Are you to sell photos online? Whether you begin or seek to win a passive income source thanks to your photography business, several Internet sites can contact other people who wish to buy your images.
Stock image websites license their images to brands, agencies, and those who want high-quality images for advertising use. In return, they give you a percentage of the revenue.
Here are 10 of the best websites to sell photos online, plus a step-by-step guide on how to sell stock photos and turn your content into a lucrative business.
Choose a sales from this list based on your point of photography delight and licensing exclusivity preferences:
Alamy has one of the most varied collections of photographs on the Internet. With millions of files, vectors, videos, and 360-degree panoramic images, you’ve got plenty of tactics to contribute. It also offers an iOS app called Stockimo, where you can sell photos from your phone.
Alamy pays contributors monthly and has several commission models. Photographers receive between 17% and 50% of sales, depending on image popularity and license type. There are no long-term contracts with Alamy and you can be paid in multiple currencies.
500px Licensing hosts millions of photographers selling photos online through its stock photography site, 500px. Its Pulse algorithm surfaces new photographs and photographers to clients so inexperienced photographers can get recognition—so long as their photos meet the platform’s quality standards.
In addition to being a platform for selling, 500px is also an online community for amateur and professional photographers. You can follow other photographers, get feedback on your work, list photos in the online marketplace, and participate in photography competitions for prizes. Paying members can earn up to 100% royalties for exclusive photos.
Shutterstock is a well-known stock photography website for selling photos online and has paid out more than $1 billion to its community in the past 15 years.
Shutterstock is a microstock site, where images are less expensive and non-exclusive. The main way to generate downloads is to provide a project with a large number of images. You may not expect to earn as much with Shutterstock, but it’s a good position to start if you’re learning how to sell images.
Payouts are based on earnings over time and range from 15% to 40%. There’s also an affiliate program where you can earn additional money if you refer new photographers or customers.
Getty images draws online brands and editors for exclusive, high quality or difficult to find images. The platform, along with its Microsock site, Istock, reaches more than 1. 5 million consumers worldwide.
The criteria for promoting your photographs online with Getty are stricter than many other stock photo sites. You’ll be paid between 15% and 45% of the license fee for an image, and you’ll want to apply to give a contribution with a set of pattern photos.
Istock is an emanation of Getty Images. The main difference between the two photo platforms is that the images on Istock may not be exclusive, you can sell your photography with other agencies.
The commissions range between 15% and 45%, according to the contributors agreements. To sell your images with Istock, you must apply with a set of examples of images.
Stocksy is a popular photo bank site because it offers a higher remuneration to taxpayers. Photographers can earn a royalty of 50% on popular licenses and 75% on extensive licenses. But all images will have to be exclusive to the platform.
Stocksy is an artist-owned cooperative, which means that participants are co-owners of the corporation and can help manage it. Taxpayers can also get profit sharing in the form of refunds when the cooperative has a surplus.
If you’re interested in selling photos on Stocksy, check out its contributor application FAQ.
If you want a degree of control over your online photo portfolio, Picfair can be a solid option.
You can design your own images (virtual prints and downloads) and Picfair handles invoice processing. It also manages print production, shipping, and virtual image licensing. You can easily create your consistent custom store from $5 per month, billed annually.
If you use the adobe suite for photography projects, you can load your images, videos, vectors and art to Adobe Stock, the company’s photo platform.
When you finish editing your images, you can download resources directly from Lightroom and Bridge. Users who link their Adobe Stock ID can earn 33 % royalties in images and 35 % in videos.
Envato Elements is a physically powerful bank photography where you can start promoting your images online and attaching with prospective clients.
With Envato Elements, you can sell photos on its app or upload photos to your own site on the brand’s domain. Either way, it’s a popular place to sell pictures and make money online doing what you love. Contributors are paid between 25% and 50% of net subscription revenue, depending on the subscription a customer has.
Unspash is a loose photo site that also belongs to Getty. Instead of remunerating photographers according to the images they have selected to send, UNSPLASH is related to the participants their UNSPLASH+program.
Once you’ve completed the Unsplash+ contribution application and you’ve been accepted into the program, you’ll see a list of briefs created by Unsplash customers. Choose the briefs that you’re most interested in, upload appropriate photos to the stock photo website, and get paid for each accepted image.
Here are some tips for running a successful photo garage business:
Many photographers have a consistent flavor or theme that runs through their work. Whether your purpose is travel, fashion, nature or food, consistency is essential.
Photographers find their way into a niche by locating styles and subjects that they like to photograph and that also resonate with audiences. You can measure topic demand using keyword research to analyze search volume for terms similar to your photos. Google Trends is a vital tool you can use to see what symbol themes are gaining popularity.
Like bloggers and YouTubers, photographers who are learning how to sell photographs online are also invested in developing their audience.
Visual social platforms such as Instagram can succeed among a giant audience. Use Instagram tools to follow smart accounts, be interested in popular hashtags and expand their set of potential clients.
Linking your social media accounts does so to manage your exchange of photos on all platforms and improve your visibility. On Instagram, for example, you can link your accounts to also publish your photographs on Facebook at the same time.
Most photographers have their own to show their paintings to possible customers. By adding a Shopify purchase button to Youraray, it can make it easier for consumers to acquire photographs of their inventory.
