Our Review: 

Albumo relaunched their site with a slick new user interface after becoming part of the fantero creative network in March 2011, subsequently being bought by freelancer.com. The site had floundered along for several years without gaining much traction, and it's currently incarnation feels like a network within a network. It's a slightly uncomfortable and lazy looking mix of albumo watermarks, fantero market places navigation wrapping the whole site up with a ribbon that shows freelancer.com.  In my previous review I'd written-off the site after it was offline for more than a week and generated 0 sales on 100's of images in 6 months. I have now 'reset the scoreboard' and I'm watching results from the 'new' site, so far the site is dead.

 

Images are excellent value, images cost $1, and you can download high resolution image for that price. Extra credits are needed for extended licenses of which there are a range of more and less restrictive options. This is genuine value for the image buyer, and it's this sort of thing that will win them more buyers as people get fed up of paying through the nose for a usable resolution elsewhere.

 

Conclusion

I'm still monitoring sales and site operation since the updated to the site (March 2011), things don't seem to be changing with freelancer either. Previous results were disappointing with only a handful of sales over 300 or so images in 2/3 years. A few tweaks made to their pricing structure and referral program look set to sweeten the offer to buyers. Wonky statistics are not helping either, I suspect an issue with legacy earnings that have been imported but sales data is missing from earnings history

As of September 2009 Albumo has been removed from our listings, this review is for historical reference - we tracked the site as 'off line/in error' for more than 7 days. Even if this is a temporary situation any customers that Albumo did have are unlikely to come back. Albumo's previous rating was 3/10

Site Details
Real US$ Cost of 1 Standard Image: 
1 (compare prices)
Referral Scheme: 
Yes, 50% of first credit purchase (buyers) and 10% of referred photographer sales for 1 year (compare rates)
Cost of a standard image (1600x1200) 2MP approx: 
1 Credit
Royalty Rate: 
"at least 50% of sales proceeds" (compare)
Cost of 1 Credit (basic): 
$ 1
FTP Upload: 

Address: ftp.fantero.com
Username: [Yourusername]

Site Statistics
Approx. size of photo collection (0 = no current estimate): 
853,548 Images (compare)
Alexa Traffic Rank: 
-126000 (a measure of the site popularity, lower number is better)
Alexa 3 Month Change: 
-6% (measurement of the increase of site popularity compared with three months ago, negative is a decrease)
Launched: 
2007
Overall Rating: 
Review in Progress

Anonymous's picture

Downloads

Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2008-10-09 11:09
Hopeless.
Steve Gibson's picture

hopeless

Steve Gibson on Tue, 2008-10-14 02:10

lol, a very succinct description of the sales level on albumo I guess?

I think I'm almost through uploading to them also.

Site Administrator

Bogdan's picture

I tried Albumo too. I

Bogdan (not verified) on Tue, 2008-11-18 19:49
I tried Albumo too. I started with 5 images which got approved in about 2 weeks (that's a long approval time) but shortly after my small portfolio was online I received 50c after selling a picture. I decided to upload more to see what happens. You never know...
Anonymous's picture

WARNING !!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2009-01-06 03:22
you should try reading the community page on albumo, lots of people complain about albumo not paying out to photographers who make sells. Lots of people complaining that albumo don't even respond to e-mails, photo approval is slow (i uploaded my photos since november '08 and still waiting, today is 6 jan '09). And those who complain in their forums albumo actually delete the comment, I remember 1 time was reading some complains about albumo, the following day it was gone. So anyone out looking for a stock site, I strongly recommend you stay away from Albumo; SERIOUSLY!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!!
Steve Gibson's picture

Review

Steve Gibson on Thu, 2009-01-08 00:56
To be fair I think anyone still uploading to it after reading the review should carefully considder if they have better things to do with their time. I have not heard of problems with albumo payments and forums are often full of snipe comments. But your comments are duly noted, and how did these people manage to get to the payout limit anyway? lol
Anonymous's picture

I have over 2000 pictures on

Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 2009-02-02 13:33
I have over 2000 pictures on Albumo more then one year.Sales are funny I had 9 downloads....They are not answering on mails, and they are deleting negative comments(at least two of mine).Also some members had problem to delete portfolio... I had one payment because of bonus for uploading(first 100 members with 1000 and more pictures has some extra bonus), but in present I have some amount without chance to reach payment limit.I stopped uploading in December but I am worry for my online pictures, and I am thinking to delete my portfolio. Zoran VERY BAD SITE!!!!!!!
Steve Gibson's picture

3 out f 10

Steve Gibson on Sun, 2009-02-08 20:19
thanks for the feedback, but i think 3/10 says it all, it's good to be double sure I guess!
Anonymous's picture

Albumo

Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 2009-03-30 21:29
Hopeless site. They ignore emails.
anonymous's picture

Albumo

anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2009-10-06 16:52
I think Albumo site even isn't working lately. Anyhow, even when working it was impossible to delete any uploaded images or model release while useless trying to contact them by email. It's true the forum also was blocked to avoid others criticism and demands probably! Luckily, I sent only few images and just while the site was in trouble so they remained in the uploaded section waiting for approval. Was it a cheat?? Where have the photographers images got to now? Who knows!It's strange U.S. court doens't intervened on photographers behalf blocking site and informing people about the eventual bankruptcy.
Steve Gibson's picture

Albumo

Steve Gibson on Thu, 2009-10-08 01:26
As it says highlighted in red letters in the review.

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