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April 2020: Cutcaster Anounced they will close - this review is for reference only
Not a lot of sales on this site which as of Nov 2016 appears to be stagnant.
Back in 1999/2000 there was a site called zden which allowed users to sell (and store) their digital work for z's which could be converted into money (that was the plan), the site was ahead of its time and it folded (perhaps it was too good to be true that you could just store your files for free) - I'm not sure of the details but I had some of my work uploaded there. You could upload pretty much what you wanted and set your price, and I mention it here because cutcaster reminds me of it. They seem to have formed a space where designers/creators/photographers and videographers etc. can show and sell their work, it's more than just "search for images of XXX"
At the moment I'm monitoring the results from cutcaster and as such recommend you focus your efforts on the sites in my top sites list in the microstockinsider recommended post. If you have some spare time (lucky you!!!) and some premium photography that you want to charge more than a couple of dollars for then this site might be worth an experiment.
2008: A very neat feature of cutcaster is that it includes an optional dynamic pricing algorithm which can vary the prices of your images or video to increase sales. It will be interesting to see how well this gets over the old "price too high and they won't buy, price too low and they will think you are selling rubbish" problem. (2015 edit - clearly it didn't work) sites like Dreamstime have implemented price tiering, this type of feature can only be a good thing for contributors as it increases the return on 'in demand' images while still allowing sales of less popular images for low cost to users who do not want to pay the premium. Buyers who were attracted to low cost images may err for the more expensive image if they like it enough (a perceived sense of increased quality), especially if the difference is only a few dollars.
Conclusion
Very slow sales as of 2015 at cutcaster and now in 2016 uploads have not been working for at least 6 months. I recommend you do not upload (well at time of writing you simply cant!) to Cutcaster.
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Thanks for the write-up
john griffin (not verified) on Thu, 2008-07-31 03:15Just joined
Jake (not verified) on Wed, 2009-07-01 02:26Cutcaster Sales
Steve Gibson on Thu, 2009-07-02 00:57That date was when I first wrote the review, sometimes I update the date to reflect the new review if there is a significant rewrite, normally not, so that date is not the last time it was edited. I try to keep all the reviews up-to-date with the latest stats and make sure my opinions are still valid.
I've been uploading to custacster, mostly because it has a very easy submission process (currently 280 images)/ Like you I had had a few bids early on, but nothing for almost 12 months. I think the bid concept may be flawed in some ways (most people want instant access or sales are lost) but it is also a relatively unique concept that some buyers may prefer - it's a satisfying feeling for some people to knock a price down and then buy, but you must consider if it's worth the time for microstock prices and in time in dealing with the bidding requests.
do let me(us all) know how you get on with cutcaster
Steve
Hey Steve - Jake again,
Jake (not verified) on Thu, 2009-07-23 01:06Yuri Arcurus "work"
Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 2009-09-12 14:19Financial Sense
Steve Gibson on Tue, 2009-09-15 23:03Probably because despite what people think after paying all the bills microstock sites do not make huge profits on each sale. Yuri could cut out the middleman and make a LITTLE bit more money, but all that would create is yet another microstock site with acurs images and no buyers.
Microstock works because of the diversity of images available on each site contributed by many different photographers. "yuri stock" would cater for those people wanting to buy high key images of people shot in "ikea land" but leave others with limited choice. For many buyers a large microstock site is a one-stop solution to obtaining not just the main photo for a project, but also backdrop, vector graphics and supplementary images to use in a design, no single photographer can specialise in such a spread of illustration and photographic genres.
Yuri is a photographer, photographers usually don't make good websites – it would be expensive to pay to develop one. And while I wrote about setting up your own site http://microstockinsider.com/guides/web-business-stock-photographers and http://microstockinsider.com/guides/photo-cms-content-management-systems (it can be done relatively easily) it’s an uphill struggle to get traffic and sales, and manage the myriad of problems that running a website entails - better to concentrate on the business you know best (i.e. taking photos)