Selling Photos Online is a passive income for everyone. As a photographer, if you know the right places to sell your photos online then you can easily earn some extra money or even start a new career effortlessly. Different highly skilled photographers are in demand now more than ever.
Large corporations, small and medium-sized businesses, bloggers, graphic designers, marketers, and publishers all purchase and use photographs from stock image websites online. Wondering which websites to sell your stock photos on? Yes, I am discussing in detail with the names of some great websites to earn money by selling photos online through this post.
What is required to earn money by Selling Pictures Online
Certain things are essential to earn money selling photos online. They are highlighted below:
1. Must have a good quality camera (smart phone will do).
2. Must have photography knowledge or knowledge and experience. Also need to know good quality photo editing.
3. Must have good understanding of various stock photo selling marketplaces. For example, account creation, photo uploading, commission rate for selling photos, ways to sell more photos, etc. should have detailed ideas.
What are Stock Photography Sites
A stock photography site is a media platform where photographers can upload their photos as contributors, and they get the rights to sell those photos in exchange for money.
So, stock photo sites are a media between the photographer and the buyer. Who provide license to all with security of transaction, proper management, trustworthiness. Basically, they charge a fixed commission for this work. Every time your image is downloaded, they will pay you a commission as per their subscription plan.
Many have taken up stock photography as a career to earn money by selling photography.
Who buys your Pictures
With the advancement of technology, we have become dependent on everything online and entering the digital world.
Therefore, creating good content is an important task in a competitive market. The role of images in good content cannot be denied. We need images in all fields, such as blog content, news, magazines, documentary screenings, or observation reports.
Not only in digital marketing, but also in all businesses providing online or offline services, the need for images is observed. Because every business needs images for logo, banner, flyer or advertisement to promote their branding products.
Furthermore, no organization shall use the image without purchasing a license, as doing so is illegal, which may cause great harm to the organization.
This can be explained with a real example. For example, when a blog writer submits a photo about his writing, he buys it from a stock photo website. And the photographer can earn some money from that photo.
If you can do some image search on google, it will be clear to understand.
Below I discuss some photography buyers.
1. Blogger
Generally, bloggers use a lot of photos to create their specific content. So, they need to buy stock photos to create high quality and trustworthy content.
For example, if a blogger writes a blog about a tourist destination, he needs to provide a picture of the place, which collects stock images from the website.
2. News media sites and magazines
When news and media cover various events, they need pictures of the subject. So, if you focus on photojournalism, you can take some advantage of selling photos to those media.
3. Business Organization
Any kind of business requires a lot of images for many tasks like banner design, flyers, letterhead etc.
So, you can earn huge amount of money by making and selling different types of business photos. Typically, business photos are either portraits or photos of official structures.
4. Digital Marketing Firm
Digital marketing agencies require different types of photos to create advertising content on different platforms.
From creating client web pages, sales pages to building their own platforms, images are needed. Hence, they are a big buyer of stock photography.
Stock Photography license type
However, if a buyer chooses to purchase an extended license, you can earn as much as $300 per image. Because an image is sold multiple times, that buyer will only be licensed as a right of use. That is, if you sell a photography, the picture will not become the buyer’s forever. He will buy the license on which he will be entitled to use.
However, in the case of Market Freeze license, as long as the buyer continues to use the image rights, you will not be able to sell the image on the specific platform. You can upload your images through non-exclusive agreements to multiple sites for sale.
Generally, stock photo websites provide three types of licenses to the buyer, namely Royalty Free License, Rights Management License and Market Free License. Image prices vary based on license.
How to choose a Niche for Stock Photos
Generally, any buyer buys pictures based on need. So, all types of images are sold, but the question may arise as to which images are most in demand. Well, let me explain this properly.
If a buyer wants to download an image from a stock photo site, of course, there is a reason behind this download. Surely, he is downloading images with money to use for some purpose. Also, if everyone can take a photo of the same object, the chances of selling the photo are less.
So, you need to work on a niche where selling photos is easy. Below are some niches which are in high demand right now and you can easily earn money by selling images with that niche.
1. Landscape Photography
Currently the demand for portrait photography is quite good. From officer photos to model photography, it is also popular.
For example, a trainer in an office discussing a topic with 5 executives, could be a business type image. The room should be made as an office with some equipment like projector, laptop, office desk etc. then the picture will be of better quality. Also, you can do a model photoshoot for advertising.
