Whether photography is your hobby or a full-time career, you can turn your passion into profit by providing photography services and finding the best place sell photos online with minimum effort.
This guide will explore some of the things you should know to sell your photography online, while providing resources that will help you find the best way to sell photos online, such as online selling sites where you can upload your photos.
Whether you are a professional photographer or a beginner, you can easily find a way to sell your photos for visual content marketing. Many large, small, and medium-sized companies purchase photos on online platforms. Such images are also in high demand among bloggers, graphic designers, marketers, and publishers. Below, you will find a list of 8 sites where you can sell pictures online and earn money.
Adobe Stock is popular among Adobe users because its images are compatible with Adobe software.
If you have already uploaded your photos to Adobe Stock, you can still sell them on other marketplaces. There’s no requirement for exclusivity on this platform. In addition, its customer support team is really helpful. Generally, you won’t face any difficulties when trying to use this marketplace, as it’s currently the best place sell photos online.
The most appealing aspect of this platform is that it sends royalties to your account as soon as one of your photos is purchased. Adobe Stock is also rather generous, as you get royalties between 20 and 46%.
The most noticeable drawback of this stock image platform is that you will have to face many competitors, including professionals and experienced photographers who specialize in the same area. For a newbie, it’s quite difficult to grab the attention of potential customers.
What makes Getty Images different from other photo marketplaces is that here you can find unique pictures of nature photography in high quality. Because of its great reputation, it’s easy for contributors to sell their products at high prices.
On the other hand, you have to deal with the incredibly high standards that Getty Images sets for photographers who want to upload their photos. Thus, only when contributors are professional photographers and take the photography career seriously, would Getty Images approve their accounts.
If your account is approved, you can expect to rake in up to 20% in royalty fees. Many images on the platform are sold for hundreds of dollars, so even a single sale can bring you a handsome sum.
This popular platform is a microstock branch of Getty Images that is perfectly suited for beginners. This marketplace also offers various forums and educational resources that will ease you into the process of selling stock photos.
The platform isn’t particularly demanding in regards to the photographer’s professional level, meaning you can easily implement and sell any creative photography ideas you have in mind.
The initial royalty percentage stands at 15% per download. That number can rise to 45% if your work is popular enough. If you’d like to sell your pictures exclusively on iStock, the minimal royalty rate will be increased to 22%. By uploading your images, you accept a contract with a 30-day notice period.
Shutterstock is regarded as one of the most popular photography websites. With nearly 60 thousand visitors per month, Shutterstock creates many opportunities for anyone interested in learning how to sell photos online. Depending on the number of photos sold monthly, you can earn about 15-40% of the fee paid by the buyer.
Shutterstock easily permits contributors to upload their photos regardless of their quality. The main disadvantage of Shutterstock is that contributors don't hold a copyright after selling their photos. Once they have been purchased, your photos will be distributed as the buyer sees fit and no one will know that you are the one who took them.
Currently, Alamy hosts more than 60 million images and clips.
This platform lets you earn 50% from each sold asset if you go over the $25,000 bar per year, 40% of every sold product if your yearly sales are in the $250-$25,000 range, and 20% for photographers who have earned less than $250 in the last year, which is still better than what you’d get from most alternative places that allow you to sell pics online.
You can upload any images you take, regardless of whether they were taken with a professional camera or your camera phone, and you don’t have to worry about licensing or other copyright issues.
On this platform, photo contributors can start selling their photos for free. Even the free subscription allows you to reach out to a community of over 13 million people. However, professionals recommend paying for the premium membership that covers advertising options. It helps contributors maximize the chances of selling their photos.
The key advantage of 500PX is that it has Android and iPhone apps, which provide both sellers and buyers with the most convenient means to access the marketplace.
Nevertheless, users are allowed to upload only 20 photos a week. It could be a drawback for any photographer who has many pictures.
On the plus side, 500PX offers some of the highest royalties on the market. Premium contributors receive up to 100% royalties while free plan photographers can get up to 60% for non-exclusive images.
What sets this platform apart from other sites that allow you to sell pictures of yourself online for money is the credit system, thanks to which you have a unique way of interacting with BigStock. After purchasing each image, the users receive credits, which they can use to buy even more photos.
If the person purchases images with credits, they receive a certain sum. For example, you get $0.50 for a small image and $3 for an XL image. At the same time, your royalties typically remain at 30% for every BigStock partner sale. The price and your commission rate go up each time your content is downloaded.
Stocksy is one of the most difficult stock photography platforms to get into because of its high quality requirements. They only want to deal with true professionals with perfect photos. However, if you manage to pass their selection process, you’ll become their corporate employee and you can even weigh in on how the platform is managed.
This service offers very high royalties that are offered in two options: 50% on standard royalty licenses, and 75% on extended licenses.
This online marketplace has an enormous library of visual content. The platform hosts images from more than 100,000 users and is frequently used by global brands like Warner Bros., TripAdvisor, Subaru, etc.
Depositphotos offers royalties in the 34% to 45% range depending on the contributor’s status, experience level, and license type.
Etsy is mostly known as a place to sell handmade items and various aesthetic accessories and items. If you decide to join this platform, expect to get a lower number of searches compared to specialized websites.
However, Etsy is still a worthy consideration since you only need to pay 5% of the transaction cost while other platforms will have you pay between 30% to 50%.
For almost two entire decades, this platform has been offering top-tier photos to all sorts of clients from regular bloggers to businesses included in Fortune 500. It has a user base of over 31 million as well as more than 600,000 contributors, boasting about 20 million unique visits each month.
This marketplace is a great choice if you want to sell your photos online due to its high payouts. That said, Dreamstime requires a high level of dedication from its members. You’re supposed to have at least 70% of your portfolio on the platform for 6 months or longer.
Non-exclusive members can receive 25%–50%, while exclusive images generate a royalty between 27.5% and 55%. This site also lets you earn some cash by referring both fellow photographers and potential customers.
All the images you upload to this marketplace are non-exclusive, meaning you can use it along with other platforms. Additionally, 123RF will advertise your content to more than 5 million potential clients in 44 countries and 17 languages. After being approved on the site, you can start earning between 30% and 60% for every sale.
The best advice you can get if you want to start selling photos online is to settle on a niche that matches your strengths. Additionally, it’s important to keep track of the client’s demands.
The list of the most popular photography genres you can specialize in includes:
Vector Artwork. Icons & Abstract Background Vector illustrations are in huge demand since such content can be conveniently scaled without any quality loss.
Nature. Nature photos are often used for advertisements and web design, appealing to a broad range of user categories. You should pay special attention to golden hour photography and wildlife photos.
People. You can organize shoots at different photography locations while also having the models perform a variety of tasks, often related to their hobby or job. It’s important to remember that the people you work with need to give their permission for you to sell photos with them.
Food. You can sell photos of a variety of tasty meals or just a nicely photographed stack of unwashed dishes.
Architect. Images that feature cityscapes, interesting buildings, and candid city-life moments always sell well.
It’s worth noting that stock websites let you know what is currently trending on the market. Take advantage of the provided tips and ideas to maximize your income.
Editing. It’s important to remember that stock photography websites have strict quality requirements, which is why image editing can take quite a lot of time.
Resources. To maximize your revenue, consider uploading your work to multiple marketplaces. Just make sure they don’t’ demand exclusivity.
Marketing. You should also turn your attention to photography marketing tips, which can help improve the positioning of your photos when people are looking for relevant search terms and significantly improve their profitability.
Frequency. It’s vital to both upload new content frequently and add some diversity to the types of images you create while enhancing them with the help of professional photo editing software.
