Alamy: Get the Highest Royalties for Stock Photos

Alamy Review:

Like other stock photo sites, Alamy encourages photographers to upload their images and allow the site to sell them to news organizations, bloggers and others. However, Alamy differentiates itself from some of its better-known peers by making top royalty rates more widely available to its contributors.

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How it works

With all stock photo sites, photographers register and upload their shots. The sites sell these photos to a wide array of individual and corporate customers. Each time one of your photos sell, you get paid a royalty. And since most stock photos are sold hundreds of times, you could earn many royalties for one photo.

Royalties are small

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean a popular photo can make you rich. Royalties are often measured in change, not dollars. That’s both because photos are sold for small amounts and because royalty rates can be modest. Generally speaking, royalty rates range from 10% to 50% of the sales price.

The most successful photographers, who account for the most sales, command the highest royalty rates.

Alamy’s advantage

What Alamy does to differentiate itself from the other stock photo sites is provide higher royalty rates faster. In other words, if you sell your first photo on Shutterstock, you’ll earn a 15% royalty. Sell your first photo on Alamy and you earn 20%.

And where you’d need to sell an astounding 25,000 images to earn a 40% royalty at Shutterstock, you can earn that 40% royalty at Alamy after ringing up just $250 in gross revenue. The site bumps you up to the higher royalty level whenever you qualify.

Other considerations

In addition, where iStock and Getty Images impose huge restrictions on contributors who go after “exclusive” license deals, Alamy’s exclusive license simply means that you have not submitted that particular piece of art to any other site for licensing.

And, if you agree to this exclusive deal, you earn a 50% commission on that sale. You can sign up to list your photography on Alamy here.

What we like

This site’s contract is far more contributor-friendly than those offered by the site’s competitors, Shutterstock, Adobe Images, iStock and Getty Images. Alamy’s commission schedule is also far superior to what’s offered by its competitor stock photo companies.

On the other hand…

Unfortunately, the friendlier freelancer terms may be necessary because Alamy doesn’t have the market penetration that the big guys command. This may mean that you’ll make fewer sales here.

As a result you should also upload your non-exclusive photo stock to other sites including Shutterstock, Adobe Stock and Getty Images. You can sign up with Shutterstock here.

Contributors are paid once a month, once they have accumulated at least $50 in their account.

Want to try Alamy?

Here’s a direct link to the Alamy site

What their users say:

“I love you Alamy, but I’m breaking up with you,” –Brutallyhonestmicrostock

From Trust Pilot

“Great site for contributors with the best earnings in the market! The only problem is that to get a sale is extremely difficult!”

“I have been contributing to Alamy for a few years now. After the initial rejection, I left it for a while until I felt that my photography had improved sufficiently. I have never sold a photo in the time I have been with them. Maybe it is the subject matter. But I will be going elsewhere I think.”

“Alamy started as a stock photo agency that Picture BUYERS trusted. I licensed thousands of dollars of images during my years as a photo editor for a large publisher. Now that I’m retired, I sell my own images on Alamy. I really can’t understand the bad reviews here. I’m happy with the results of my sales – not a lot, but I only have 500 images on their site.”

2/24/2023