iStockphoto is widely regarded as the founder of microstock as we know it today. They opened for business in 2000 and operated without much competition for their first couple of years. They were so successful that they sold out to Getty Images in 2006 for a reported $50 000 000. Far more diverse than most, iStockphoto offers logos, vectors, photos, sound and video.  It is easy to see why they continue to be one of the most popular microstock agencies for buyers and contributors today. The contributor community is very active and you can find almost any answer you are looking for in their extensive forums.

I find iStockphoto to be a very important part of my microstock agencies list. The average income per sale here is only rivaled by that of Veer Marketplace, iStockphoto contributes a large percentage to my monthly income. The only downside I find with them is that it takes a long time to get your images online. As a non-exclusive contributor, you can submit 15 images per week. It takes iStockphoto another week to review them and the standards here are a lot higher than most others, so expect to have more rejections.

I did think about becoming an exclusive contributor with iStockphoto, let me quickly run through some pro’s and cons about doing this.

Pros: You can submit more images per week, starting at 50 for base level contributors. You will earn a higher percentage of royalties per sale.

Cons: You  have to close all other microstock portfolios and only sell with iStockphoto, making iStockphoto your sole source of income. Should iStockphoto lose market share, close down or change the way some search results display by favoring new images only, you stand a chance of losing completely or drastically decreasing your income in an instant.  This is the reason why I have chosen to submit more conservatively to multiple agencies. Below you will see the royalty schedule provided by iStockphoto on their site.

Sign up with iStockphoto here