Which is the best site for the Microstock Buyer?

By Steve Gibson
Written 12 April 2009
Revised 03 January 2010

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microstockinsider is aimed at the microstock photographer, but I've added this feature to the site for a very important reason, the agency which is best for designers to buy from is definitely one of the places you want to be promoting your work.

Most of the sites operate on a credit system allowing you to purchase more credits at a discount over the basic credit rate, for these calculations we have used to basic cost of a credit (minimum purchase) and not factored any discounts which might be available. Also note that some sites offer only subscriptions so these sites may not have a fair estimate of cost for just a single image.

The Verdict for Microstock Buyers:

First place goes to Canstockphoto.com (read our review of canstock here). They are a clear winner with best value for our standard 1600x1200 pixel image and a huge selection of images to choose from.

If you require a lot of photos (you run your own design group or do a lot of design work requiring images) then Shutterstock offer the best value subscription service. (read the shutterstock review here)

Using the data collected in our site reviews we have compiled a table costs for a reasonable size image from each of the microstock companies to help as a buyers guide.

Compare prices of each microstock agency

For Higher Quality Images:

Crestock.com, the size of the crestock collection much smaller than the big 5 agencies, but the quality of all of the images is noticeably higher than any of the other microstock libraries we have seen. Less choice but better quality.

Free Microstock Images

First of all lets make it clear that the free images are provided as a way to entice you into buying some of their paid images... with that in mind the following microstock agencies offer either a couple of free images a day or a whole collection of free photos.

Agencies with Free collections

Dreamstime.com
lots of free stock photos - just click the free images link on the home page

Fotolia.com
click the free images link at the bottom of the home page to access several free images

Featurepics.com
Quite a few free images, click 'free stock photos' on the home page

123rf.com
lots of free images via the link on their home page

Free Daily or Weekly Microstock Image(s)

Crestock.com
free image daily

iStockphoto.com
free weekly image

Bigstockphoto.com
free weekly image

Shutterstock.com
free image and vector on the home page each week

Buyers Tip:

If your search for an image reveals 1000's of results, click on the 10th page of results and look around for some great images that will not be on 1000's of other websites. Images further down the list are not always lower quality, they have just been bought less often - hence are not already used quite so widely. You should end up with a great quality image that is not already splashed across cyberspace!

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2 Comments

canstockphoto

Alex (not verified) on Sun, 10/11/2009 - 11:01

I'm interested that Canstockphoto come out as your number 1 for buyers as its mostly been a slowburner site for me as a contributor. Though with its takeover by fotosearch it has got a lot more interesting there recently! Alex

Value

Steve Gibson on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 05:00

well, lol, much as I would be flattered if everyone started buying from canstock just because I said that they were offering excellent value I don't think it happens that way, hence your sales don't reflect what I wrote. They are building market share, and doing it by offering better value photos than most of the other sites. Importantly that value has a lot of variables, and I've taken the price of an image that is 1600x1200 pixel (or nearest larger) and paid for the minimum purchase of credits. The way all of the different credit systems work I'm sure there is probably another site that offers better value for a tiny web sized image or better value if you buy 1000 credits at once for a 50% discount etc. All the credit prices were correct at the time when I reviewed the sites and I try to keep them up to date as possible.