Last updated Apr. 6, 2023 by Peter Jakes
The world is your oyster for getting paid to take pictures. From stock photography and aerial drones to Instagram and YouTube influencers, there are so many ways you can make money with your camera. The following are apps and platforms where you can make money with photos and photography.
EyeEm
EyeEm is a photo-sharing app created by Axel Springer SE, one of the largest publishers in Europe. You can sign up for an account on the EyeEm website, then browse photos uploaded using the app.
If you like what you see, you can purchase it and upload it yourself. When someone buys one of your photos, you get paid $1 per download (the buyer gets to keep 100 percent).
EyeEm pays out directly via PayPal every week or two if you have earned more than $10 in sales within that time period.
iStockPhoto.com
iStockPhoto is a stock photography website owned by Getty Images, and it’s a good place to sell your photos. The pricing structure there is more flexible than on other sites, so it’s worth checking out if you want to make extra cash from your photos.
You can upload up to 100 of your own images at a time, or you can select ten of the most popular ones to upload. You’ll get paid when someone downloads them through iStockPhoto—you’ll earn $2 per download on each photo after their first sale.
Shutterstock
To get started, sign up for a free account on the Shutterstock website. Once you’re signed up, you can submit photos using the Upload Editor, located on your dashboard’s right side.
There are two types of submissions: basic and advanced. The basic submission process takes only a few minutes, while an advanced submission takes 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how many images you add.
Once Shutterstock’s team approves your photos of image curators (they’ll make sure they match their criteria), they will be made available in several different ways:
- Shutterstock pays out royalties based on usage statistics every month or quarter when they calculate how much money each contributor has earned per photo over that period of time;
- Shutterstock offers contributors access to additional revenue streams such as microstock photography marketplaces and rights-managed stock photography collections;
- Shutterstock also provides additional feedback via email alerts when someone else uses one of your images online;
SmugMug Pro
Selling your photos is the most common way to make money as a photographer, and you can do it in various ways.
The first option is to sell your photos directly to individuals, who will then use them for personal use (such as printing them in a photo album). This can be done through online sites like SmugMug Pro or Instagram.
Another option is to sell your images directly to businesses using them for promotional purposes, such as advertisements or posters. You can also sell your images through stock agencies like Shutterstock or iStockPhoto;
This lets other users license them for inclusion in their own projects, whether they’re books or websites.
Finally and perhaps most lucratively, you could sell something else entirely: yourself! Many photographers provide on-location services for weddings and other events, sometimes charging thousands of dollars per day (although sometimes less).
Twenty20
Twenty20 is an online platform that allows you to sell your photos. It’s similar to other image-sharing sites, like Instagram and Flickr.
On Twenty20, users are paid for their photos based on the number of “likes” they receive (as opposed to being paid by the photo). You can earn anywhere from $0.01-$5 per like.
Once you have reached 100 likes on a photo, it will be approved for sale in the marketplace and go live shortly thereafter, so don’t despair if your first submission doesn’t make it.
Once you’ve made enough money through Twenty20 sales (about $25), you can request payment via PayPal or check.
Because this platform is so new, there are no specific guidelines about how often payments will be made and how much they’ll pay out;
However, we’ve noticed many photographers report receiving payments within one week after submitting payment requests.
Foap.com
Foap is a community of people who share photos they have taken. It’s different from other stock photography sites because it’s a community of people who share photos they have taken, and you can earn money by uploading your photos.
You’ll get paid for each image downloaded by someone else on the site. If you take a great photo with your phone or digital camera, upload it to Foap, and sell it, you could make some extra cash.
You can also earn money when other members download the photos that you’ve uploaded. Foap will pay you 50% of the price for life when another member downloads one of your images.
123RF.com
123RF.com is an online photo licensing site that pays you for your pictures. You can get paid a few cents per download of your photos and submit up to 5 images per month.
