Guides
How To Sell Your Photography Online And Make Money (2023)
There is a long list of ways to make money selling your photos as a photographer. Utilizing creativity at the core of your work and using it to monetize your skills is the key to being able to earn money online as a photographer by selling your images online.
Even without a top-of-the-line camera, whether you’re a professional photographer or just enjoy taking images in your own time, you may make a respectable sum of money by selling your photos online. You already have a chance if you have a good phone camera and a steady hand.
There are more and more opportunities to monetize the images you’ve previously taken, regardless of how you take them. And there are a ton more methods to improve your photography abilities (and revenue), from going all out and creating a photo book to selling your Instagram stock.
If you know where to sell your photos online, you can easily start a new profession as a photographer and earn some additional money. Everybody buys and uses photos online regularly, including big firms, small and medium-sized enterprises, bloggers, graphic designers, marketers, and publishers. In this guide, we will discuss how to sell your photography online, and also the top 10 sites to sell your website and earn some extra cash.
How To Sell Your Photography Online
When anyone with the newest iPhone and access to free picture editing software can call themselves a photographer, it can seem difficult to succeed. However, success for the majority of creative who pursue entrepreneurship boils down to three factors:
- Understand your niche
- Building an audience
- Integrate E-commerce Into Your Portfolio
1. Understand Your Niche
Specializing in a niche is the simplest approach to selling images online for high prices. Every good photographer has a recurring aesthetic or guiding principle in their work. Consistency is important, regardless of your passion—travel, fashion, cityscapes, nature, food, etc.
To see more of whatever initially piqued their interest, people follow other people online. If those expectations aren’t realized, they unfollow other users.
Finding your speciality is normally something you feel your way into as you see which aesthetics and images are popular with your audience if you want to sell pictures online. However, you can also examine the volume of searches for terms associated with your images using keyword research to gauge interest in particular topics.
2. Building an Audience
In other to sell your photos to make money online you have to build a loyal audience. It’s time to capitalize on this momentum once you’ve done the preliminary research to identify a market for your good or service.
Connecting with people who are interested in what you have to give is what you need to do now. Applying your knowledge across media and utilizing a variety of techniques that change as you gain more knowledge will help you identify and expand your audience.
Increasing your marketing reach across numerous strategies and platforms has enormous potential benefits. More than 85% of consumers want a mix of digital and non-digital brand interactions, and 68% are willing to spend more money with a company that uses these channels to treat them like unique customers.
3. Integrate E-commerce Into Your Portfolio
Most photographers have a website where they may display their work for potential customers. But by adding e-commerce to your website and enabling PayPal or Shop Pay payments, you may open up several additional options for how to sell your images online, such as offering services, physical things, and courses.
Building your portfolio or store on Shopify, installing the appropriate apps to customize it to your needs and monetization strategies, and then starting to share and sell your photography in various formats, such as social media, ads, or even offline through Shopify POS, are the simplest ways to make money online.
Top 10 Places To Sell Your Photography Online
Here are the best places to sell your photography online and make money for yourself:
1. On Your Site
2. Alamy
3. Adobe Stock
4. Shutterstock
5. Etsy
6. Getty Images
7. iStock Photo
8. Fotomoto
9. 500px
10. Can Stock Photo
1. On Your Site
One of the best places to sell your photo online is your site. Because no one else takes a cut, you can establish your prices. Additionally, you have complete control over how your images are displayed. Your terms and conditions are up to you.
To draw people and persuade them to purchase your photos, you must present the photos on your website beautifully after building them. To build image galleries for your photos, we advise utilizing a well-regarded WordPress plugin like Envira Gallery.
Additionally, you may make photo albums with stunningly configurable Lightboxes to display and organize your images so that you can differentiate yourself from your rivals.
Additionally, the WooCommerce add-on for the Envira Gallery plugin enables simple photo sales. Make sure you learn how to sell your photos in WordPress if you decide to sell your images on your website.
If you choose to utilize Wix or Squarespace instead of WordPress, here is a comprehensive tutorial.
2. Alamy
How To Sell Your Photography Online
Another beautiful place to sell your photos online is Alamy. With more than 313 million stock photos, vectors, films, and 360-degree panoramic pictures, Alamy has the most varied collection of stock photos in the world.
