There were some very surprising results when we compared U.S. photographers with those residing elsewhere. Average U.S. stock photographer revenues appear to be substantially below those generated by shooters living elsewhere—apart from the few U.S. respondents earning in excess of $500,000.
Over a quarter, or 34 (27%) of the 125 respondents, live outside the U.S. The gross income for this group was $7,025,596, and the stock income portion was $6,090,399. Thus, these photographers earn almost all (87%) of their freelance income from licensing rights to stock images, and the average return per respondent is $179,129. The majority—28 of 34—of non-U.S. respondents had gross incomes in excess of $100,000.
On the other hand, the gross income for the 91 U.S. photographers was only $6,775,562, and their stock income was $2,093,957, or 31% of gross. This makes the average stock photo sales of the 91 U.S. photographers who responded to this survey $23,011, and the average gross income is $74,457. Only 18 of this 91 had gross revenue in excess of $100,000. Obviously, stock represents a very small proportion of self-employed income for this group.
One might suspect that this conundrum was caused by a higher number of U.S.-based microstock photographers; however, this was not the case. There were 9 U.S. photographers who earned some income from microstock; 13 non-U.S. photographers from 12 different countries also participated in microstock. The gross microstock revenue for the non-U.S. group was $598,290, and their stock income was $404,038. The gross revenue for the U.S. photographers who produce some microstock was $494,831 and their stock revenue was only $141,116.
These figures are enough to call into question the validity of the entire survey. It is possible to believe that non-U.S. photographers are earning more than U.S. photographers from their stock photo sales, but not this much more. It is probable that non-U.S. photographers who were aware of this survey were among the most successful in their countries, while many of the more successful U.S. shooters did not respond to the survey.
It is also notable that all of those who earned more than $500,000 from stock were from the U.S. Including their revenue numbers would have made a big difference in the U.S. vs. foreign earning averages. However, we believe that the vast majority of photographers earn less than $500,000 in all geographic locations, and it is important to examine a sample of those who fall into this category.
U.S. photographers
The information in the following table takes into consideration all those who responded to the survey, including two California and one Florida photographer that each generated gross revenues in excess of $500,000. A total of 96 survey respondents live in the U.S. Their gross revenue was $12,409,310, and their net stock revenue was $8,028,064. Photographers from 27 U.S. states participated, with California having 22 respondents followed by Washington state with 15, Florida with 9 and New York with 7. The other 43 respondents were from 23 different states.
| U.S. respondents in the top four states |
| State |
Number of respondents |
Gross revenue |
Expenses |
Stock-licensing revenue |
Stock-licensing revenue average |
| California |
22 |
$10,027,762 |
$6,405,313 |
$4,569,002 |
$207,682 |
| Washington |
15 |
$1,455,480 |
$497,756 |
$801,210 |
$53,414 |
| Florida |
9 |
$2,429,250 |
$698,305 |
$1,315,097 |
$146,122 |
| New York |
7 |
$604,000 |
$271,000 |
$335,825 |
$47,975 |