If you want to earn more money, the pay rate increases with each additional image submission: 10 photos per week, 20 photos per month, and 40 images per month.
123RF’s website has a ton of useful information, including how much they pay photographers and how to submit your work.
Crestock.com
Crestock.com is a place for photographers to sell their images. Crestock has over 20 categories and over 3 million customers, meaning you have plenty of customers.
Bigstockphoto.com
Did you know that Bigstockphoto.com is a popular place to sell photos? They’re not just any old photo site, either: they have a wide range of topics, and their reputation is good.
Bigstockphoto.com has been around since 2002, so they’ve had plenty of time to get the kinks out of their system. Their search engine makes it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for and gives them lots of payment options.
CanStockPhoto
CanStockPhoto is a great place to get started with stock photography. The site has an enormous library of images, which are searchable by keyword or category. It also offers plenty of information in its FAQ section, and its customer service team is very helpful.
Dreamstime.com
Here are some of the reasons why you should consider uploading your photos to the Dreamstime marketplace:
- A massive community. With over 10 million images and 270,000 stock photographers, Dreamstime has one of the largest communities in this space.
The site’s customers are also very active on social media, which means that as a photographer, you’ll be able to get your work seen by thousands of people.
- Tons of clients and opportunities. There are many different types of buyers at Dreamstime, including companies like Amazon and Toyota and big retailers like Target.
- Easy platform navigation & user experience (UX). If you’ve ever used any kind of online marketplace before then, everything will feel very familiar here;
It’s simple, but the easy-to-use interface makes publishing images easy for everyone involved – even beginners.
Snapvillage.com
Snapvillage.com is a stock photo agency. You can earn money from your photos by selling them to companies and individuals and selling them for free or for a fee.
The site has been around since 2004, so a lot of content and photographers use it as their main source of income (and it’s also how I make some extra cash).
Stockxpert
Stockxpert is a stock image website with over 1.5 million high-quality royalty-free images. There are two ways to get paid on Stockxpert: free and premium accounts.
- Free members earn up to $20 per image accepted by the site, which means you can make money by uploading pictures that meet quality guidelines and violating them (if your goal is not to make money).
You also get credit for referring new members to the site, so if you’re looking for referrals, this might be a good place for you.
- Premium members earn up to $50 per image accepted by Stockxpert. Other benefits include higher resolution photos and early access to newly uploaded photos before they’re available on the open internet.
Suppose there are specific types of photos that you like taking or have experience with shooting professionally (i.e., wedding photography). In that case, this could be an excellent way for those skill sets to turn into cash flow.
Make money taking pictures with your phone.
If you have an iPhone, you can make money taking pictures with your phone. With the free app TrimCam, you can turn photos of receipts and business cards into e-receipts and contact information that can help you save up to 50% on purchases.
All you have to do is take a picture of your receipt, enter the amount, and use the app to crop out the unnecessary parts of the photo.
TrimCam will automatically recognize any type of receipt or business card you photograph and turn it into editable text that people can scan to add to their address book, no typing required.
Get paid to take pictures for google.
Google is a big company that makes most of its money from selling ads. If you want to know why your phone has so many ads these days, it’s because Google sells the space to advertisers.
However, the more information Google can collect about the world, the better it can sell that space. So they have been doing some crazy things with photography and data collection.
They send out camera cars equipped with 360-degree cameras to take pictures of streets nationwide. They also hired professional photographers and sent them worldwide on photo expeditions.
The photographers get paid quite a bit for these trips but are given strict guidelines about what they can and cannot take pictures of.
Google wants such a large collection of photos so that their computers can better determine what is in each picture.
This helps them identify landmarks, businesses, etc., and gives them new ways to display ads based on where you are looking in a picture. Eventually, this technology will also be used in self-driving cars.
Good read:20 ways to make money selling your pictures
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I post my pictures and get paid?
You can post pictures on Instagram, where over 150 million users post pictures daily.
