StockFresh

Stockfresh announced they will close on 17 Oct 2020. This review is for reference only.

Building on the success of sxc [5].hu (stockxcng) and the commercial followup stockxpert [6], both bought by Jupiter media then Getty [7] in turn, Hungarian developers 'Dream Group' present the microstock [8] site stockfresh.com. [4]

Stockfresh was launched officially in June 2010 with a base of 100,000 images from top microstock photographers. This grew to more 500,000 images in less than 6 months.

Is it just another one that will flop in a couple of years?

I don't think so, not all new microstock sites launch, stagnate and close leaving little but some unhappy forum posts. Depositphotos [9] have been trickling in sales for me, pixmac [10] seems to have been growing their business steadily too with some 'innovative' marketing.

What's Different?

The failure (and subsequent resurrection and death) of crestock [11] shows us that even if you have a good sized image collection, professional site with all the right features and marketing 'toys' there is no guarantee of success. So what weapons does stockfresh have to defend itself in the microstock jungle:

• A very attractive commission rate, min. 50%
   
• Almost 10 years experience managing the success that was stockxpert
   
• Big names: Andres Rodriguez, Iofoto, MonkeyBusinessImages and more already onboard
   
• 3 Million images already online

Peter Hamza, one of Stockfresh's founders says the agency has been built from scratch with the values "simplicity, quality, fair pricing and last but not least fair commissions".

Conclusion (Review before close)

It's been more than 10 years since stockfresh lunched and I upload my images, and while the site has been relatively slow to grow (compared to the cash injected depositphotos for example) growing is what it is doing and continuing to tick almost all the boxes for me as a 'lower tier agency'... sitting along side crestock, cutcaster [12] (now closed) and others.

Photographers with a good sized portfolio should give stockfresh [4] a closer look, smaller portfolios (<3000 images or so) will find earnings slow

The only box un-ticked for me is a reseller API [13] (not that I would need that API as an image contributor), whether this is something that stock fresh are planning, or only disclosing to certain parties remains to be seen; none the less, APIs are an important source of revenue to a microstock agency through image distribution, all of the major microstock sites have an API [14].

[4]