Do you want to sell your photos online and make money? Are you asking which sites allow you to sell stock photos?
As a photographer, you can easily earn extra money (or even start a new career!) If you know the right places to sell your photos online. Photographers of different skill levels are now more in demand than ever for their work. Everyone, from big businesses, small and medium-sized businesses to bloggers, marketers, graphic designers, and publishers, regularly buy and use photos online.
In this guide, we share the 12 best places to sell photos online and earn money to do what you love.
Who sells Stock Photos, and What Type of Photos Sell the Great?
The largest buying base for stock photography is small to medium-sized bloggers and website owners.
What kind of images do you buy the most?
- People: children, adults and all people from all countries and cultures.
- People who work: These images are very popular with companies. People working on laptops, writing, talking in a meeting, etc. Just don’t make it so generic that it turns into a meme.
- Food – Various types of delicious food, even unwashed empty plates.
- Tools: Gears, hammers, nuts, bolts, and screws can convey many things to potential buyers.
- City: citizen spirit, buildings, people traveling for work.
- Nature: This is a no-brainer that never gets old to shoot or sell.
- Travel – There is always a strong demand for photos from around the world.
Best Places to Sell Your Photos Online
1. Adobe Stock
Adobe Stock is a stock photo market created by the manufacturer of the most popular photo editing software solutions, including Photoshop and Lightroom. This platform has been around for over ten years and is known as the first real online marketplace to sell photos.
What you will like best about Adobe Stock is the royalty rate, which is higher than other online stores.
Photos uploaded to Fotolia become part of the Adobe Stock Library, which means they are also available in other Adobe applications, reaching millions of Adobe users and potential buyers.
Contributors earn 20% to 60% with Adobe Stock. Unlike other markets, Adobe Stock is not required to grant you exclusive sales rights for your images. So you can be sold on Adobe Stock and other platforms at the same.
Given the giant that Adobe is, Adobe Stock is likely to continue to be the best destination for stock photography buyers and sellers.
2. Shutterstock
Shutterstock has been a popular website for buying stock photos online for over 15 years. They have over 200 million images, videos, and music clips that people can buy for free, which also means they have millions of customers buying.
As a photographer, you can make a lot of money from this market in the long run. According to its website, Shutterstock sellers around the world have made more than $ 500 million.
With Shutterstock you can protect your copyrights, so it is up to you to set the rights to your photos. Shutterstock also gives credit to the owners of the image, which is a great advantage that it protects their property and markets their brand.
Once you become a contributor to a website, you earn money every time someone buys and downloads your content. As a contributor, you can earn 20-30% on the image you sell, for which Shutterstock pays monthly.
Like Adobe Stock, Shutterstock does not require you to use its market exclusively. You can also consider selling on Adobe Stock and Shutterstock at the same time!
3. Alamy
Alamy is another excellent platform for selling stock photos because it has no hard and fast rules.
The site may not have as many buyers as Shutterstock and Adobe Stock, but it’s still a good competitor and another great earning option. Photographers can upload their photos to Alamy without a license or any other copyright issue. To date, Alamy has earned $ 180 million in payments to photographers.
Alamy’s rates are also competitive. The market pays photographers 50% of each sale, which is significantly higher than other competing platforms.
Try Alamy today! Register here to get started as a contributor.
4. Etsy
Etsy is best known as a marketplace for buying and selling unique handmade products, so don’t think twice when looking for places to sell stock photos. However, Etsy has more than 30 million users and several ways to sell your photos through its platform.
The great thing about Etsy is that they have a wider audience than most stock photo sites and a demographic that is willing to buy your images. Of course you can sell digital images on Etsy, but you can also sell prints. So, if you want to expand your photography business even further, Etsy is a great option!
Just remember to calculate the cost of printing, packing and shipping when selling prints.
With Etsy, you can also rate your photos, and the website gives you full control over how you show your photos to buyers. If you want full control over the sales of your photos, but don’t want to build your website from scratch, Etsy can meet your needs.
5. Crestock
Crestock can be a more passive way to earn money for your photos. Just create a free Crestock account and upload your photos. Once the Crestock team has reviewed your images, they will add them to their Crestock portfolio so customers can purchase them.
You can add keywords and descriptions for each image, which increases the chances of approval by Crestock editors. And with the same keywords and descriptions, you can more easily find photos between a sea of images on this site and others.
6. 500px
500px is an online marketplace that helps you create a portfolio of your images and make money. This is one of the best places to sell your photos online.
This free site has a “pulse algorithm” that increases your visibility by adding your new uploads to a discovery page, which is viewed by thousands of visitors every day.
The site also offers analytics and tracking services so that you can see how your images are performing compared to your competitors. Have you ever wondered how many clicks you get on images? And how do you rank compared to your peers? 500px can help you find the answers to your burning questions.
Starting with 500px is pretty simple. Just create a free account and add your images. Then wait and see what you show up for! Also look for competitions to gain more and gain additional exposure.
7. Snapped4u
Snapped4u makes selling your photos of the event a breeze. If you are photographing weddings, parties, engagements or other occasions, Snapped4u is designed to make your life easier and your pockets thicker.
With Snapped4u you can create a gallery and upload images from a photo to the gallery yourself. Then set the price for the photos and … that’s it!
From there, Snapped4u sells your images as JPEG files and sends them to your buyers immediately. Then Snapped4u sends the money you earned via PayPal on the first of each month.
Since every Snapped4u seller has their own gallery page, customers who book it for multiple occasions can always find their images in the same place. And you can provide your personal URL to anyone you think wants to buy your photos.
Snapped4u gives you the highest profit share on every sale. If the photos are sold at good prices, Snapped4u will charge a commission.
8. PhotoShelter
PhotoShelter is an online store for selling and delivering prints to customers. Allows you to configure your template to share photos.
However, you need to buy space on your platform to upload the photos. There are several plans for monthly and annual options with different features.
9. Fotomoto
Fotomoto is not an online marketplace, but rather a widget that integrates into your website to help you sell photos online. After adding it to your website, Fotomoto manages all the processes to sell the photos for you.
Like Etsy, Fotomoto allows you to offer digital photos, photographs and even canvases to your visitors. And Fotomoto takes care of packing the photos of your movies, so you don’t have to. It doesn’t get much easier if you plan to sell photo or canvas prints!
The really great thing about Fotomoto is that the widget itself is customizable. You can customize the widget settings to display your brand information, including your logo! This way, customers get to know your brand and associate it with your images.
Whether you’re an amateur photographer, professional photographer, or even a graphic designer, Fotomoto has some amazing features that will work perfectly with your existing WordPress site. Visit the widget website for more information on tiered monthly plans and transaction cost.
10. TourPhotos
TourPhotos is a hub for tourists and travel photographers from around the world. In fact, many travel agencies and travel companies use it to upload adventurous travel photos that visitors and the general public can purchase.
It’s an excellent platform for travel photographers to sell their photos online to like-minded audiences. And you will probably be inspired by all the beautiful photographs that end up on TourPhotos!
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