You can be paid through the site’s partner program, which allows companies to sponsor posts. For example, Pringles posted a picture of someone holding some potato chips and the caption, “Pringles BBQ Chicken is a truly inspired flavor.”
That picture got over 1,000 likes and nearly 100 comments. By simply changing the caption on an existing picture, you may be able to convince brands that you’re the perfect person to take their product photo.
Brands are looking for people who already have an audience, know how to advertise on social media, and have a following.
Make sure your profile has at least one picture representing yourself and one picture representing your work. Your bio should include links to other sites where people can find you, such as your personal website or portfolio.
Is pay your selfie real?
Pay Your Selfie is a new app that was released in late 2017. It has over 1 million downloads and is being used by people worldwide.
While paying someone to take a picture of you with an animal may seem ridiculous, it’s not that bad: the animals are well-treated, and you get to hang out with them while they’re there.
This is especially good if you don’t have an animal at home or want to spend more time with your pet than usual.
What type of photos sells best?
There’s no simple formula for what types of photos sell best. On the one hand, a photo of a beautifully decorated living room with a white couch and an abstract painting on the wall will probably be a hit with many people.
But on the other, a photo of a beautiful beach at sunset may be an even better way to go, as it has an obvious appeal and will likely draw in people who want to live vicariously through that lifestyle.
It all depends on what type of lifestyle you’re trying to cultivate in your online shop. If you want to sell lots of products but also have customers responding and commenting on your photos, consider ways to include elements with universal appeal.
Beach photos are great for this because they show off nature, which everyone loves to look at, and, more importantly, picture themselves enjoying. Personally, though, I like taking pictures of food for my shop; it’s low-effort (I already have the food),
It draws everyone in by making them hungry, and you don’t have to worry about whether you got the framing just right or if the lighting is perfect.
What app pays you for selfies?
Snapcash is an Android and iOS app that rewards you for taking selfies. Not just selfies, though; we’re talking about screenshots of your bank account’s recent transactions.
The app pays you $0.25 for each selfie, which adds up to around $1/day if you take one daily.
What photos are in demand?
The top 5 most shared image types are:
1. Food: Photos of delicious-looking food are in high demand, whether a plate of homemade cookies or a meal at your favorite restaurant.
These posts allow people to enjoy their dining experience vicariously without needing to be there themselves or even spend money.
2. Pets: If you have cute pets, photos of them are almost certain to be re-shared by others on their accounts.
3. Humor: People love a good laugh, and many pictures that initially went viral because they were funny have been shared thousands of times just because they’re amusing.
Some humor is so universal that even those who don’t understand the caption might still find it funny after all these years! (For example, the “Distracted Boyfriend” photo.)
How can I sell my selfies online?
Selfie Worldwide is an online marketplace where users can buy and sell their selfies directly from each other. It’s easy to sign up for and free; the only thing it costs is the transaction fee for each sale.
You can list your selfie at whatever price you think will bring in buyers (or rather, make them not run away from your selfie as fast as they can).
You need to build up some sort of reputation before people are willing to pay top dollar for your selfies, but if you’re looking to build up that reputation anyway, this is one good way to do it.
Summary
You can get paid to take pictures and make money with your camera in many ways. You just have to know where to look and how it all works. Here’s what you need to know:
- Pay-to-play sites like Shutterstock allow users to sell their photos for profit.
- Freelance photographers often find jobs on Craigslist or other job boards that pay them by the hour, day or week instead of a flat fee.
- Companies such as Getty Images are one of the largest stock photo agencies in the world, but they don’t own all the images on their site; they license them from independent artists who retain rights over their work (and receive royalties).
Now that you’ve got a few new places to try, it’s time to get out and take pictures. Don’t forget about the other options we covered in this article;
Even if you can only find one or two of these platforms that work for your portfolio, it could still be worth it! Remember: no matter what type of photography you do, always ensure that whatever images you upload are high-quality and relevant.
