Steve Kapsinow (bio)

I should first emphasize that these types of sales are still rare. It's nice to know that they are possible, but contributors should not get into microstock expecting or even hoping for these sales. The goal of microstock is sales by volume, and contributors should be creating images with that in mind for a more realistic return.

These sales do, however, indicate two things: 1. usage and rights are important factors that sometimes get lost in the pricing debate and 2. customers probably don't shop around once they find the perfect image.

The floor-level microstock price points cover very basic image usage. However, many microstock sites offer extended licenses for more extensive uses (multi-seat, large print runs, printing on physical items, etc.) that can propel the price of a single image into the $50-$100+ range. These sales are somewhat common. A couple sites even offer a mechanism to buy exclusive rights to an image for hundreds or thousands of dollars if usage isn't covered in the terms of the basic or extended licenses.

And once customers find that ideal image, they probably won't look elsewhere for it. They will even go so far as to contact the site and personally negotiate special pricing for it if their purposes fall outside standard terms of use, even if the image has been downloaded a couple hundred times already (as was the case with Stockxpert's sale).

Why won't they look elsewhere? Perhaps they don't know where else to look, or it's too time consuming to look elsewhere. They usually need the image ASAP, and if the site is credible and trustworthy, customers have no reason not to work with them.

As a contributor, this means that it is important to diversify your portfolio as much as your time will allow. Sales large and small can happen anywhere at anytime. Images are found any number of ways, so it's best to have all your bases covered at as many levels as possible.