Just got my first photos approved on Shutterstock!

[larry909]

Do you have photos on Shutterstock? How many did you sell?

 

[Jeff15]

I was using Phot4you and in 5 years I sold six, I am rich now so I no longer bother...

 

[KmH]

Congrats.
What genre(s) of images got accepted?
Shutterstock's web sites says 1,384,926 new stock images were added this week.
The web site says their inventory is now 196,661,442 royalty-free stock images.

Shutterstock doesn't sell images. Shutterstock sells licenses to use images.
When they sell a license to one of your images you get some amount of the use license fee.

So what marketing and promotion are you doing, or planning to do, to drive eyes to your images at Shutterstock?
To make significant money from RF licensing you need to have several thousand images, in a broad range of genres, on offer.

Did you see this page on their web site? Earnings Schedule | Shutterstock
So to start your lifetime earnings are in the $0 to $500 range and for each image licensed by a Monthly Subscriber you get paid $0.25.
To move to the next pay level ($0.33 per), 2000 monthly subscribers would have to license one of your images.

 

[larry909]

So to start your lifetime earnings are in the $0 to $500 range and for each image licensed by a Monthly Subscriber you get paid $0.25.
To move to the next pay level ($0.33 per), 2000 monthly subscribers would have to license one of your images.

Do you mean that until I have 2,000 subscribers I could only make up to a $500 for life?

 

[KmH]

No.
I'm afraid you don't understand how Shutterstock pays photographers whose image(s) have been licensed.
One or more of your images has to be licensed enough times by some variety of people that have a monthly subscription to Shutterstock until such time that your total earnings reach $500.
At that point the next image licensed gets you $0.33 and you stay at that pay rate until your earnings total reaches $3000.00.
Note too that if the subscriber opts for one of the more costly extended/enhanced use licenses you get paid at a higher rate.
You should also be familiar with the use licenses Shutterstock provides - Compare Licenses | Shutterstock
And you should be aware of the legal considerations of having content available on Shutterstock - Protect Your Content Guide | Shutterstock

On the Earnings Schedule page I linked to you might notice the Referral Earnings, which is a way to make additional income.

If you thought having content on Shutterstock meant earning money with no other effort I feel I must tell you that making money from stock images doesn't work that way. You have to pretty much constantly be submitting content and having that content accepted. You have to produce content that appeals to the broadest range of Shutterstock subscribers.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I haven't looked at Shutterstock in some time (although I've seen their info. before), but taking a quick look it seems like you have to make $30? or so to even get a payment or it rolls over to the next month. And if a customer is a monthly subscriber and licenses use of one of your photos you'll get an entire quarter!

It's a shame that you got accepted to find out what you're realistically probably going to make. It doesn't look like it would be enough to even bother unless you happened to sell some custom images that pay better. It's necessary with any website you're considering to read all the Terms & Conditions and info.

 

[AlanKlein]

I hope you sell a million. Good luck.

 

[manaheim]

I got in ridiculously early on one of those sites... can't remember which one... and uploaded a bunch of fireworks pictures. Because I was in early, they accepted most of them. They were downloaded like 7 gazillion times... so I made like $300 or something.

 

[Philmar]

A few years ago I uploaded a few hundred photos on to Getty when they had a partnership with Flickr. On average I get about $200 a month which is enough to cover new gear for my hobby.
It was a lot of work as I had to clone out dust spots and re-develop them in a newer LR process version....and then you have to upload them and ensure you use informed keywords. i keep telling myself I will go back and upload a few hundred more but it is a lot of work to do in my spare time.