20 Ways to Make Money Selling Your Pictures

The internet has shown us ways to make money by selling our pictures. Selling pictures online doesn't require skill or training. It also doesn't demand that you own a website.

You can make money online as a photographer by selling your pictures online. To do this, you must take advantage of your creativity and use it to make money from your skills.

When anyone with the newest iPhone and free photo editing software can call themselves a photographer, it can seem hard to make it. Still, for most creative people who go into business for themselves, it comes down to finding your niche, Building a following, and starting several passive income streams.

You'll earn a respectable income if your images come with unique lighting and color, a compelling moment, and good composition.

Why Should You Sell Pictures Online?

To make money! Who doesn't want to make a little extra money? There are billions of dollars in the online photo-selling business. So why wouldn't you take great pictures and put them online to make a lot of money?

However, Most people who start in photography aren't in it for the money—at least not at first. Like all art forms, photography is an artistic pursuit, and the appeal stems from the desire to do something enjoyable, creative, and worthwhile. Some photographers don't consider money, but it's something to consider.

But the great thing about an artistic discipline like photography is that, while it can be a fun hobby or an interesting way to pass the time, it can also be a potentially lucrative career.

Fame is another good reason to sell photos online. It can help you get known. If you take one of these "evergreen" pictures and it goes viral, you could break the internet.

Another reason is that it's not limited to any one country. From anywhere in the world, you can sell your pictures:

Related: 12 Ways to Make Money Selling Used Ink Cartridges

How Do I Sell My Pictures Online



1. Define Your Niche

The first step to selling your pictures online is Defining your niche. Focusing on a niche is the best way to sell photos online for a lot of money.

Good photographers have a style or theme that runs through their work. Consistency is key, whether your thing is travel, fashion, cityscapes, nature, food, etc.

If you want to sell pictures online, you can usually find your niche by experimenting and seeing which styles and pictures your audience likes.

But you can also find out how popular certain topics are by doing keyword research and looking at how often people search for terms that are related to your pictures.

2. Build Your Audiences

Photographers who want to learn how to sell their work online should invest in building their audiences, just like bloggers who make a lot of money, YouTubers, and artists of any kind.

Ultimately, that helps them build their photography business and sell photos online.

Whether you're a freelance photographer or just selling prints online, the best way to sell photos is to build and use your network to reach more people and build credibility.

Visual social platforms like Instagram and Tumblr, which already have large audiences, can help you reach many people. But there are also photo-sharing sites that can help you meet other photographers, build a fan base, and, depending on the platform, sell licenses to use your digital photos (more on that later).

3. Link Your Accounts

Linking your accounts makes it easier to share pictures on multiple platforms. This is good for seeing your photos, which is especially important when trying to figure out how to sell them.

For example, on Instagram, you can connect Tumblr, Facebook, and other accounts by going to Options > Settings > Linked Accounts. This lets you post the same thing in multiple places at once.

IFTTT is a free tool that lets you connect apps that don't usually work together, like Instagram and Dropbox, in useful ways.

You can also use Hashtagify on Instagram to find relevant, active hashtags to make your photos more visible and get you more likes, comments, and engagement.

4. Integrate ECommerce into Your Portfolio

You can learn how to start an e-commerce business and have your site for selling pictures online. Most photographers have a site where potential clients can see their work.

But if you add e-commerce to your site and accept payments through PayPal or Shop Pay, you can open up many more ways to sell your photos online, like selling courses, physical products, and services.

The easiest way to sell pictures online is to set up a portfolio or store on an e-commerce store like Shopify and add the apps you need to make it fit your needs and ways of making money. After that, start sharing and selling your pictures in different ways, like on social media, in ads, or even in person with Shopify POS.

Optimize Your Keyword Images

Some stock sites have millions of photos from tens of thousands of photographers.

It can be hard to stand out from the crowd, especially if a website's images are moved to the front by a social ranking system.

Keywords are a lot like the tags you put on social media posts. For example, you add keywords to images so that they are at the top of the list when someone searches.

If you get your keywords right from the start, your pictures will show up first when people search for photos of a certain style.

