How Much Money I Made With Stock Photography in 2025
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- By: Peter Orsel
I made my first steps in stock photography at the end of 2022, pretty late compared to contributors who have been doing this since the internet became a thing.
In 2025, AI properly arrived in this industry. It’s been coming for a while, but image generation has gotten good enough that it’s often hard to tell what’s real and what’s generated. Even so, I still made solid money from mostly travel photos. This post covers exactly how much.
In This Post
How many files did I upload in 2025?
Not something to be proud of, but I didn’t upload a single file in 2025. My other work and this blog took up more of my attention, and I simply didn’t go out to shoot as much. I still have a batch of files waiting to be uploaded from my hard drives, so let’s see if 2026 is the year that happens.
Previous posts about Stock Photography
Here are some other articles I wrote about my Stock Photography income:
How much did I earn in stock photography in 2025
Transparency matters to me, so here’s the honest number: my stock photography earnings in 2025 were $4,445 USD, slightly more than the $4,397 I made in 2024, and all of it passive since I didn’t upload anything new.
Adding it up across three years:
- Total sales 2023: $1,900 USD
- Total sales 2024: $4,397 USD
- Total sales 2025: $4,445 USD
- Total: $10,742 USD
Three years in and crossing $10,000 totally feels like a milestone, especially since almost none of 2025’s income came from new work.
On top of that total, some individual photos have sold separately for more than $400, sometimes years after they were taken. That money isn’t included in the total above.
I averaged just above $300 USD per month throughout 2025. November was a strong month, December was a bit of a letdown. Part of that November strength came from AI training bonuses: Shutterstock alone paid out around $250 that month for it, with smaller, less significant amounts from Adobe Stock and Pond5 elsewhere in the year.
What platform sells best?
Just like the other years, Envato, Shutterstock and Adobe have been generating most of my income.
- Envato Elements: 35,3%
- Shutterstock: 30,9%
- Adobe Stock 20,7%
- iStock 6,5%
- Pond5 2,1%
- Depositphotos 1,8%
- Blackbox 1,4%
- 123RF 0,8%
- Dreamstime 0,24%
- Alamy 0,17%
- Freepik 0,04%
Almost 92% of my sales came from the top three platforms, with iStock as a solid fourth. If you’re just starting out, those four are where I’d focus first.
Blackbox could be worth adding too. It distributes video to multiple agencies for you, which saves time and can generate decent sales on its own. My own Blackbox earnings are low mainly because I haven’t uploaded much video through it, not because the platform underperforms.
I’d stay away from Dreamstime and Freepik. Dreamstime only lets you withdraw once you hit $100, and I haven’t reached that after 3 years with 5,000 quality files already earning elsewhere. Freepik gets quite some downloads, but the payout per download is too low to matter.
For the full platform breakdown across every year, including which platforms I’d avoid and why, I keep an up-to-date earnings page.
How does AI affect Stock Photography sales?
The honest answer: less than I expected, at least so far. Image generation tools have improved fast, and demand for generic, low-effort stock content has softened because of it. But specific, real travel content still holds up: AI models need training data, real locations change over time, and buyers covering actual news or events still need photos of things that actually happened.
On top of that, a few platforms have started paying contributors when their files get used for AI training, which has added a modest, unplanned bonus to my payouts rather than taking anything away.
I still wouldn’t treat stock photography as an income stream you can lean on forever. I see it, together with this blog, as a bonus on top of other income: money that makes travel easier to afford and lets me upgrade my gear. Relying on it as your only income would be a rough bet.
As a digital nomad, spreading income across multiple sources still matters most. If you want ideas beyond stock photography, I’ve written about the best ways to earn money while traveling the world.
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About Me
Peter Orsel is a Dutch travel photographer based in Bali, specialized in drone and landscape photography. He has visited over 40 countries and writes detailed, no-nonsense guides based on firsthand experience.