Selling Stock Photos: How Much Can You Earn
- Last Updated:
- By: Peter Orsel
Selling stock photos, is it still a thing? I’m a travel photographer and have been selling stock photos and videos since late 2022. I figured out what works and what doesn’t, and I’m here to tell you what it has earned me, year by year, in one place. Over the last years, my total earnings have added up to $12,996, and counting.
My portfolio is close to 100% travel content: landscapes, drone shots, and travel video clips, not studio, product, or office photography. If you shoot a different niche, treat the numbers on this page as a general benchmark rather than an exact prediction, since earning potential varies a lot by your niche.
Looking for a walkthrough on getting started instead of the numbers? I’ve written a separate guide for that.
In This Post
Stock Photography Earnings by Year
| Year | Total Earnings | Files Online | Avg. Revenue per File/Month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $1,900 | 4,500 | $0.05 |
| 2024 | $4,397 | 5,264 (+700) | $0.075 |
| 2025 | $4,445 | 5,264 | $0.07 |
| 2026 (until June) | $2,271 | 5,264 | $0.072 |
Two things stand out from this table. My average across these years works out to roughly $0.07 per uploaded file per month, a number backed by real payout data rather than a marketing estimate. Some photographers will earn more per file, others less, depending on niche and portfolio quality, but this is what a consistent travel-focused strategy has produced for me. Second, revenue per file kept climbing even in a year with zero new uploads, which is why 2025 outearned 2023, when I was uploading actively.
Individual licenses
Beyond stock platforms, writing publicly about travel and stock photography has led directly to licensing deals with companies that found my work through this blog, including Assouline, Stay22, and several magazines. Those deals have added up to more than $3,000 in total, separate from the total sum above and not counted in the per-file average, since none of it came from uploading new files.
Individual licenses give you more freedom to ask what you want to ask. I have more than once sold a photo for more than $400 USD, sometimes years after it was originally taken. Even after most of your portfolio is already uploaded, this is a second way to keep earning from your photography that has nothing to do with platform payouts.
Where I Sell Stock Photos Online (And What Pays Best)
The same platforms have carried the bulk of my income every year, even as the exact order between them has shifted. I really wouldn’t bother uploading to other platforms, unless you see proven strategies of better earnings. This is real data, and shows that if I can do it, any other travel photographer can do the same.
| Platform | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envato Elements | 29% | 30.2% | 35.3% | 26.9% |
| Shutterstock | 21.2% | 28.5% | 30.9% | 23.1% |
| Adobe Stock | 31.3% | 22.9% | 20.7% | 43.3% |
| iStock | 8.5% | 5.6% | 6.5% | 3.4% |
| Pond5 | 1.72% | 6.7% | 2.1% | 0.4% |
Together, these five platforms have made up between 91% and 97% of my total income each year. The rest is spread across Blackbox, Depositphotos, 123RF, Alamy, Dreamstime, and Freepik, none of which have crossed 2% for me in any single year. If you’re starting out, I’d suggest applying to Adobe Stock, Envato Elements, Shutterstock, and iStock first.
Keep in mind this breakdown reflects a travel-heavy portfolio. Buyers looking for business, product, or office photography move through different platforms and search terms, so their best-performing platform might not match mine.
Blackbox
Blackbox is worth adding too, even though it doesn’t show up in the table above. It works differently from the rest: instead of hosting your files directly, it redistributes your video content platforms. I’ve only uploaded 79 files there since October 2022, and averaged $4.57 a month over that period, working out to about $0.058 per file per month, in the same range as my larger platforms. It’s a solid platform and I know creators who use it as their only portal they upload their videos to.
Keep away from Dreamstime and Freepik. Their revenue sharing model is not worth it. I’ve been selling at Dreamstime for over 3.5 years, there’s a bit more than $50 USD in my account, but I still can’t withdraw it.
Platforms I don't sell my content
I don’t contribute to Unsplash or AmazingAerial, for related reasons. Unsplash runs on free contributions while others, including Unsplash itself, profit from that content. I’ve written a full breakdown of why that model doesn’t work for me.
AmazingAerial is a different story. This platform positions themselves as a premium distributor, not as microstock. I do like their approach, the opportunities and the testimonials I read. They have big license deals with some of the biggest media platforms in the world.