Spend some time looking at what the best stock photographers are doing with keywords, and then copy what they do to build your keyword database.

Ways to Make Money Selling Your Pictures

1. Shutterstock

Shutterstock is a top website for selling pictures online. Lots of Shutterstock users confirm they are one of the easiest sites to sell your photos online.

In the past 15 years, the platform's community has been paid more than a billion dollars, and millions of viewers can access photos of their customers.

Shutterstock enables you to earn money by selling stock photos, graphics, and video clips.

You won't make as much money here, but it's a good place to start if you want to learn how to sell stock photos.

The amount you earn from a vector image depends on you membership plan, the exclusivity of the image, and the kind of vector image purchased.

Your payouts are based on how much money you've made over time, ranging from 20% to 30%. There is also an affiliate program where you can make more money by sending new photographers or customers to the site.

Why Sell your Pictures on Shutterstock?

Shutterstock is a micro-stock site, meaning photos are cheaper and not exclusive. The best way to get more downloads is to upload many images that can be used as visual metaphors.

According to Shutterstock, you can earn up to $120 for each picture upload and a 30 percent royalty on each video clip you send to Shutterstock.

2. 500px

500px Licensing, formerly called 500px Prime, is a stock photography site where millions of photographers sell their pictures online.

Its distribution partners serve over a million customers worldwide and are the go-to choice for creative content.

All the content posted to the site is royalty-free, which means it can be used as much as you want for as long as you want. Pricing is based on file size.

500px is also a place for amateur and professional photographers to share their work. In addition, you can follow other photographers, put your pictures on their online market, and win prizes by entering Photo Quest contests.

Paid members can get up to 100% of the royalties, and free users can get up to 60% of the royalties for photos that are not exclusive.

Uploading and selling your photographs on 500px will earn you money. This site offers a 60 percent commission for exclusive pictures and a 30 percent commission for non-exclusive images.

It offers payment to you via checks or PayPal.

Why Sell your pictures on 500px?

It's easy to get started on 500px. All you have to do is create an account, upload your photos, authorize your store, and fill out the forms for each image, including the model and liability releases. Then you can start selling!

3. Alamy

With over 313 million images, vectors, videos, and 360-degree panoramic images, Alamy has the world's most varied stock photo collection. As a result, you can sell anything, from everyday pictures to photographs, for a certain niche.

More than 60,000 people worldwide contribute to the platform, and more than 110,000 people use it. It also has an app called Stockimo that lets you sell photos from your iPhone and make extra money from your selfies.

Images not only available on Alamy get 40% of all direct sales. Alamy also doesn't have any long-term contracts.

When you sell non-exclusive photographs, you get 40% of the proceeds from each transaction.

Why Sell your pictures on Alamy?

Alamy pays contributors every month and has a simple, easy-to-use payment system.

If Alamy is the only place where your photos are sold, you can get up to 50% of direct sales on every picture sale you make on its platform if Alamy finds your images unique. 

Payments are made during working days. You can only redraw money from this platform when your account balance exceeds $50. Payment is made via PayPal, Skrill, or bank transfer.

4. Getty Images

Getty Images is one of the best website to sell stock photos with the highest prices; you can make money by selling your pictures. It brings in brands and publishers that want to license exclusive images that are high quality or hard to find elsewhere.

The platform and iStock, its microstock site, reach more than 1.5 million customers worldwide.

As a contributor, the rules for how to sell your pictures online here are, as you might expect, stricter than on many other stock photo sites. But for high-quality photos submitted through Getty Images, the rates start at 20% and can go as high as 45%.

If you are a Getty Photographs contributor, you can get started by using the Getty Images contributor app (available for iPhones and Android devices) and submitting 3-6 of their finest images.

The Getty Images team will review your work and notify you when you get accepted into their program. To be eligible to apply, you must be at least 18 years old.

This platform allows you to earn 20 percent on royalty-free pictures and 25 percent on royalty-free video clips.

5. Dreamstime

Dreamstime has been selling high-quality images to clients in the creative market for almost 20 years. These clients range from private individuals to Fortune 500 companies.

