Review of StockXpert - A Microstock Photography Agency

I have to admit, if StockXpert was developed by anyone other than Jupiter Images, I believe the agency would have sunk like a stone. They have the most confusing upload tool of all the big microstock agencies and have very little community involvement, which has only gotten worse since Getty's acquisition of Jupiter images a couple of years ago. Despite my reservations about StockXpert, they do well where it counts; they sell lots of images and stock footage.

Things have been on hold for StockXpert since Getty took over in 2008. In fact, Jupiter Images was featuring StockXpert's library on some of its subscription sites before Getty took over. Getty has done some amalgamation of StockXpert and Getty's other microstock agency iStock. How much amalgamation has been done, has not been advertised. Personally I have not seen a decrease in sales but it's obvious, with the lack of energy being put into StockXpert, that its future is uncertain. Hopefully Getty sees the value in having two independent microstock agencies under its belt.

One of the things I always find frustrating with StockXpert is their lack of information, or to be more precise, their lack of information that actually says anything. Their help directory skirts around how much they pay per download and their FAQ for sellers doesn't even broach the subject. I avoided the agency for some time because of this. It wasn't until I had confirmation from other microstock photographers that they were making money at StockXpert that I joined the agency. From my experience, commission for a credit download is 50 percent and a subscription download pays 30 cents. StockXpert definitely has a list of things done poorly in my opinion, but as I mentioned, StockXpert does one thing well and that is sell their products. I may not like their interface or the way they deal with their contributors, but as a photographer I do make decent money with StockXpert when compared to other agencies.

When it comes to contributor tools, contests and a sense of community, StockXpert fails epically. To upload files to StockXpert you must first use an FTP program, which is great. You must then dig through the StockXpert website to find where the FTPed files have gone, then port them into the appropriate editor. Then you must either bulk edit a stack of files or visit each file individually to add in categories and keywords. The page where you input this information has input boxes spread all the page and multiple save buttons. Once you get used to it, it isn't that bad but it is really counter-intuitive, making the learning curve quite steep.

Apart from StockXpert's poor uploading method, they also don't do any contests or really any other community building activities. To be fair, this is most likely due to Getty taking such a large interest in iStock and, for the most part, ignoring StockXpert. StockXpert has a lot of downsides but they can be fixed. If Getty put an effort into building the StockXpert community, then it could have another great agency on its hands.