In this post, we have listed the best photo selling sites for photographs where they can sell photos online and make you earn some hard bucks.
So, if you love to shoot photographs, it’s time to make your talent pay you real and big cash with these best photo selling sites.
It is a big challenge for many of us to sell our prized photos, particularly when we do not know where to start.
It is precisely this reason that we have come up with this post.
It will go on to assist photographers to sell photos online.
Here, we have listed some top sites where you can sell photos online.
We have also provided information about payout options. Plus, you get to know minimum payment of each website.
The best thing for you is that you get a wide array of options for selling your photos. Another good thing is that these companies assist you in selling your photos.
These photo selling sites permit the sale of digital files along with prints.
Each one has its own payment structure, but they do give you an opportunity to turn files lying untouched on your hard drive into some extra cash.
And this comes without much effort.
You just have to edit your photos and upload them to these photo selling sites.
Making money as a photographer comes easy when you sell your photos at these photo selling sites.
Moreover, your creativity touches new heights when you are handsomely rewarded for your talents.
Nowadays, with powerful mobile handsets coming our way, anyone can become a “photographer.”
It just requires developing your interest in photography. The results will surely amaze everyone out there.
What can be more pleasing to know that you can monetize your photography talent easily?
Yes, you can sell photos online.
So, if you are on the lookout for the best websites for selling your photos online, then you are perfectly at the right place.
Here, we have listed 10 Best Photo Selling Sites.
Selling photos online will now be a reality for you when you know these awesome websites for selling photos online.
Table of Contents
10 Best Photo Selling Sites to Sell Photos Online
1. Shutterstock
Shutterstock is a leading micro-stock agency that tops the list of sites for photographers who wish to have good earnings. You can earn money from your photos, illustrations, vectors, and footage at Shutterstock.
In fact, Shutterstock is the best place to showcase your work to high-volume buyers. It’s free to contribute, and you get to earn anywhere from $0.25 to $28.00 per image download.
However, the higher rates are reserved for photographers who have extremely worthwhile photos.
That said, there is a big opportunity for huge volumes of sales at Shutterstock that makes up for the earnings. Shutterstock has a pretty tough vetting process before it accepts your images. In fact, it’s a good place to start out selling photos online.
Shutterstock also runs an affiliate program wherein you get an opportunity to earn money when you refer new photographers or customers.
Payment Mode: Check, PayPal or Money Bookers.
Minimum Payout: $75
2. iStock
iStock has been selling stock images since 2001.
It’s the micro-stock offshoot owned by Getty Images.
So, it’s been around for quite some time now.
iStock has been successful in building an extensive network of contributors. The new applicants are vetted for making sure that they’re a good fit.
You can apply by selecting the most appropriate category (such as photos, illustrations, video or even audio) and need to fill out an application. Most importantly, it’s free to join. The iStock team goes on to review your qualifications. Plus, you have to take a short quiz. Lastly, you need to upload a few samples of your work. So, make sure it’s top-class.
When accepted with iStock, you can receive a minimum of 15% of any sales. However, if you get “Exclusive” status, your earnings can shoot to as much as 45%.
Its community aspect is simply awesome.
Plus, there’s the contributor lounge with some excellent resources such as stats and trends.
Payment Mode: Check, PayPal or Money Bookers
Minimum Payout: $100
3. Getty Images
Getty Images is an American stock photo agency. It is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States.
Getty Images is one of the biggest suppliers of stock images for business and consumers. It has an archive of 80 million still images and illustrations. You get to have as much as 50,000 hours of stock film footage.
Getty Images caters to creative professionals, the media, as well as corporate. It operates a large commercial website for searching and browsing images. You can purchase usage rights and can go for downloading images.
However, they do not accept imagery that is already over-subscribed in their collections, as well as imagery that is overly descriptive in nature.
Payment Mode: PayPal
Minimum Payout: 50 eligible credits
4. 500px Marketplace
500px is not only a stock photo site, but it’s also a community-based platform for photographers. It allows you to follow other photographers. You can list your photos in their marketplace. Plus, you can participate in Photo Quest competitions for prizes. The community offers lots of stunning and creative shots with a high commission payout of 30%.
500px turns out a platform for getting the most inspiring photos. It is a wonderful platform for showcasing your work. You can license amazing photos. The best part is that 500px allows you to create your portfolio for free and go on to showcase your work.
You can participate in a contest and can go on to sell your images in the marketplace. All your photo submissions are reviewed by its experienced editors. Your submissions will only be visible to buyers once they have been reviewed and approved for licensing.
However, the good part is that it is totally free to contribute your photos at 500px Marketplace. You can earn as much as 60% of net sales on images that you have submitted exclusively to its Marketplace. Plus, you can use your licensed photos for self-promotion, as well as for your portfolio.
