Alamy is a popular stock photography platform that offers a wide range of images, illustrations, and videos to clients all over the world.
As an Alamy contributor, you have the opportunity to make money by selling your photos, vectors, and illustrations on their platform.
But with so many stock photography websites out there, is it worth investing your time and efforts into becoming an Alamy contributor?
In this review, I’ll take a closer look at the platform and see if it’s a profitable option for selling your stock photos.
Find here my other stock photography site-specific posts:
- Stock Photography Site Reviews And Other Site Specific Posts
Table of Contents
Overview of Alamy
Alamy is a UK-based platform that offers photographers and content creators the opportunity to sell their visual media.
With an extensive collection of over 355 million images, Alamy provides a vast array of options for potential buyers across various industries.
The platform boasts over 150,000 contributors from around the world, ensuring a diverse range of content.
Operating in over 72 countries, Alamy has a global presence that allows creators to sell their content internationally.
Contributors can sell not only photos but also illustrations, vectors, 360-degree images, live news content, and historical media.
Alamy offers an accessible platform for photographers and content creators to showcase and sell their work.
On Alamy, creators can reach a global audience and receive fair compensation for their work.
How To Get Started And The Main Features
To become an Alamy contributor, you’ll need to apply and have your portfolio of images reviewed by their team.
If approved, you can start uploading your photos to the platform. So.. a very easy straightforward process.
Uploading Your Content
When you upload content on Alamy, you need to select the type of content you’re uploading: stock content, live news, or reportage/archival content. I will explain these in more detail in the next section of this post.
After selecting the type, you can proceed to upload your content. The Alamy team will review it within a few days.
If you upload Live News content, the review process is faster, and your images should be available for sale within 48 hours.
Captioning And Keywording
After the content has been reviewed and approved you must add captions and keywords.
Keywording and captioning your content is an important step in getting your images ready for sale.
Doing this well increases the discoverability of your images, but it also helps potential buyers find exactly what they’re looking for.
You must add a minimum of 5 keywords and a caption. However, to increase your chances of success, it’s recommended that you use more than just 5 keywords.
You can include up to 50 keywords. However, avoid adding irrelevant keywords as it can negatively impact your search ranking in the future.
In addition, choosing 10 of the most relevant keywords as supertags can give those keywords extra priority in Alamy’s search engine.
So, take the time to carefully consider your keywords and captions – it could mean the difference between a sale and your content being overlooked.
What Kind of Content You Can Sell On Alamy?
Alamy offers a wide range of categories for content creators to sell on their platform.
Here are the main types of content that you can upload on Alamy:
- Stock content: Alamy accepts photos, illustrations, 360 images, and vectors for its stock collection. Vectors can only be uploaded via ftp.
- Live news: If you are covering an event and capture newsworthy photography within 24 hours, Alamy can help you get your images online and out to media outlets worldwide within minutes. Alamy’s Live News images typically sell for higher prices than regular stock images on Alamy.
- Reportage: Reportage images means photojournalistic and storytelling images that may not pass Alamy’s standard QC checks due to the challenging circ*mstances of their capture.
- Archival: Archival images may include historically or culturally significant images such as film stills, press archives, and specialist collections.
Stock footage is not currently possible to sell on Alamy.
Selling Rights-Managed Stock Images on Alamy
Alamy is one of those rare platforms where you can sell your content with rights-managed licenses. Rights-managed licenses are more restrictive than royalty-free and grant the buyer rights to use your content for a specified period of time.
These days royalty-free media is much more popular than Rights-Managed so in my opinion is questionable if it is profitable to sell Rights-Managed images on Alamy.
Exclusivity On Alamy
Contributors have an option to sell their content exclusively on Alamy.
This is voluntary and does not give any benefits.
If you choose to sell exclusively, your images can’t be uploaded and sold on other platforms.
However, this is file-specific exclusivity.
This means you can upload images that are not exclusive to Alamy to other platforms as well.
I don’t see many benefits for contributors selling exclusively on Alamy unless you want to sell under a rights-managed license.
Search Statistics
Alamy offers a unique feature: providing contributors with statistics on the search terms used by buyers when searching for images.
You have the option to browse search terms for the entire Alamy website or narrow it down to your own images.
This allows you to see which keywords were used and how many views, clicks, or sales were generated from those search terms.
It’s a valuable tool for researching keywords and gaining insights.
Pseudonyms
When uploading content to Alamy, you have the option to use a pseudonym instead of your real name.
This can be useful for photographers who may want to keep their personal identity separate from their work or if they want to sell different style content under different names.
