Is it worth getting invested in Pond5?

Hi! I have been reading alot of what peaple are talking about in the Forum and there is lots of talk about sales going down drasticly. So far I only have 100 clips but I'm not shure I want to commit to this page... It seems like there might be better options out there, what du you think?

I'm close to 1000 clip mark, and so far only had 2 sales. So certainly not worth all the time I have invested. But who knows, things might get better in the future? I do hope so!

Pond5 is in existential crisis as well as very real crisis. They are throwing away contributor loyalty and support, and reducing commissions in sneaky, underhanded ways at the same time sales are tanking across the board. I used to get (reliably, averaged) nearly $3000/month, often more, and since the fiasco that took place early last year, reliability crumbled and sales/payouts have dwindled until now: My Exclusive account is at $0.00 for this period (so that's 3 weeks with no sales). At the same time Pond5 staff are tight lipped and unresponsive. In other words, all the things that made Pond5 great are being taken away. Some comments made by buyers indicate that they are starting to shy away from Pond5 as they earn distrust from contributors. They have made changes in attempt to "grow" the business, and instead, wreaking havoc. Their statement that they are "stewards of the marketplace", protecting the value of our content is for all intensive purposes an outright lie as they simply follow the other agencies with reputations, pricing, and commission that all indicate they care not a whit for the contributors. While the Exclusive gambit would have worked had they done it correctly, certain groups among us are seriously believing that is was merely a ruse to lower commissions. In the blink of an eye clips that have sold multiple times for hundreds are now being force-sold at prices lower than nominal. It is considered that instead of PROMOTING Exclusivity they are actually hiding Exclusive clips; a war of attrition, in a way, until Exclusives give up hopes of pricing our own clips and getting a decent commission, and then P5 could say it was our doing, instead of theirs. Perhaps responding to the market pressures was correct, but the way they have done it has, apparently, not worked, and instead of admitting a mistake and asking for help and engendering trust, they have gone silent. They are recommending that contributors create social media buzz to bring business to Pond5. Great. Isn't that the job of Pond5? Their own contributions to making a buzz in the field are at an all time low. Search for "anything you can imagine stock footage" and note how many results you get leading back to Pond5. And then, to top it off, the search engine on Pond5 is pretty bad, so sometimes even finding clips you know are there, yours or someone else's, by the clip's NAME, turn up with unrelated or results that do not include that clip.

Upload to Pond5 as you would any other agency. Don't expect much. Going Exclusive is not recommended. Let us be surprised if that changes, but they have a lot of work to do if ever to recover their standing.

I'm 4 years on Pond5, and I have 2000 great footages Online, and yeah sales not so good, really low, like $50-$100 per month only. Any way I believe in great future with Pond5 :) So guys continue upload your footages here and wait :) some day you can earn $

p.s. I have no one photo sale until now :)

Wow, well that settles it then. I'm not uploading and putting any more time into P5... When I got screwed by Shutterstock and decided to leave them my understanding was that Pond5 was one of the best sites to earn money on stock-footage but if the whole industry is out of whack I think I'll just chill out until it's worth investing time again(if that ever happens).

If any of you have any tips on other stock-video sites that might be worth the investment, please leave a comment ;)

Its a sad day to report that SS is a better company than Pond5. Don't waste your time here. SS will earn you 4-5 times what you can get here.

With SFX its even worse pay wise as this is not usually priced as high as say a Music Track, So we are really making far less with all the changes that were made here and that really hurts. I do hope that can change when they see what was done is not really working as can be seen with all the discussion about this on the forums.

Jakebreaker, maby SS does but I hate them so I'm never going there again. I recently e-mailed SS to check if they still had me(my page) moved from the SS-site and put on external web-sites with my prices slashed in half, which they did... Since I'm always filming 4k drone footage in 50-60fps I won't have anybody cutting my prices without me losing my shit and going bananas :p

Well, when it comes to cutting prices, Pond5 is now up there with the best of them. At least the other main agencies don’t pretend that you as the contributor have any say in what your clips can be sold for - you get what you’re given.

Pond5 used to make much of the fact that prices are decided by its contributors - a main feature to set it apart from other agencies. However, this past year has seen all manner of price experimentation, which has put Pond5 firmly in control, not its contributors. There’s also been a hefty commission reduction, a price match promise to buyers, and an obsession to fix prices to Shutterstock levels. When you also factor in the huge drop in sales, to all intents and purposes, Pond5 has become a shadow of its former self.

As to whether or not it’s worth someone relatively new to the game contributing to Pond5, it will surely depend on the appetite for all the uploading and waiting for approval for each batch of clips, during a time when Pond5 seems to have no answer to its substantial drop in sales.

Someone with no axe to grind with Shutterstock, is far more likely to achieve a return on investment there than with Pond5, but if SS is seen as a pariah among agencies, then choices are limited. Adobe plus Pond5 might be worthwhile, and of course the fortunes of individual agencies could change in time, but at present SS does appear to be doing an awful lot better for so many contributors.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time! I feel like I got my answer... :(

(In other news I have also been trying to get in contact with P5 customer service for a couple of days now with no luck... So I'm out of here, peace!)