Shutterstock
Shutterstock should be the base of your commersial photography.
It is difficult to get approved, that's why it is a good challenge :-), you need to post 10 pictures and you are not approved as a seller
unless 7 gets accepted. I thought I took a safe bet by uploading 10 approved pictures from iStockPhoto.com but most pictures got rejected.
But as with iStockphoto, they will tell you what is wrong with each rejection so you can learn from your misstakes so if your want to learn, Shutterstock is a good option.
Example from one of my files:
Poor Lighting--Poor or uneven lighting, or shadows. White balance may be incorrect.
Composition--Limited commercial value due to framing, cropping, and/or composition.
Noise--Noise, film grain, over-sharpening, or artifacts at full size.
But the best reason to join Shutterstock is time, it is simply fast to use.
Number of Images
5 000 000
Number of Photographers
130 000
Number of new pictures per week
70 000
Application process
Upload 10 pictures and your ID. 7 needs to be approved to become a member. You can retry after a month.
Upload limit
max 50 pictures per day initially, after that about the same as your approval percentage multipried by 50, i.e. 25 pictures per day if you have an approval rate of 50%.
Upload queue time
Typically 2 days.
Upload methods
FTP-HTTP-Flash
Picture size
Minimum 1700x1300 and 4megapixels (yeah, figure that out)
Picture/file formats
Whatever, it will be converted to Jpeg.
Earnings
Payout rate is: $.25 (25 cents per image download). After earning a total of $500, your rate increases to $.33 per download. Once you surpass a total lifetime earnings of $3,000, your rate will increase to $.36 per download, and after you reach $10,000 in lifetime earnings, your rate will increase to $.38 per download.
Free pictures
Yes, one per week for logged in users.
Languages
Chinese,Dutch,English,French,German,Italian,Japanese,Portuguese,Spanish
Download count visible
Yes, all users
Sales value visible
Only for yourself
Referal Program
Yes
Affiliate - seller 0.03 - byer up to $50
Payout partners/methods
Paypal or Moneybookers, or $300 to be paid by paper check.
Exclusivity
No, you can submit your pictures to other agencies.