Shutterstock is finally faltering. We've gone months without uploading a new file and it's finally starting to take effect. The last two months we've not crossed the $100 payout level, so it takes at least 2 months to squeeze any money out of it.
I guess it means we'll have to start uploading new files - I don't like seeing it so low. But we have other projects taking priority and, at least for us, microstock was always just an experiment in how much pocket change we could muster. Turns out quite a bit!
All together our uploads have achieved over $15,700. Of course that's over the course of years...we started in January 2009 where we had only one sale (so we almost never count that as our first month) and made 25 cents. So 4 and a half years later we've made 15.7k. Not bad. It averages out to about three and a half thousand dollars a year. Of course most of that was in the first two years where we were uploading a couple of files a week...
Anyway - that's all for now. Enjoy the chart. Or don't. If you're looking to do your own microstock illustrations or photographs, I'd suggest starting with Shutterstock and slowly working your way down the list in the order of money we've made. Those top three are the biggest for a reason. They actually sell files - but none as much as Shutterstock.