Everything from common photos to speciality products can be sold. Over 110,000 customers and over 60,000 contributors from around the world use the platform. Additionally, it provides the Stockimo app, where you can sell iPhone pictures and make additional money with your selfies.
Alamy features a simple, user-friendly payment mechanism that pays contributors once each month. You can get up to 50% of direct sales if Alamy is the exclusive home of your photographs. 40% of all direct sales go to images that are not Alamy exclusives. Alamy does not offer long-term contracts either.
3. Adobe Stock
The company that produces Photoshop and Lightroom, two of the most well-known photo editing programs, operates Adobe Stock (formerly known as Fotolia), a stock photo marketplace. This website has been in existence for more than ten years and is renowned for being the first internet marketplace to sell images.
You’ll appreciate Adobe Stock’s greater royalty share than other online retailers the most. Photos posted to Fotolia are added to the Adobe Stock library, making them accessible to millions of Adobe users and potential customers through other Adobe programs.
With Adobe Stock, contributors can earn anywhere between 20% and 60%. Additionally, Adobe Stock does not need you to grant them the sole right to sell your photographs, in contrast to some other markets. You can therefore simultaneously sell on Adobe Stock and other channels.
Given the size of Adobe, it’s probable that Adobe Stock will continue to grow in popularity as a top location for stock photography buyers and sellers.
4. Shutterstock
Places To Sell Your Photography Online
Shutterstock is a top stock photography website for selling photographs online and is regarded by some as the simplest way to sell photos online. Millions of users can view your images on the network, which has paid out over a billion dollars to its community in the last 15 years.
The site is regarded as a micro-stock website where photographs are less expensive and non-exclusive, and the main technique to boost downloads is by submitting a sizable number of images that may be utilized as visual metaphors. Although you shouldn’t anticipate making as much money here, it’s a fantastic place to start if you’re new to selling stock images.
Payouts range from 20% to 30% and are based on your cumulative profits. Additionally, there is an affiliate scheme where you can gain extra cash by referring clients or photographers.
5. Etsy
Top 10 Places To Sell Your Photography Online
Opening a photography store on Etsy could be a terrific alternative for you if you want to sell images online. It’s simple to get started since prints may be sold immediately and because both experienced and new photographers can benefit from the cost structure.
Only 5% of the total purchase price—which includes the shipping fee you specify—is retained by Etsy. After a print is sold, Etsy Payments also takes a 3% + $0.25 payment-processing fee from the sale.
You might not consider Etsy while looking for sites to sell stock photographs because it is more known as a marketplace for buying and selling one-of-a-kind handmade goods. However, Etsy promises more than 30 million members and several opportunities for you to sell your images on its website.
Etsy has a huge advantage over other stock picture websites in that it has a wider readership and a customer base that is eager to buy your photos. Of course, you can sell prints in addition to digital photographs on Etsy. So Etsy is a terrific choice if you want to grow your photography business even more.
It’s wonderful that Etsy provides you complete control over how your images are shown to customers and that you can choose the prices for your photos as well. Etsy can be a fantastic choice for you if you want complete control over your photo selling but don’t want to build your website from the beginning.
6. Getty Images
Where To Sell Your Photos Online And Make Money
Publishers and marketers love Getty Images for its extensive stock library and high-quality images.
You must download the app, complete the form, and provide three to six photo samples for approval to sell images here. Their editors will group you into either Getty Images or its microstock offshoot iStock depending on the likelihood that your photographs will generate revenue.
Although you still retain copyright ownership, Getty Images gains exclusive access to the content you contribute. This means that you are no longer able to grant licenses for these pictures or offer them to other stock photo websites or other people.
As expected, this stock photo website has stricter requirements for contributors looking to sell their photography online. But the fees for submitting high-quality images that have a license from Getty Images start at 20% and go up to 45%.
7. iStock Photo
Top 10 Places To Sell Your Photography Online
Another site to sell your photos online is iStock Photo. The micro-stock division of Getty Images is iStock Photo. The primary distinction between the two is that your images on iStock are non-exclusive, meaning you can also sell your pictures through other companies.
You will, however, receive a considerably smaller commission than with exclusive images. Depending on whether the photographs are exclusive or not, the commission varies from 15% to 45%.
