Its a shame to get 0,10 usd for this kind of illustrations. 

 

7 hours ago, DutchMen said:

Did you have a education for this! This more than 25 cts before. I think every church would liket have to kinds of drawings. Maybe find an other way. Personal website. But not SS. I am not a church follower. But also  the last  one. Try to get contact with childrenbook sellers

 

7 hours ago, DutchMen said:

Are you already on Alamy. I dont sell much. But i like their feedback. Fe like today 52 dollars. Photo used for World Wide book 2500 production. This is Children books material. Dont give up

Thank you very much!  Thanks for your kind words and for the advice! And good luck to all of us!! (sorry for my English)

[Elzbieta Krzysztof]

We feel indignant with the latest changes in the earning structure for contributors. It seems to us as an obvious greedy action. We perceive it as an apparent treatment with disregard of the contributors by Shutterstock. Shutterstock, which makes money and exists in this business thanks to the contributors all around the world and their works. We feel that we are exploited, and Shutterstock takes unfair advantage of us. We are very disappointed with this new earning’s policy and we consider this action as very repellant. It’s time to leave Shutterstock and take our portfolio with us.

[MJD Graphics]

To be honest I didn't like the old tier system based on lifetime earnings and I don't like the new level system either. I think every image/video that is sold should just be a flat-rate 30% of sales price for everybody no matter how long you have been on SS or how many images you have sold in a year. The sales price of every image is based on what for subscription or whatever the buyer has and nothing to do with how long the contributor of that image has made on SS or how many images they have sold.

[Roy F Wylam]

On 5/26/2020 at 4:30 PM, Forum Moderation Team said:

The adjustments are being made to align with changes we have been seeing in the global market for creative content. They also help to create fair opportunities for all our contributors, and reward performance with greater earnings potential.

How can this be correct when Adobe have put their Commission Rates up? Pond 5 charge way more than Shutterstock for videos. 

If this is correct were is the evidence, just saying it does not make it real.

 

 

 

 

[owlesia]

2 minutes ago, MJD Graphics said:

To be honest I didn't like the old tier system based on lifetime earnings and I don't like the new level system either. I think every image/video that is sold should just be a flat-rate 30% of sales price for everybody no matter how long you have been on SS or how many images you have sold in a year.

I agree, I did not think about this before, but honestly... It is a good point, that everybody works should be evaluated by quality of particular piece, not some sales, or time spend on site.

[Rodrigo Garrido]

2 hours ago, Yanas said:

I see that the new conditions have become a big disappointment for fans to load any garbage

Your blue pencil photo is so cute!!!

And also you've a cat aswell...

[Pixellicious Photos]

2 hours ago, SvetlanaSF said:

What about those who Will keep the account and Will keep contributing? Do you mind adding this option in? I suspect there will be many of those still and the current questionnaire doesn't caputre that category. 

Done!!!

[1975boomerang]

I was happy to start my day 3 or 4 months ago with Shutterstock, and I am in the process to build my portfolio here. I made only 6 download so far, that represent barely $1.50.

It is time to stop my contribution and move my energy toward other sites that believe in the value of their contributors.

What are the top 5 alternatives you think is good in the current state of this market?

[Jasmin Awad]

28 minutes ago, MJD Graphics said:

To be honest I didn't like the old tier system based on lifetime earnings and I don't like the new level system either. I think every image/video that is sold should just be a flat-rate 30% of sales price for everybody no matter how long you have been on SS or how many images you have sold in a year. The sales price of every image is based on what for subscription or whatever the buyer has and nothing to do with how long the contributor of that image has made on SS or how many images they have sold.

I agree with the flat 30%.

Keep it simple works best.