5. SmugMug
SmugMug is one of the best photo selling sites. It proves to be an ultimate option for creating a professional and sleek showcase for displaying your photos and selling them. Its “Pro” option comes with an appealing storefront and offers e-commerce galleries for a single click shopping experience.
You can set the pricing on your own. You get to earn a royalty rate of 85%. SmugMug allows you to sell digital downloads, greeting cards, and prints. In fact, SmugMug is among the top photo sites for selling photos online.
6. Depositphotos
Depositphotos is a leading marketplace for photography. It has a huge library of more than 60 million files and has clients from over 200 countries. Moreover, Depositphotos has a huge list of contributors that crosses well above 45,000.
Becoming a contributor at Depositphotos gives you an opportunity to sell your artwork to its global client base of millions of customers.
With Depositphotos, you can sell photos online on an international scale.
Photographers, illustrators, and filmmakers can build their portfolio and deliver their art to image and motion buyers. Depositphotos brings together creatives and clients and offers an easy solution to both sides.
Moreover, it is quick and easy to contribute your work to Depositphotos. It has an excellent workflow in place. Plus, the process of uploading, submitting, and even getting approvals takes very less time.
Best part, contributors can start earning the day when they upload their work. Another good thing about Depositphotos is that it’s not an exclusive micro-stock. So, you can sell your work on other websites too. The royalty that you receive once your image gets sold depends on your level. Royalties from On Demand files range from 34% to 42%. As much as five contributor levels are depending upon the number of downloads.
7. Bigstock
Bigstock is reputed as one of the oldest Microstock agencies. It was founded in 2004 in Davis, California. Bigstock comes with a mechanism for the sale of images based on the credit system. In 2009, Bigstock was acquired by Shutterstock which itself is a leading Microstock agency based on subscription system.
Currently, Bigstock has close to 43 million royalty free images.
Becoming a contributor at Bigstock is easy.
You simply need to register on the site and give a short test.
Once you clear the test, you can go ahead and send images for sale. It offers the upload modes as webform or FTP. It takes a minimum of 2 days to a maximum of 10 days for reviewing the files. However, there are no limits on uploading files via FTP.
With Bigstock, contributors can look to earn as much as 30% of the sale price. For downloads that are made with credits system, contributors can receive $0.50, and for downloads on subscription, you can be earning a minimum of $0.25 to a maximum of $0.38.
Payments are made through Paypal, Skrill, or bank check, once you exceed the minimum threshold of $30.
8. 123rf
123rf offers more than 58 million stock images, vectors, footage, and audio clips. You stand to receive from 30% to 60% royalty depending upon the contribution you make. In fact, the commission received depends upon your Contributor Level. There are as much as 10 Contributor Levels.
For example, at Contributor Level 1, you get 30% royalty when you upload less than 250 images. The earnings per download at this level are $0.216. At Contributor level 10, you stand to receive 60% royalty by uploading 1 million images. So, the more you upload, the more you stand to receive.
9. Dreamstime
Dreamstime turns out to be the ideal platform for selling photos online. The process of vetting here is the most compliant out of all the sites that are present in this list of 10 Best Photo selling sites.
Photographers can receive a commission starting at 30% and go up to 60% of the price. That said, the selling price of images can be as low as $0.20 per image.
Anyone can join its community and sell their photos, images, and/or videos. You simply need to create an account and upload your media files. However, Dreamstime only accepts quality files after assessing them technically, aesthetically, and commercially.
Dreamstime offers an additional 10% bonus to exclusive files. It gives a 60% Revenue share for all sales to exclusive contributors and an additional bonus of $0.20 for each approved submission.
Contributors can request payment when the balance has reached $100, and the contributor can submit a payment request from My Account section. Dreamstime has set up a level structure comprising of 5 different levels.
10. PhotoDune
PhotoDune has an immensely healthy resource for stock photos. It is one of the best photo selling sites and should be considered by almost all the photographers and stock illustrators.
However, you cannot sell all types of stock images at PhotoDune. That said, there are good rewards to be earned for your images at this site.
PhotoDune offers an easy upload process along with reliable FTP. You get simple navigation and can do editing with straightforward touches of your already accepted stock photos.
In fact, PhotoDune has earned the status of being the most dynamic and rapidly growing Microstock agencies in the recent years.
It offers a very functional experience to the contributors. It has been created as a community of authors which can go on to share their work and experiences with one another.
You get to see the rankings of the biggest contributors. You can also see the best selling works in the marketplace.
For becoming a contributor, you need to register on the site and give an easy admission test. Once you get approved, you can start sending files for sale, without any kind of limit.
You can look at the highest earnings with PhotoDune which start at 33% for each image sold. The minimum payout threshold is $50. The payment mode includes Paypal, Skrill, Payoneer, and SWIFT Bank Transfer.
With this, we come to the end of this presentation on 10 Best Photo Selling Sites. We hope that the post helps you in the best possible way to Sell Photos Online. Do remember to share it up with your friends and colleagues. We welcome your comments and suggestions.
