Shutterstock is the stock agency that earns the most for almost all non-exclusive stock photographers, and the agency has a series of step changes in earnings per download that you achieve once your lifetime earnings have passed that point. Initially you get $0.25 per subscription download, after $500 in lifetime earnings this increases to $0.33, to $0.36 after $3000 and finally, the crowning achievement is to get $0.38 after earning $10000 from the site. Other payments follow suit, with the on-demand images increasing from $1.88 to $2.85. Finally, on Friday, I achieved that top tier helped with a download of an Enhanced license:
ED download that got me close to $10K
Its hard to tell which was the subscription download that pushed me above $10,000, but my first download at 38c was one of the very first images I ever uploaded to Shutterstock. Readers of my eBook will recognize the images of Trunk Bay on St John in the Caribbean – good to see an old image still making the grade.
The first download at $0.38
On to the next goal of $18K of earnings in 2012!
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[...] Shutterstock continued its steady earnings – I now get 38c a download as I have passed the milestone of $10,000 in lifetime earnings. I got 5 Enhanced License downloads in June and 7 single downloads of varying amounts. All told, [...]