The old saying goes "A picture is worth a thousand words".  This may be true enough but how does that translate into dollars?  Today there is great buzz about the Microstock industry.  There a numerous web sites where anyone with a few decent photos can get into the Stock photography business.  The main difference between the microstock and traditional stock agencies is the price the images are licensed for and the royalty payments made to the photographers.  In the microstock world images often sell for less than $1 and the photographer may make .25 per download.  That's right .25 for a commercially licensed image. 

Many of the traditional stock agencies license images for $200 or more (sometimes much more) for a single use.  How many downloads at .25 do you need to reach $200?  That's right 800!  I'm willing to bet that if your photographs are good enough and liked enough to be downloaded 800 times at .25 that there is at least a handful of people willing to pay $200 for them.  One microstock site brags about how easy it is to make $500 a month with only 2,000 downloads!  Two thousand downloads a month is unrealistic for most people an unsustainable for the long term.  Just think about it.  You need 2,000 people to buy your image at .25 to make $500 or you could sell to 3 people at $200 and make more.  Do you think your odds are better at selling your image to 3 people or 2,000?  Obviously the likelihood of selling one image 2,000 times is very low and to do it every month is unrealistic. 

In order to make $500 a month at .25 per download you will need a very large portfolio.  Honestly you will need thousands of quality photos.  In order to sustain that level of sales, new photos will need to be added on a continual basis.   How many quality photos can you take, process and upload each month?  How much does it cost you to take those photos?  Chances are you will be losing money.  Some people have been very successful in the microstock industry but they are few. 

Before you jump into microstock think about this.  How much money could you make from selling a singe print of one of your images?  Well in microstock you are selling a Royalty Free (RF) license of your image for .25.  That means someone else is purchasing your image to use to make prints, posters, greeting cards, calendars or some other commercial product to sell for a profit.  I'm confident that they'll make more than .25 on the deal.

Don't sell yourself short.  If you do get into the microstock game find a place that lets us set the price for your images.  Generally it is less than $50 but thats far better than .25.  I would also look into sites that offer Rights Managed licenses (RM).   With RM you have more control of how your image will be used and your compensation will be much better.  Don't expect to sell as many images but you don't need to in order to come out ahead.