Pond5 offers the highest percentages: 60% if you go exclusive, and 40% if you don’t. Pond5 has a very high approval rate for clips (though can be slow to process), lets you set your own prices, has a flexible system for tagging the clips, and is where I get most of my sales. Highly recommended! They also have an Adobe Premiere plug-in.
NOTE: I highly recommend Pond5’s Exclusive program if you are just starting out — you appear higher in searches, get clips approved faster, and get 60% commission, plus less work keywording and uploading. If you sign up for this program, you may NOT sell your footage on any other site.
CLICK HERE to sign up!
Shutterstock has VERY fast approval times, easy tagging system, a high approval rate, and generates lots of sales. Highly recommended!
Visit submit.shutterstock.com to sign up.
Adobe has a 33% percentage, but generally Pond5 or Shutterstock will give you a much higher number of sales. But if you only apply to 3 (which is what I would recommend), Adobe should be your third.
Visit contributor.stock.adobe.com to sign up.
iStockPhoto has a cumbersome keyword system, very slow approval times, low approval rate, and very low percentage commission (20%, vs 40-60% at Pond5). Some report that they make up for it in traffic and number of sales, but that has not been my experience. They are most likely NOT worth the effort for you. But if you want to try, visit istockphoto.com.
I’ve never sold through Envato, but I’ve purchased many templates and WordPress themes from them—this is definitely what they’re most known for. But their commission is low at 20%. If you’re not going exclusive with Pond5 and you do templates, you’re likely to get enough volume here to make it worth your while. CLICK HERE to find out more.
123RF is a newer player to the video game, having been primarily for stills before. They used to be my #3 selling site, but dropped off and fell way behind Adobe. That said, they have a high approval rate, and relatively long approval times, but decent sales, plus 30-60% commission. If you decided to diversify and sign up for 4 sites, this should probably be #4. CLICK HERE to sign up.