Using a pseudonym is also a great way to build your brand as a photographer and gives you the freedom to experiment with different styles without being tied down to one name.
Can You Sell AI-Generated Images On Alamy?
No, currently Alamy does not accept AI-generated images. All the content on Alamy must be created or captured by a human and cannot be AI-generated.
Royalty Structure: How Much Money You Can Make on Alamy?
The amount of money you can make on Alamy depends on several factors such as the type and quality of your content, your portfolio size, and your current contributor level.
Alamy offers a fair royalty rate for contributors, starting at 50% on the Platinum level and 40% on the Gold level.
Gold level is your starting level and you can be promoted to Platinum Level if your gross sales exceed $25000 in a revenue year.
However, If your gross sales do not exceed $250 in a year, you will be in the silver level and receive a 20% royalty rate.
If you sell over $250 in gross sales the following year, you can return to the gold level with a 40% royalty rate.
As a new non-exclusive contributor, you start at the gold level with the 40% royalty rate.
According to Alamy, their average licensing fee is $30 per download, which is significantly higher than typical microstock prices which are only a few dollars.
The best thing about Alamy is that you have the potential to earn hundreds of dollars per sale, thanks to the high value of individual sales.
However, it’s important to note that sales volume is generally low, and these high-value sales occur rarely.
As a contributor myself, I make around $1100 this year selling images on Alamy with a portfolio of 2200 images.
Reaching Buyers – Tactics for Getting Your Images Noticed and Sold On Alamy
To reach buyers on Alamy and get your images noticed, there are various tactics you can employ. These include:
- Using relevant captions and keywords: This is crucial for search engines to recognize your images and make them easily discoverable. Be sure to use accurate and specific descriptions that best describe the image, as this can help with ranking in search results.
- Utilizing Supertags: Alamy allows for 10 supertags for each image, so be sure to make use of them. Supertags are similar to keywords but have greater weighting in the search engine algorithm, which means they can help your images get noticed more easily.
- Creating high-quality in-demand images: Buyers are always looking for images that are in demand and illustrate current trends, issues, and events. Take time to create high-quality images that complement what buyers are looking for and seek these out.
- Building a portfolio of thousands of images: This may seem daunting, but it can help increase your chances of selling images. The more images you have in your portfolio, the greater the likelihood that buyers will find and purchase your content. It is a long-term strategy, but persistence and patience will pay off in the end.
By paying attention to these tactics, you can significantly increase your chances of getting your images noticed and sold on Alamy.
For more general stock photography tips I recommend reading this post:Tips To Selling Stock Images And Maximize Your Income
Pros & Cons – Advantages and Disadvantages of Selling Content On Alamy
Here are some of the pros and cons of selling content on Alamy:
Pros of Alamy
- Good royalty rates: Alamy offers a high royalty rate of 40% for contributors on the gold level.
- High-value single sales: You can earn good money from single sales on Alamy, especially if your images are rare and high-quality.
- Live news: Alamy allows you to upload photos of current events to its “live news” section, where you can earn higher commissions if your images are used by news outlets.
- Sell 360 images: Unlike most other stock photo sites, Alamy allows you to sell 360 images as well, which can be a great way to differentiate yourself from other photographers.
- Search Statistics: Alamy provides detailed information on search terms buyers are using, which can help you determine what images are in demand and what keywords to use in your images.
Cons of Alamy
- Low sales volume: One of the main challenges of selling content on Alamy is that sales volume is low. This means that you may not be able to make as much money on Alamy as you would on other top stock photo sites.
- $250 gross sales demand: To maintain your contributor level on Alamy, you must have at least $250 in gross sales per year, or you risk dropping to the silver level. This can be difficult for new contributors who are still building their portfolios.
- No Stock Footage Selling: Alamy does not currently have an option to sell stock footage, so you cannot earn money from that type of content on this platform.
Conclusion
I like Alamy because it offers a wide range of options for selling content.
It also provides helpful search statistics that contributors can use to optimize their content.
Alamy is also great for selling editorial images and occasionally you can earn a good amount from individual sales.
However, the low sales volume and the requirement of $250 in gross sales can be challenging for some contributors.
Overall, Alamy can be a valuable platform for selling stock photos and other content, but it may not be the most profitable option for everyone.
If you have a lot of high-quality in-demand images Alamy can be a good addition to sell your photos, but if you are looking for a consistent and high volume of small sales, it may be beneficial to explore microstock options as well.
Keep in mind that different platforms have different audiences and demands for certain types of content, so diversifying your portfolio across multiple sites can ultimately increase your earnings.
Thanks for reading and good luck with your stock photography marathon!