Photographer Dave Sandford, for example, has a store that features his photography and provides the opportunity to purchase prints and calendars.
The easiest way to sell photos online is to build a personalized portfolio page or store on Shopify.
Use a pre-designed art and photography theme to set up your digital showroom, or combine a free theme with a gallery app. After that, you can monetize your Shopify photography site with social media feeds, ads, and offline sales through Shopify POS.
His target market is the organization of other people with the maximum probability of buying their photographs. It can produce images that attract them when they know who they are, what interests them and what they are going to buy.
Say you’re specializing in wedding photography, for example. People who buy stock images of weddings aren’t brides and grooms—they’re the suppliers who work within the wedding industry. Your target market might include wedding stationery brands or suit wholesalers who want to show royalty-free images of wedding celebrations in their marketing collateral.
In that spirit, you can sell photographs that this customer persona will buy, in the places where they are for inventory photographs, with a value that you are able to pay.
Use those steps as a consultant to launch your photography portfolio:
There is no “best” platform to monetize your photos on; it depends on the goal of your new photography business and how much control you’d like to have over your imagery.
Here’s a quick rundown of your options. If you want to:
Your portfolio is your bread and butter as a photographer. Think of it as your resume: a booth where potential clients can view your photographs and decide whether to rent it.
Pay things like:
The photographers are frustrated when they have taken an incredibly detailed photo with an elegant camera, just to have to compress it by promoting the online symbol. But it is essential for user experience. Large symbols files can make an website slowly load, and the maximum that other people are not willing to wait.
When you upload photographs to your online photography portfolio:
People buy from other people, so it’s helpful to have an “about” page that tells potential consumers about you. Include a brief summary about who you are, where you live, and the spaces you cover (if you sell services in person).
This is its possibility to sell, so deepen your love for photography. How did you enter the industry? What kind of things do you like to photograph? Where are you inspired?
An ecommerce platform handles the logistics of selling photos online, leaving you with more time to do what you love: shoot photos.
Shopify, for example, can help you:
Not everyone who visits your online portfolio will be doing so on a desktop. Studies estimate that more than 54% of global website traffic happens through a mobile device, so check that your portfolio looks just as good on a smaller screen.
Having a mobile website means using a responsive website design, displaying your photos vertically, and using large finger-friendly buttons.
Now it’s time to share your photos with the world. Grab the link to your portfolio and share it online using marketing tactics like:
You can make and sell pieces with your photography for your consumers to have, whether it’s an undeniable supervised print or a pillow. Selling your own physical products can be more than you think.
You can make money selling photos as photo prints on paper or physical products, such as mugs, t-shirts, and calendars. Popular sites and tools include:
The best way to sell photos online as physical prints or products is to work with a local photo lab that helps you ship and sell prints, or use a print-on-demand company to dropship a wide range of products (prints, phone cases, pillows, and more) featuring your photos.
Be sure to ask for samples first for the quality of the products to match the quality of your photos.
Photo eBooks are another physical product that can showcase your photography. The more specific and consistent your photography is, the more you can create a stellar photography e-book based on an engaging theme and sell your art online.
While you may not get the most productive margins with print-on-demand services, it’s a surefire way to check the demand for your products before investing in advance.
Whether you’re covering events, doing fashion shoots, or getting into product photography, there are many business opportunities to take advantage of the demand for professional photography.
You can list your installations in independent directories like Fiverr and Upwork, but also on networks locally, as you want to be able to meet consumers in person.
Here are some networking tips for selling your photography as a service:
Since photographers must operate in strict time slots, it’s good to have a booking platform you can use to let prospective clients see your schedule and book you when you’re available.
Both Setmore and SimplyBook. me offer loose plans and features that look good for photographers. If you use Shopify, you can install BookThatapp to schedule appointments for your site.
Your skill and determination are ultimately your earning prospects when promoting photographs online, but the source of income you earn from doing what you love is one of the most productive you can earn.
Here’s how to decide on a pricing strategy for your photography business:
Although the rights and licenses involved in the promotion of photographs may seem confused, there are some key terms and concepts that you want to know for yourself.
This is by no means a complete list or a replacement for actual legal advice, but it gives you some general definitions to help you navigate the world of user rights:
Content theft is common, and many other people do it unknowingly.
Photographers can watermark their digital images before selling them online to protect against theft. If you sell or share your photos, you can apply identifying marks in Photoshop or use a watermark generator.
A smaller watermark, often in the corner, will less impact your photo, while a larger watermark with reduced opacity offers the most protection against theft.
But what do you do if someone steals and uses your photos anyway? A cease and desist request usually will work. Or you can send the culprit an invoice for using your photo. Combining the two will likely be the most effective at persuading the perpetrator by offering them the choice to either pay you or take the photo down.
At the very least, you should always try to get others to credit you whenever they use your work, even for editorial purposes. Remember that backlinks to your portfolio site are useful for driving traffic to your other work and for search engine optimization and helping your standing in Google search results.
The best way to sell photographs online is by selling them as stock images for sale on third-party websites like iStock, Shutterstock, or Alamy. Selling your photos through stock sites is quick, easy, and affordable.
A stock photography website, or stock agency, sells high-priced and exclusive images that you upload. The agency licenses individual images to the client and sells them for a set price. Then you, the photographer, get a royalty payment.