Awana JF Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 12 hours ago, Photography by Adri said: I'd love to see updates on this now that we're well into January! Hi Adri! Long time no see... I hope your doing okay! It took me a bit of time to figure out the number but basically here are my numbers month by month: Level 3 June -27% (increased number of sales so increase in my monthly income though) July -10% August -4% (both July and august were terrible in term of download number too) Level 4 September +11% October -4% November +30% December +15% So it seems that you start actually to win money when you reach level 4 (for me as I was new and at the first level before). Before that it is only a loss of money so I guess it a question of when you reach this level. If it's before june it's okay but if it's after you'll be loosing money... Of course this month is terrible and you can really feel the reset! To add to this, I feel a decrease in download numbers and most of those are 10c subs... 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Wilm Ihlenfeld Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 1 hour ago, Awana JF said: Hi Adri! Long time no see... I hope your doing okay! It took me a bit of time to figure out the number but basically here are my numbers month by month: Level 3 June -27% (increased number of sales so increase in my monthly income though) July -10% August -4% (both July and august were terrible in term of download number too) Level 4 September +11% October -4% November +30% December +15% So it seems that you start actually to win money when you reach level 4 (for me as I was new and at the first level before). Before that it is only a loss of money so I guess it a question of when you reach this level. If it's before june it's okay but if it's after you'll be loosing money... Of course this month is terrible and you can really feel the reset! To add to this, I feel a decrease in download numbers and most of those are 10c subs... Unfortunately, I have to disagree from my personal point of view, Awana. Level 4 or 5 has not brought an increase in revenue, but losses. And level 6 contributors have reported the same. There were exceptional months because notable SODs came in. On average, shutterstock simply calculated well and cleverly. And certainly not to the advantage of the contributors. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Awana JF Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 2 hours ago, Wilm Ihlenfeld said: Unfortunately, I have to disagree from my personal point of view, Awana. Of course I'm only speaking for me. I joined in 2019 so I was having 0.25$ for subs and 1.88$ for ODD. I didn't take SOD into account for my calculation because it's harder to evaluate, but it was 20% before and 25% as level 3 and 30% as level 4 (so that would actualy be slightly better than I reported). I didn't take video into account, for which the loss is more important (30% before vs 15% as level 1 now). I don't sell video very often, but then the loss is x2 everytime I sell one (and I'm pretty sure the SODs increase doesn't make up for it)... So my numbers are just a comparison of what I earned with subs and ODD vs what I would have earned before. I agree that the numbers would probably be different if I was a former tier 2 or 3... I still think that on the long run we are loosing money! Because small contributor would never reach the level that allow them to win money, and old contributor that reach former tier 3 would need to reach higher level to actualy win money. And while we are not winning? Well we are loosing obviously... In 2021 I should reach the 500$ and will start making my stat based on what I would have earned back then and I'm pretty sure the number are going to be quite different... Link to post Share on other sites
Photography by Adri Posted January 22 Author Share Posted January 22 Thanks everyone for sharing your experience. I disabled my portfolio when this was first announced, and was going to consider re-enabling it if things weren't as bad as we thought they were going to be. Looks like it's staying disabled. Link to post Share on other sites
Whiteaster Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 On 1/20/2021 at 10:26 PM, Awana JF said: So it seems that you start actually to win money when you reach level 4 It looks like that, I have the same experience. The number of $0.10 downloads start to decrease just after level 3-4, as this table shows, (though those are not all the commission prices): Link to post Share on other sites