Your content will be non-exclusive if you decide to contribute to iStock, therefore you are still allowed to use the photographs and grant licenses to other individuals. You can choose to sign up to be an exclusive contributor as well.
20% is the royalty fee for images licensed through Getty Images, whereas 15% is the rate for non-exclusive licenses and between 25% and 45% is the charge for contributors with unique contributions on iStock.
8. Fotomoto
How To Sell Your Photography Online
Fotomoto is a widget that connects to your website and allows you to sell images online; it is not an internet marketplace. The Fotomoto will handle all the photo-selling procedures for you after you add it to your website.
Similar to Etsy, Fotomoto enables you to sell your website’s visitors digital images, photo prints, and even canvases. Additionally, Fotomoto takes care of packaging your physical photographs so you don’t have to. If you want to sell actual photo prints or canvases, it doesn’t get much simpler!
The fact that the widget itself is editable is what makes Fotomoto such a fantastic app. The widget’s parameters can be changed to display information about your branding, including your logo. Customers will become familiar with your brand and start to link it to your visuals this way.
Fotomoto has some amazing features that will integrate perfectly with your current WordPress site, whether you’re a professional photographer, a hobbyist photographer, or even a graphic designer. Learn more about the monthly, tier-based pricing, and transaction costs on the widget website.
9. 500px
Top Places To Sell Your Photography Online
Through its stock photography website, 500px, 500px Licensing (formerly 500px Prime) supports millions of photographers who sell images online. Over a million clients are served by its distribution partners, who are the top source for original content. All content uploaded to the website is royalty-free, which means that its use is granted for an endless period and is charged according to the size of the file.
A community-based site for amateur and expert photographers is 500px. You can follow other photographers, sell your images on their website, and take part in Photo Quest contests to win rewards. For non-exclusive photographs, paid members can earn up to 100% in royalties, while free users can earn up to 60%.
A royalty charge of 30% for non-exclusive photographs and 60% for exclusive licenses is paid to contributing photographers. Participating in their Photo Quest Competitions is another way to have the opportunity to get extra money.
500px operates on a membership basis. The number of photos you can upload each week when creating a free account is seven. For unlimited uploads, first-class customer service, and analytical tools, you can upgrade to their Awesome plan for $3.99/month or Pro plan for $7.99/month, respectively.
10. Can Stock Photo
How To Sell Your Photography Online And Make Money
With Can Stock Photo, more than 92,000 photographers have learnt how to sell their photos online. You can choose from a variety of reward arrangements, from percentages to fixed sums, and Can Stock will pay you $5 for every 50 images your referral sells. When you sell pictures on Can Stock Photo, the stock photography company Fotosearch also displays your pictures for sale there.
Customers may access 21 million photos from 40,000 photographers and artists across the world through Can Stock Photo. Both credit licensing and subscription options are supported on the website. One of the few companies in its sector, Can Stock Photo, allows consumers to license individual images without becoming a member.
Industry blogs like TechCrunch, social media platforms like BuzzFeed, motion pictures like Whiplash, news organizations like CBS 5, and numerous YouTube videos, websites, and books have all prominently used licensed photographs.
Before they can submit their pictures, contributing photographers must apply. Three photographs from the applicants are required, and these are evaluated for quality and relevance.
Photographers can start uploading their work to the website after it has been authorized. They include keywords, classify the photographs, and then submit them for review, where each image is checked to see if it complies with quality, practicality, and copyright rules. When appropriate, a model and property release is needed. Every time a contributor’s files are licensed, they receive royalties.
Every day, 25,000 contributor entries are made to Can Stock Photo.
Conclusion
Selling images is a fantastic concept for an online business, as you can see. There are more options than ever before when it comes to selling images online, regardless of whether photography is your passion, a part-time job, or a full-time side business. It just requires a little extra know-how.
Your earning potential is ultimately determined by your talent and perseverance, but the money you make doing what you enjoy and are good at is some of the best money you’ll ever make.
We sincerely hope that our advice has assisted you in locating the top online photo sales sites where you can profit. Comment below and let us know which stock photo website or tactic you are most eager to try.
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SOURCES: Shopify, SaveTheStudent, YouTube