From a contributors perspective the upload system at deposit photos is rather slick. From day one Depositphotos have caught my attention for a few reasons, mostly because they seem to mean business. Too many new sites launch with a bit of 'creative emailing' and a few well placed "oh i've just found..." forum posts, but these guys seem to be taking the right steps (advertising, incentivising new uploads, giving their feedback on forum threads etc.). But that still does not guarantee success.

Getting Traction

In order to get a 'critical mass' of images before buyers started to take the site seriously Depositphotos embarked on a promotion campaign, basically paying their way into the marketplace. They offered an opt-in "promotion program" giving 20 cents per accepted image - this offer is now closed.

Sales

Importantly from what I can see depositphotos search seems to very work well. A nice choice of image styles is returned for simple one word searches rather than just spewing out all images that contain that keyword in order of upload. At present for my favorite test term 'apple' the results look a lot like those at the big 5, depositphotos appear to have their own 'best match' algorithm, good search is critical for the success of a microstock agency.

Deposit photos prices vary by photographer level (images of 'better' photographers cost more).

Photographers Area

It works quite well... at least from the point of view of uploads. You can leave a directory of files uploading via ftp, then automatically the uploaded files appear ready for you to select categories and submit. There is no button to "process uploads", no clicking a button to copy over IPTC keywords into a list of keywords, and no pointless screens with "thank you for your submission click back to submit more images". Other agencies pay attention to the number of mouse clicks here - 1) click an image, 2) click one or more dropdowns to categorise (model releases omitting) 3) click submit and you are back to a screen where you can click on another image to categorize.

Royalties are tiered based your level, which is based on the number of sales you have made (lifetime). 30-38% non exclusive. Exclusive rates were 50-60% but as of Sept 2015 there it appears DP no longer offer contributor exclusivity. Tiers are as follows (as of 2021)

In January 2021 depositphotos reduced royalty rates by 4% from the pervious 34-42% down to 30-38%

Conclusion

Well it seems that the upload incentive worked, almost 10 years after my initial review the site has more than 100 million images, and a steady flow of sales - as of 2015 deposit photos has overtaken bigstock in earnings for me placing them into the bottom of the "top tier" agencies.

in 2012 I wrote "deposit photos are moving very quickly and I'm very impressed with what they have done so far... I don't think it will be long before we count DP amongst the 'main' microstock sites." how true those words turned out to be.

I continue to see positive sales figures at deposit photos, despite the 2020 downturn.

 Visit deposit photos photographer area