Leading Websites Where to Sell Your Photos

Your love for photography should not be limited to taking photos and framing them or posting them on your social media site for reference. Your talent can go a long way and help you earn money for a living. This is an opportunity that you should take, especially if you have the talent and it shows in your photos.

But how can one sell his or her photos online? This appears to be a difficult task, especially if you do not have an idea where to even start. But in fact, there are a number of ways for photographers to advertise their photos. One of which is to create your own site where you can post and sell your photos and build your own followers.

This is difficult at start, but the results can be very rewarding if you become successful as you will get your profit 100%. The next option is to work with established companies or website that can advertise and sell your photos for a given rate. While this appears to be a good option, it requires an application to be approved before you can get in and start promoting your photos.

Profit will not be as good as it will be cut between you and the website. Most of the time, the photographer in this set up gets only 30% of the overall profit from selling the photos online.

Working with some companies or websites can be a great starting point, especially if you didn’t make a mark in the market. Below are some of the sites that advertise and sell photos of photographers, both professional and amateur.

  1. SmugMug – This is a great alternative if you want a professional and outstanding way to promote your photos aside from selling them. SmugMug has a “pro” option that allows you to use a striking storefront together with an e-commerce gallery for a great online shopping experience. You can set your own photo price where you can earn as much as 85% royalty fee. In this site, you can promote and sell greeting cards, digital downloads, and other types of prints.
  1. iStock Photo – This site allows you to post and sell your photos. You would receive 15% royalty fee for every download of your photo. Alternatively, you can also apply as a dedicated contributor where your royalty fee is pegged at 45%. You need to be an iStock member before you can start sharing your photos. Applying as a contributor is an option.
  1. Photocrati – WordPress, a popular content management system, is another option for a photographer like you to sell your photos online. This option, however, doesn’t offer e-commerce functionality. But Photocrati site can allow a photographer to advertise his or her photos on WordPress. You will also get full control to design and personalize the site. A one-time fee is required to buy Photocrati.
  1. Fotolia – This is a popular microstock website and can be a great medium to sell your photos online. Payment here depends on the ranking that you will get on the website and the quality or exclusivity of your photos. The payment rate normally ranges from 20% to 63% for each download of your photo.
  1. Shutterstock – This is another widely used microstock website or agency. In fact, this tops the list of websites where photographers can sell their photos at a very good rate. At Shutterstock, a photographer can expect to be paid anywhere between $0.25 and $2.85 per photo. Those with really great photos are paid the higher rate. Because of this, your photos will go through a strict assessment process before they can be accepted for posting.
  1. Alamy – This is considered a generous website as it pays photographers as high as 60% royalty rate. Because of this, this site is known to keep the biggest stock photography worldwide with around 41.62 million photos. Also, at Alamy, photographers are not required to give up their ownership to the photos, thus they can still sell them on other websites.
  1. Photoshelter – This site allows visitors to buy your digital or printed photos if they like them. You have to subscribe in order to promote your photos. Rates range from $9.99 per month to $49.99 per month.

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