Wilm Ihlenfeld Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 On 1/20/2021 at 6:53 PM, Creatus said: Trick question right? Anyway here's my graph for January on SS from start to finish because as you can imagine I am very close to pulling the plug here. I would love to tell you that it's better elsewhere (AS, P5,...) and while the RPD is a lot better the sales volume just isn't there or even non existent. This market is drying up rapidly for the average contributor. Unfortunately there is still a lot of manipulation going on as well with reviews, exposure (favouring certain countries/contributors) and what not so it's a lose-lose situation for many of us. Because of this sales on new images have been non existent for the past few years for many of us. It is what it is right, we can only continue to complain about it or adapt to the situation and halt uploads or pull the plug completely like many have already done and I probably will too in the near future. Good luck and take care peeps! (almost) Over and Out My personal comparison: 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Former_Poster Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 3 hours ago, Whiteaster said: It looks like that, I have the same experience. The number of $0.10 downloads start to decrease just after level 3-4, as this table shows, (though those are not all the commission prices): Doesn't quite tell the story though, even on L5 the majority of subs are 10c because most people who buy a lot of subs are large organisations that have those massive packages. You get a little more yes but most of your sub sales are going to be 10c regardless of level. Link to post Share on other sites
Whiteaster Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 1 hour ago, Former_Poster said: You get a little more yes but most of your sub sales are going to be 10c regardless of level. Yes, the 350 and 750 image subscription will always be 10c but this month ODD-s and SOD-s have shrunk terribly. I have an ODD for $0.55 and all of them are under $2, that never happened last year at L 4-5. Link to post Share on other sites
RogerMechan Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 I only sell around 50 D/L per month. I was on 25c. Since the change my average pay out is around 40c per D/L. Link to post Share on other sites
Studio 2 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 2 hours ago, RogerMechan said: I only sell around 50 D/L per month. I was on 25c. Since the change my average pay out is around 40c per D/L. That's good if it's just for subs, as the 25c was just subs? ..however, if it includes OD's etc then that's not like for like?.. Link to post Share on other sites
rasomaso Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Less than half compared to a year ago. Link to post Share on other sites
Mediantone Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 Compared to old earning structer, my current earning has decreased by three to four times. That means, i should work 4 times harder (or even more because OD purchases also decreased sharply) to claimbing the steep ravine. Very sad and exhausted. And increase in level didn't have much effect at all. Link to post Share on other sites
Former_Poster Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 Remember there were multiple parts to the cut from SS. It wasn't just a one change thing. They culled it in ways that means it can continue to do so without notice or even contributors being aware of it. (i) The first big cut was the level system which had a particularly big effect for medium earners due to the subs being knocked from 0.38 down to 0.10. In reality it roughly halved sub income. Subs typically make up 60% of sales for most. But this change WASNT the worst..... (ii) What they did at the same time but few people appreciated was tie earnings to a percentage of sales price. This is bad because it allows at any time in the future, SS to cut prices/give discounts and so on to customers which will directly affect contributors earnings. In other words, any price cuts are passed on immediately to the contributor. This is *worse* than the level system, especially long term. (iii) the level reset which drops medium to high earners income by several thousand dollars in the first few months of every year from now on. This is a HUGE earner for SS and nicely boosts their Q1 earnings. Its also an annually recurring bonus. (iv) Video subscriptions. Combined with the direct link to percentages SS have introduced insultingly cheap video subscription packages with $10 for a 4k clip. Ultimately this is an income reduction of 75% or so compared to the old system. Then to make it worse they're doing more and more of the low bandwidth/streaming videos meaning you now get a fixed percentage of a tiny amount, sometimes even under a dollar. Pavlovsky in his ode to shareholders has stated he wants everything on a subscription model eventually so expect video to be further raped and pillaged - the pricing structure now makes it essentially pointless to NOT go onto subscription. The earnings robbery system at first sounded bad but the more you dig into it, the worse you find. A level system was the LEAST detrimental to contributors. All the other layers of the cake being removed had a much bigger, hidden effect going forward. And basically, the more you earn, the more you lose! 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Primus1 Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 My earnings are same as before. I only have big problem and solving it now; push the ' , ' to the right side of my earning number! 😆 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Collender Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 My earnings are less than half of last year and about 1/10th of my best years but then again I hardly upload any photos anymore, doesn’t seem to be worth the effort anymore. Link to post Share on other sites
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