Dreamstime gives contributors a lot of money. But it takes more time and effort, so it's not the easiest way to sell pictures online. In addition, at least 70% of your portfolio must have been posted on the site for at least six months.

But contributors who are not exclusive can earn 25%–50%, while exclusive photos earn a commission of 27.5%–55%. But, of course, you can also make more money by referring both people who want to buy and people who want to sell.

Why Sell your pictures on Dreamstime?

You can upload your photos to Dreamstime through their website or mobile app. Exclusive photographs and extended rights can provide additional cash for the photographer.

6. Adobe Stock

Adobe Stock is one of the best places to sell photos online for free because they are also available on Fotolia when you list them for sale there.

Suppose you already use the Adobe suite for other creative projects. In that case, you can add your photos, videos, vectors, or illustrations to Adobe Stock directly from Adobe Lightroom CC, Adobe Bridge CC, and the web.

Upon creating your account and uploading your images, Adobe stock allows you to get a 33% commission on pictures and vector art and a 35% commission on videos – This is for every sale you make.

Contributors to Adobe Stock can earn anywhere from 20% to 60%. And unlike other marketplaces, Adobe Stock doesn't force you to give them exclusive rights to sell your photos. So, you can sell on Adobe Stock and other sites simultaneously.

Why Sell your Pictures on Adobe Stock?

If you sell pictures on Adobe Stock, you can reach millions of buyers and get your work seen by the world's largest creative community right inside their favorite apps.

Adobe Stock provides a platform that allows you to sell your images, videos, and top-notch vectors. You must be at least 18 to be eligible for this program.

Payment is made via PayPal or Skrill.

7. Depositphotos

Depositphotos is an online marketplace for visual content with customers from more than 200 countries and a library of more than 150 million files.

Depositphotos has more than 100,000 contributors worldwide, and big companies like Warner Bros., TripAdvisor, Subaru, and more trust it.

Commission charges range from 34% to 42%, depending on a contributor's experience, the product, the status on the platform, and the resolution and license type.

Before uploading photographs on DepositPhotos, you must create a user account and pass their examination.

The commission you earn on this platform depends on the number of files you sell on their website and the type of file you sell (photo, vector, video, or audio).

8. iStock Photo

Getty Images started iStock Photo as a way to sell small amounts of stock photos.

The biggest difference is that your pictures on iStock are not exclusive, so you can also sell them through other agencies. But this means you get a much lower commission than selling exclusive photos.

As a member of the Getty family, iStock adheres to the same terms and conditions as the rest of the Getty organization.

Depending on whether the photos are exclusive or not, your earnings with iStock are as follows:

- 15% commission for photographs,

- 20% commission for video clips, and

- 25% and 45% commission for unique images and videos (depending on the kind of image or video).

Payments are transmitted using the Payoneer or PayPal payment systems.

9. Stocksy

Stocksy is a popular site for mid-range stock photos. For many publishers and artists, it's the best way to sell photos online.

As a photographer, you can get a 50% royalty on standard licenses and a 75% royalty on extended licenses if you contribute to Stocksy. However, all pictures are 100% exclusive, so you can't use them on other stock photo websites.

To submit an application for consideration on Stocksy, you must complete the application form, upload ten images, and wait for approval from the committee (1-2 weeks).

Why Sell your pictures on Stocksy?

If you sell pictures on Adobe Stock, you can reach millions of buyers and get your work seen by the world's largest creative community right inside their favorite apps.

Contributors can also get patronage returns when the co-op makes more money than it needs. How much you get depends on how much money you bring into the co-op by selling your photos and videos.

10. Etsy

If you want to sell photos online, you might want to learn how to sell on Etsy and open an Etsy photography shop. It's easy to get started. You can sell prints quickly, and the way fees are set up is good for professional photographers and people just starting.

Etsy only takes 5% of the total price of the transaction, which includes the shipping price you set. However, when you sell a print, Etsy Payments takes 3% plus $0.25 as a payment processing fee if you accept payments through it.

Etsy is different from other online places to sell photos because most people won't come looking for stock photos because there several

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