Where do I sell my stock photographs online?

Whether you are a professional photographer or you’re just starting out, if you take good photos, then you should definitely get paid for them. But you may be wondering how do i sell my photographs? What site can I sell my photographs on, how can I sell my photographs, where can I sell my photos?

In this Article you will find:

• How to sell  photos online
• 17 Sites to sell my stock photos online
• How to sell stock photos through my website

How to Sell Photos online?

There are two ways to sell photos online; you can sell photos through your own website or you can sell photos or you can sell your photos online through stock agencies/ microstock sites. 

Got a DSLR Camera or thinking about getting one?? Click here to see how to take professional images with your DSLR Camera and how to edit your photos on your computer.

17 Sites to sell your photos online

1.SmugMug – With SmugMug you get the opportunity to set your own pricing and can keep 85% of the markup. Not only can you sell digital downloads but also you can sell greeting ccards and prints too, which is pretty awesome!

2. Snap Market (Currently Unavailable)– Snap Market is a bargain stock photo website with a not so strict submission process, a good site to test the waters with. 

3. ShutterForge –  ShutterForge is a great website for for portfolio hosting and sales.

4. 500px Prime – With 500px Prime, You will get 70% net for each licenses sold, standard licenses are $250, and if you sumit them for commercial licensing, your photos may appear in big-name ad campaigns. But to try 500px Prime, you must first sign up for a free account on 500px.

5. iStock Photo – With istock photo you’ll earn a 15% loyalty rate for each download. You also earn upto 45% if you become and exclusive contributor.

6. Alamy – You earn an impressive 60% loyalty fee with Alamy. No wonder why it’s one of the largest and most popular stock photo library.

7. Zenfolio – Zenfolio is a great site which is a little like Smug Mug and allows you to create a portfolio site of your work. It has a 14 day free trial and allows you to create gallaries, upload photos, make your photos available for purchase and password protect your gallaries. Its free for 14 days, give it a try.

8. Fine Art America – If you are looking to sell physical prints of your images then fine art america is the perfect platform. You can sell your images  as a poster, acrylic print, metal print, greeting card, canvas print or framed print.

9. PhotoShelter – PhotoShelter is a very popular, modern microstock agency that will make your photos look beautiful.

10. Fotolia – Fotolia give you a royalty fee between 20%-63%. I like Fotolia because the money is immediately added to your Fotolia account and you get to present your photos to over 4 million photo buyers in the world.

11. Shutterstock – Shutterstock is one of the most popular stock sites which means…alot of online traffic and online buyers. With Shutterstock, depending on the licence you can earn up to $120 for each image you sell.

12. 123RF – With 123RF, the loyalty that you’ll receive is based on this; the more images you upload, the more you can earn. Based on your contribution level you can move from 30% up to 60% and quickly build your reputation too.

13. Crestock – To get started with Crestock, you’ll need to sign up, a very easy registration procedure. Like Dreamstime, they also will need to first approve your photos and you’ll get a 30% royalty fee.

14. Think Stock – Although this website is not as popular as Alamy, but you’ll earn 50% for each of your photos.

15. Dreamstime – Dreamstime is a reputable and easy to use microstock agency. With this website, your photos will need to be approved by Dreamstime’s editors and after approval, you’ll get a royalty rate of 25-50%.

16. Can Stock Photo – With Can Stock Photo you’ll earn a 50% royalty fee.

17. BlueMelon – BlueMelon is one the best place to sell event photos.

How to sell Photos online through my website

You can sell your stock photos directly from your website. First you would need a website and on that website you’d need to add your images to your portfolio and have an online gallery/portfolio (a page on your website that consists of a  large collection of your photos) and a payment gateway.

You can promote your website on your social media sites (facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, etc) so that persons can visit your website and buy your photos.

If you don’t already have a website, you can create one on the wordpress platform. If you dont know how to build a wordpress site, you can get someone to do it for you or you can watch a video tutorial and do it yourself.

If you already have a wordpress website, Awesome! If you are about to build your website, Great! There are some great themes and plugins on wordpress specifically for selling stock images.

One such plugin is Sell Media, it’s easy to set up and allows you to profit from your images immediately, you can protect your photos with watermarks and passwords, take online payments and sell photos via a variety of license options.

One downside of selling through your own website is the start up cost to pay for hosting and purchase a domain (well, a domain is not expensive).

But the upside is that you get 100% of the profits when you sell through your own website compared to stock agencies that takes a percentage of your profits.

But then again, it might be easier to sell through an established third party microstock site than your own website, especially if its new.

So if you don’t already have a website an you want to start selling your photos online right away, it may be best to sell through microstock sites.

See above for the 17 recommended sites to sell you photos online.

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