Making Money with Referrals |
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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 22 August 2008 05:15 |
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Page 1 of 2  One of the most overlooked methods of making mone with microstock agencies like Fotolia and 123RF is to take part in their referral programs. While it may sound easy at first, you need to understand a few things about why agencies offer refferal programs and which programs will really work out best in the end.
Top Referral ProgramsIn our first table I list some of the best microstock referral programs availible today. Each part of their program is important. A referral program needs to pay a good percentage for a long time in order to be effective. You don't want to spend a great deal of time getting a great referral only lose out on the referral money after 3 months. | Fotolia | 15% Designer / Buyer
10% Photographer / Seller | 5 Years | 15 Days | | | Fotolia is generally the most attractive referral program out there, a long 5 year period means that if you can get a few busy graphic designers under you, you can significantly increase your income for a long period. | | Shutterstock | 20% Designer / Buyer
10% Seller | Buyer : Only first sale
Seller: Permanent | 30 days | | | This would be my second pick for a top referral program, especially for photographers. On the buyer side, we don’t see many referrals, but when we get them, they are VERY NICE, generally $30-$40 per referral | | Dreamstime | 10% Designer / Buyer
10% Photographer | 3 years | 30 days | | | Dreamstime recently improved their referral program by going form 1 year to three years. This is greatly important for photographer referrals where it often takes longer to build a large portfolio. | | 123RF | 15% Designer / Buyer
10% Photographer / Seller | Buyer: 1 year
Seller: 6 months | 1 Year | | | While the buyer referral program is very attractive, a 6 month photographer referral programs is not worth much. |
About the Photographers
We have learned a lot in the last two years about referring photographers. In many ways it seems better than buyers, because photographers should be ongoing income where buyers can just stop buying after the first package. However, remember that it takes a photographer 1-2 years to get a good portfolio together (unless he/she has it already in place from other agencies). A photographer referral program for less than a year is not normally going to make you much money. Other AgenciesThere are many other agencies that offer excellent referral programs. We have tried to list many of them here. We are involved in some of these and have chosen not to participate in others. See the warnings below when trying to evaluate a program. | iStockPhoto | $10 first sale | | Unkown | | LuckyOliver | $5 for first sale | Buyers: None (only first sale) | 30 Days | | StockXpert | 10% Designer / Buyers | 3 months | 30 days | | BigStockPhoto | 35% Designer
$5.00 for 75 approved photos (Photographers) | Buyers: None (only first sale) | 60 Days | | CanStockPhoto | 10% Designers / Buyers
$5 for 50 photos sold | Buyers: 6 months
Sellers: 6 months | 1 HOUR! | | Albumo | 10% Designers / Buyers
10% Photographers | 1 Year | None | | Fotomind | 25% Photographers | Permanent | 7 days | | GeckoStock | 3% Designers | 6 months | |
Statistics in these table cannot be guaranteed accurate. It may be user specific depending on the current agreements with each agency. Check the terms with the stock photo agency before you spend a year developing a project and watching it fizzle out. --No-- I have never done that... On the next page we'll look at this cookie thing and why its important. We'll also discuss a few of these programs and why they are made for success and failure. |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 17 September 2008 13:40 |
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