5 ways to earn money online with photography

I received quite a few questions asking me if there is a way to earn money online with photography (beside actual jobs of course, such as retouching).

I'd like to answer through this blog post.

What I'm going to write is based on my personal experience only.
I'll keep this article updated every time I discover something new!

Stock agencies

Stock agencies offer their clients high quality photographs (even other media such as videos) suitable for commercial or editorial purposes.
Once your file is uploaded and approved, you will receive a fee every time it's downloaded.
Despite the small fees received for each download, this is a decent way to earn some money.
I know people who actually make a living out of this.

You'll have to understand the market and upload content relevant to designers, webmasters, publishers, marketers, etc.
This is the key.
You might be uploading the best photos ever taken in the history of photography, but if they aren't adequate to be commercialized they won't be downloaded.
On the other hand you might be able to sell sub par photos when they appeal to the audience's needs.

I tried to submit my work to many agencies during the years, after a while I had to make a choice.
Submitting photos, while easy, takes time.
Especially because every photo must be appropriately keyworded and, when needed, integrated with a model/propriety release.

I had to choose between the most lucrative ones and forget about the others, so here's my list (ordered by earnings):

Obviously, what worked for me may not work for you and vice versa.
Other agencies worth trying:

Envato

Sell prints

The platforms I know of:

I can't say anything about these platforms because I haven't used them, but I heard they are great.
If you're selling your art here, maybe you can write a comment reviewing the platform!

Crowdfunding

The only platform I ever tried is Patreon.
Even here, I know that there are a lot of people earning significant sums.
How does it work?
Basically you offer goodies in exchange for a subscription to your account.

You can setup different subscription plans which reward your Patrons for their support, for example:

10$ monthly - access to exclusive behind the scenes videos
25$ monthly - access to the above plus a printed photo
50$ monthly - all the above plus..... etc.

I'm not using it anymore because of time shortage, but I think it's a powerful platform when used properly.
You can check out some popular photographers/models profiles in order to draw inspiration when creating your own.

Blogging

If you have something interesting to share with the world you can drive a lot of traffic to your website.
You can do so by sharing your travels, adventures, photo stories, tutorials, etc.
There are quite a few platforms to get you started into blogging, personally I'm using Weebly.
I think it's a very user friendly service which goes beyond blogging, actually, as you can see from the overall look of my website.
Other platforms worth mentioning:

When the traffic generated is high enough you can earn something using online advertisiment.
Keep in mind this though: ads generate incomes almost exclusively when clicked.

Personally speaking, my "earnings" are a joke: when I reach 20 cents it's already a lot above the average (which is less than 5 cents).
I'm blogging just because I find it quite entertaining and because I think it adds overall depth to my website.

The only ads publishers I tried:

VigLink lets you earn a commission for every sale you help a given merchant do.
I'm still testing it but so far I wasn't able to earn a cent, mostly because my blog isn't shopping-oriented.

Google ads work in the way I explained earlier: you earn money through actual clicks on the banners.

Amazon ads work a little differently: you earn a commission on every item sold to a customer who landed on Amazon's website through your links.
The trouble is this: unless you actively write about items, by reviewing lenses and cameras for example, the standard user won't shop through your links
They are surfing your blog for other reasons non-related to shopping..

Teaching

If you know your stuff and you're good at explaining, you can create online classes where you share your knowledge with students.

Personally, I do this on the following platforms:

On Skillshare you earn money depending on minutes watched, the more your tutorials are streamed by premium students, the more you earn.

Unfortunately, YouTube partner program was changed recently.
In order to be a partner, hence starting earning money with your channel's views, you must meet the following requirements:

1000 subscribers to your channel
4000 hours worth of views in a 12 months window.

My account doesn't meet these requirements, hence monetization is turned off.
I keep doing it just because I like to embed before and after videos into my blog posts.
Yes, just for cosmetics!

That's it for now!

As I said earlier, I'll try to keep this list updated every time I discover something new.

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