Greetings from Brazil and welcome to the December 2022 detailed monthly report focusing on my overall earnings for the month. This will be a short post as I’m preparing, as usual, a detailed end-of-year review, including new goals for 2023. Let’s get started!

If you missed out or would like to catch up on previous monthly-earnings reports, you can see them here. Before we get started…

December Highlights

Some highlights this month!

• My Top 5 Most Disappointing Photo / Video Shoots
• My Top 5 Most Surprisingly Positive Photo / Video Shoots
• Sky replacement and sun flares to boost sales on microstocks (Xpiks)
• Importance of Setting Microstock Goals for 2023 (Gallerist)

Detailed Earnings Breakdown

Image Earnings

Agency	Number of Images in port (images added Dec)	Net Revenue for Dec (US$)	Avg Return Per Download (US$)
Alamy	14,282 (178)	64	3
Arcangel (RM-exclusive)	2,017 (66)	0	0
Adobe Stock	4,037 (65)	62	0.64
Creative Market	1,634 (10)	0	0
DepositPhotos	7,811 (106)	12	0.28
Dreamstime	7,9436 (277)	10	0.71
EyeEm	388 (8) – Partner Program only	2	Peanuts
Freekpik	665 (57)	12	0.07
Fine Art America	373 (0)	0	0
Gallerist	2,344 (177)	0	0
iStock (November 2022)	7,879 (113)	41	0.46
Robert Harding (Q3 2022 monthly average) – exclusive	390 (0)	20	2
Shutterstock Editorial	923 (25)	0	0
Shutterstock	11,213 (59)	144 + 32 Contributor Fund	0.48
Pond5	1,816 (0)	0	0
Photo4Me	380 (2)	0	0
SignElements	1,318 (10)	1	N/A
Wirestock	1,967 (73)	2	N/A
Total		421

Clip Earnings

Agency	Number of clips in port (added Dec)	Net Revenue for Dec (US$)	Avg Return Per Download (US$)
Adobe Stock	665 (61)	5	2.5
Pond5	1,992 (25)	28	28
iStock	483 (44)	8	3
OverflightStock – exclusive	92 (0)	0	0
Shutterstock	1,507 (72)	96	14
Wirestock	103 (5)	0	0
Total		137

Totals: $538 in December vs $1,386 in Nov

Alamy: Surprisingly OK

It’s always like this, as soon as I give up on Alamy they come back on the next month and actually produce some OK results. Nothing special but I suppose $64 is OK. But WTF is going on with those 1cent sales from China?

Adobe Stock: Average month

Ending the mediocre year in mediocre fashion. Really expecting much more from AS next year because current results are quite disappointing for the size and quality of my port. I’m actually worried that the average return per download for stills has dropped considerably in the past two months, from over $1/image to now in the 60cents…something to keep an eye on.

iStockPhoto: Again very disappointing

I’ll repeat that another agency that I don’t give a shit about is iStock with yet another disappointing month at iStock which I’ve pretty much given up on. Highest-earning photo was only $4 and that already says a lot. Nothing more to say, just a pathetic agency that helps to drive the whole industry to the ground.

Shutterstock: Strong finish to the year

After many disappointing, followed by new normal mediocre months, finally a strong finish to the year with $144 earned with images and quite impressive $96 from clips. Helps that I’m at relatively high earning tiers, but as we all know these will be pathetically reset in the new year.

Highest earning images

Clips sold

The usual NYE fireworks in Rio, followed by a daytrip to the Lisbon zoo and quite encouraged to see one of my drone videos selling, finally.

Shutterstock Contributor Fund

You may have noticed a new header in your Shutterstock earnings – “Contributor Fund”. In fact, I earned $31.69 this month from this category – see the FAQ for more info what it’s all about.

What is Shutterstock doing to ensure artists were properly compensated if their work was used in AI training models?

We have established a Shutterstock Contributor Fund, which will directly compensate Shutterstock contributors if their IP was used in the development of AI-generative models, like the OpenAI model, through licensing of data from Shutterstock’s library. Additionally, Shutterstock will continue to compensate contributors for the future licensing of AI-generated content through the Shutterstock AI content generation tool.  Earnings that resulted from the OpenAI datasets, also known as data deals, will be issued in Q4 2022.

66 images accepted Images at Arcangel!

No sales this month with Arcangel breaking a four-month trend. Nevertheless, I managed to discover my image on a book cover sold in The Netherlands.

Accepted images in Dec

Average month with 66 accepted images, which just a year ago would have been an outstanding result. Here they are:

Until next time!

Hope you enjoyed reading this report. Click here for the year-end report. Happy New Year!

About Alex

I’m an eccentric guy, currently based in Lisbon, Portugal, on a quest to visit all corners of the world and capture stock images & footage. I’ve devoted eight years to making it as a travel photographer / videographer and freelance writer. I hope to inspire others by showing an unique insight into a fascinating business model.

Most recently I’ve gone all in on submitting book cover images to Arcangel Images. Oh and also recently purchased a DJI Mavic 2s drone and taking full advantage.

I’m proud to have written a book about my adventures which includes tips on making it as a stock travel photographer – Brutally Honest Guide to Microstock Photography