Selling in 500px

[inventa]

Hello all,

I´m enjoying the forum and learning a lot

For some time now I had this question wandering in my head. Do you have good experiences selling photos in 500px? Do you know a better place?
For me 500px looks very good, I see very nice photos and my ego flies every time I get a nice non-automatic comment. But as you can't see statistics of sales, it could be perfectly possible that they are selling in the whole community 20 photos per month.

Thanks for everything guys, you're awesome.

 

[71M]

Do you have good experiences selling photos in 500px?

no

Do you know a better place?

nope

you're awesome.

thank you

 

[KmH]

How many photos do you think get uploaded to 500px every day - on average.

On Flickr last year about 1.6 million public photos were added per day in 2013 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/franckmichel/6855169886/

If you want to sell your photos you need a lot of eyes looking at your photos and not looking at those other 1.599999 million photos.

 

[inventa]

How many photos do you think get uploaded to 500px every day - on average.

On Flickr last year about 1.6 million public photos were added per day in 2013 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/franckmichel/6855169886/

If you want to sell your photos you need a lot of eyes looking at your photos and not looking at those other 1.599999 million photos.

This I understand. But I was wondering (because I still didn't have even one) if those photos in 500px 1st page or in editor choice which are viewed by a lot of people are selling at all.. or is only a mouse trap. I believe at least some of those photos are sold, as they put a lot of effort in getting them there, and I'm not speaking about doing or processing the photo.


Thanks for your answers

 

[Scatterbrained]

Personally, I've only had a few sales there, each one being for a digital download. They charge $2 and pay out $1, so at that rate it'll be a while before I have enough in my account to be able to withdraw it. On another board I'm on this same question came up. One of the members pointed to a photo he had that was listed as a "top seller" on 500px. Meanwhile he had only made 20 sales, each of them a digital download. I've received the same comments from several other photographers I follow whose work is leagues beyond my own, yet they too rarely sell anything there. So to answer your question, while there are no hard stats available for image sales, the anecdotal evidence I've encountered indicates that sales are a wee bit slow there. I've made more sales from random strangers contacting me through flickr, and they at least buy prints.

 

[inventa]

Personally, I've only had a few sales there, each one being for a digital download. They charge $2 and pay out $1, so at that rate it'll be a while before I have enough in my account to be able to withdraw it. On another board I'm on this same question came up. One of the members pointed to a photo he had that was listed as a "top seller" on 500px. Meanwhile he had only made 20 sales, each of them a digital download. I've received the same comments from several other photographers I follow whose work is leagues beyond my own, yet they too rarely sell anything there. So to answer your question, while there are no hard stats available for image sales, the anecdotal evidence I've encountered indicates that sales are a wee bit slow there. I've made more sales from random strangers contacting me through flickr, and they at least buy prints.

Interesting. Thanks for you comment. I was not thinking on making a living out of selling photos in 500, but I was curious if that can work at all or not.

 

[vintagesnaps]

From what I understand earlier this year 500px started photo sales thru their site as Royalty Free, unlimited, etc. - buyers purchase/license usage forever for a one time payment. I don't find that to be advantageous for photographers.

Typically what would happen would be that a photographer would license usage thru a contract for a specific time and usage, such as a photo being in a brochure. Then if the company wanted to use it for example the next year in another print run of a new brochure, the photo would be licensed for additional usage and the photographer would be paid for that. Selling thru 500px would seem to mean a buyer could potentially use it for business or commercial purposes, forever, for any purpose - for only one payment to the photographer.

I see photos are also available as fine art prints for purchase; I don't know how much of the selling price is paid to the photographer and how much goes to 500px. Their prices might be good for buyers but seem very low for people selling photos, at least compared to pricing for matted framed art in my experience where I live.

A one time payment would be appropriate for someone buying a print to hang on the wall at home; to me it seems way underpriced for other licensed uses. I don't use 500px because of their Terms & Conditions anyway and wouldn't be interested in using their licensing model.

 

[KmH]

There is 500px - http://500px.com/terms

and there is 500Prime - https://prime.500px.com/legal

 

[Steve5D]

I've got stuff there, but I've never sold anything through them.

I've had some pretty significant sales on Fine Art America, which is where I put my focus...

 

[runnah]

I am posting this from my yacht that I bought with the profits from 500px.

Not really. 500px is a disgustingly over saturated market. Too many people trying to sell too many poor quality images hoping to make it rich.