2. Food photography
Recently, food photography has become so popular for food blogs and health blogs. Food photography is used on many health-related and lifestyle websites.
It is possible to earn money from food photography in a short time and at a low cost.
3. Official Photography
Basically, the photographer does live wedding photography or event photography because of lots of job opportunities and instant cash earning. But it can be sold online. I would suggest you order wedding or event photography online and work directly.
In this case, your portfolio website can play a big role in selling your services and getting orders.
4. Product photography
Many companies now hire photographers to photograph their products. By showcasing your portfolio, you can work with those companies to earn money.
5. Photojournalism
News media are popular buyers for photojournalistic images. If you want to work as a photojournalist, you can do photography about recent events, natural disasters, epidemics, diversity of human life, etc.
Also, landscape, close-up and travel photography are in high demand. You can work with one or more niches, which I mentioned earlier.
Image quality to Earn Money by Selling Photos Online
In order to be approved to sell images on any stock photo website, you must meet certain standards.
They will manually check the quality of your photos and then approve the photos. So, good quality images must be available to get approval for sale. You should keep the following steps in mind to sell stock photos with those media.
1. For most stock photo sites, your images must be at least 4MP and file sites under 40MB.
2. Your image cannot contain any logos, watermarks or company symbols. However, to protect your images from free downloads; Watermarks will appear automatically from stock photography sites.
3. Images must be of high quality, no noise or grain. Also, shaky, over-exposed, or under-exposed images will not be allowed.
4. The photos you upload must be taken by you.
5. You must be at least 18 years old to work on stock photo sites.
6. You must have a national identity card or driving license or passport or bank account.
N.B: Stock photo sites will ask you to upload some best photos, when you create an account to sell your photos. So, select some of your good photos beforehand, keep them for uploading.
Top 6 Stock Websites
If you want to earn money by taking quality pictures with your mobile or camera? Then you must join stock image websites.
We will introduce some stock image websites here for your convenience. In which you can create an account and earn money by selling pictures online.
Adobe Stock
A stock image site called Adobe stock website. Who wants to download pictures online? A conventional and popular web portal for them.
Where you can easily upload your photos and sell them.
Every day, thousands of people from different countries visit this site. Various premium images for purchase.
For that, you can be from anywhere. If people like your pictures. But you can use Adobe stock website as a good way to earn online from home.
BigStockPhoto.com
BigStockPhoto is an easy website to earn money by selling photos. Here you need to create an account to earn by selling photos.
After creating an account here, you can start uploading your own photos there one by one.
You can earn from your uploaded images on this site when someone downloads your images.
Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com is a great stock image site for selling images online. On this website, everyday millions of people come to search for premium images for their content.
We know stock image website is a popular website for providing high quality images and images to meet the needs of people.
After uploading images on this website, the client pays for the subscription plans. You can upload images on this website and earn $120 per download.
Alamy.com
You can upload your own photos by creating an account through the Alamy.com website.
You will be paid 50% of the income for every image that is uploaded and sold. Earned money will be paid to you on the first day of every month.
When you earn enough money, you can withdraw your money through PayPal.
Fotolia.com
Fotolia.com is a separate service from Adobe Stock. You can earn good money here. You can earn money by uploading images from this site as well, by downloading clients.
Etsy
This is a website to earn money by selling photos. You will get an opportunity to earn money by selling pictures directly on the website. For that, first of all you have to register on this platform or website. During registration, your personal information will be asked. The information must be real. Why not contact you for any need by looking at your information.
Moreover, due to other problems, you must give your real information on this platform. You will get a chance to earn money by selling pictures on this website or platform. But your income will be less on this platform or website. If someone buys your picture, then the company will give you 5 percent commission of the original price. But when you are trustworthy and interested in the work, many people will buy your pictures.
Then your income is likely to be more on this platform. So, if you want to earn money by selling pictures online, you can earn by selling pictures by joining this platform or website. This website has been coming forward as a reliable one for many years. So, you can definitely earn money by selling pictures on this platform if you want.
I hope this guideline has helped you find the best websites to make money selling photos online. Earning by selling photos online is not very easy but nothing too difficult. So, try selling stock photos to start earning online. It requires great will power and humanity to work hard.