However, there’s an entry barrier to upload your content to their website. There are three tiers of € 300, € 500 and € 997 euros (roughly $342, $570, and $1,137) to submit content through their platform. There’s no clear data about revenue, no honest numbers to be found online.
The good side about this payment model is that it keeps people from uploading trash content to AmazingAerial. The bad side: you invest a lot of money before you even begin seeing the results, and they have an exclusivity that means you can only sell your content through them. However, I might give it a try for my video content in the nearby feature, so I can give realistic expectations on this blog too.
Lastly: stay away from Dreamstime and Freepik. Their revenue sharing model is not worth it. I’ve been selling at Dreamstime for over 3.5 years, there’s a bit more than $50 USD in my account, but I still can’t withdraw it. Maybe it’s not made for the travel market, but the revenue sharing model doesn’t work for me.
How much can you make selling stock photos?
Across three complete years, plus 2026 so far, my running total has reached $12,996, starting at $1,900 in year one and settling into a passive average above $300 a month once uploads stopped.
That range, somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars a year, is what a realistic outcome looks like for someone shooting travel content and uploading consistently for a year or two.
The $0.07 per file per month figure is useful for planning new uploads. Upload 100 solid new files, and once they’re approved, that’s roughly $7 a month in additional income, on top of whatever your existing portfolio already earns. I haven’t uploaded a new batch in a while myself, partly time, partly the distribution software not cooperating, but a new batch is on its way.
How These Numbers Are Calculated
I measure my sales through my best selling platforms a couple of times per month and track my income in an online spreadsheet.
Every month, I divide that month’s earnings by the total number of files in my portfolio at that time. That gives a realistic average revenue per file per month, rather than a number that only reflects one lucky sale.
This is how I got to $0.05 per file per month in 2023 and $0.075 in 2024, and it’s the same method I’d suggest to anyone tracking their own numbers, since a raw monthly total alone doesn’t tell you much once your portfolio size keeps changing.
FAQ about your earnings while selling stock photos
Can You Make $20,000 Selling Stock Photos?
Not with a typical portfolio, no. A couple of years ago, a viral video on Tiktok claimed that someone earned $20,000 a month from a batch of iPhone photos on Shutterstock and Adobe Stock. Multiple people searched for those exact files, but never found them.
Based on my own sales data, matching that income in a single month would take something like 400,000 quality files, or a much smaller number of extremely targeted, in-demand images. Full story and the math behind it in my 2023 report.
How Much Do Stock Photos Sell For?
Most individual sales generate somewhere between a few cents and $30. My top performers do considerably better over their full lifetime on a platform: my best-earning Adobe Stock photo, an aerial shot of rice terraces uploaded in 2024, has earned $79.18 so far from 296 downloads.
My best-earning Shutterstock file, an aerial video of whale sharks from 2023, has earned $165.18. Video dominates my Shutterstock top sellers: five of my six highest-earning files there are clips.
Is Stock Photography Still Worth It With AI?
For now, yes, though I wouldn’t build a business around it alone. AI image generation has gotten serious, and it has changed the market. At the same time, several platforms have started paying contributors for AI training use of their existing files, which has added a small but real bonus to my payouts in both 2024 and 2025. I still see stock photography as one part of a diversified income stream, not something to rely on by itself.
How Has AI Impacted My Stock Photography Revenue?
So far, I’ve seen AI mostly as a small bonus rather than a threat to my regular sales. In 2024, Adobe Stock and Pond5 paid out AI training bonuses that added roughly $305 to that year’s total, split between a $214 payout in September and $91 in October. In 2025, Shutterstock alone awarded about $250 in a single month for the same reason, with smaller, unspecified amounts from Adobe Stock and Pond5 elsewhere in the year.
It’s a small share of my total earnings, but it has been an addition on top of my usual sales, not a cut to them.
Full year-by-year reports
The article you’ve just read shows the full picture of my income in stock photography over the last years. It will be updated yearly, so you have a realistic view on my experience with selling stock photos online, curated to a travel portfolio. Interested in my yearly breakdowns? Read the following articles below:
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.