2021 in Review: My Top Earning Stock Images

It’s that time of year! Time for an end of year wrap up and that means going over my top earning and most downloaded stock images of 2021. 

First Full Calendar Year as a Stock Photography Contributor

2021 was my first full calendar year of my experiment with stock photography and video. If you read my what I learned after one year of stock photography article or saw the corresponding video, you will know it has been a learning curve for me. In that article I broke down my first year as a stock photography contributor covering from June 2020 through June of 202. I discussed  my earnings and a few lessons I had learned along the way.

What were my Top Earning Images and Downloads of 2021?

I added up the total sales and downloads of my portfolio across all the agencies I contribute to. Let’s just say not all agencies make this easy so it took me a couple of hours. The bulk of my portfolio is travel related or wildlife with a mix of commercial and editorial images.

As of the end of 2021 I am currently on 14 stock agencies or platforms, and have an average portfolio of 583 images. *Not including my Fine Art America and iStock where I have under 70 images each.

Your results can vary based on the subject matter, whether the images are commercial or editorial, the quality of the images and size of your portfolio. 

Top 10 Earning Stock Images for 2021

In order of highest earning image first here are my top 10 stock images of 2021:

#1 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

This shot of the recently reopened St Pier Pier was my best seller for 2021! It’s an editorial image in the travel category and brought in $18.28.

#2 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

The beautiful turquoise waters of Ross Lake, Washington was my second best seller for 2021! It’s an commercial image in the travel category and brought in $18.04.

#3 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

Reader of this blog will recognize this image of Weed, CA. Turns out it was my third best seller of 2021. Sold as a commercial image in the travel category it brought in $17.40.

#4 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

I have a whole series of this Great Heron in the mangroves of Key Largo, Florida. This commercial shot was my fourth best seller. The rare selling wildlife image earned me $16.12

#5 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

This more recent shot from Luquillo Beach, Puerto Rico came in fifth place. Sold as a commercial image in the travel category it earned me $6.18 in 2021.

#6 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

Sixth place goes to this shot of Rowers in silhouette. Even with the focus on the background it sold several times as a commercial image to earn $5.61.

#7 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

One of my favorite shots from my back catalog earned me $4.73 in 2021. In seventh place Horses Running delivered over and over, albeit for [pretty small returns.

#8 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

The Pink Palace of Florida, the Don Cesar hotel, came in eight place. Sold as an editorial image in the travel category this image earned me $4.66.

#9 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

The rare aerial shot in my portfolio came in ninth place for 2021. This image of Seven Seas beach in Puerto Rico sold as as commercial earned $4.57.

#10 Highest Earning Stock Image of 2021

And rounding out the top 10 is this sweet winglet shot of O’ahu Hawaii in morning. Sold as editorial due to the clear Southwest AIrlines branding, the travel category sells again, even in this low travel environment for $4.36

My Top 10 Images Brought in $100

Overall I think these results are not too bad for my first full year. Especially when you consider the bulk of my portfolio is of suppressed markets like travel. Of course I would love to see higher earnings but if we look at my just top 10 earning images we see they earned $99.95 from just 75 total downloads. 

In fact just the top 4 earning images accounted for $70 of the $100 earnings. That is 70% of those earnings and they accounted for 28 of those 75 downloads. 

Looking further we see that the top 3 of 10 earning images 3 brought in the bulk of the earnings. That’s $54 of the $100 earned by the top 10 images. A 54% margin from 22 of the 75 downloads.

How much did you earn from your top selling image in 2021? Let me know in the comments.

Does Highest Earning equal Most Downloaded?

So how does earnings and downloads correlate? Well, if we look at my 5 most downloaded images of 2021 you are going to see a few familiar images here. That’s why I decided to keep it to just the top 5, and also because there were two separate ties.

If you guessed that the higher earning images would probably have more downloads you would be right.

Top 5 Most Downloaded images of 2021

My most downloaded images of 2021 were the following:

#1 Most Downloaded Stock Image of 2021

Well, no surprise here, the St. Pier Pier was number one with 17 downloads across all of my stock agencies and platforms!

#2 Most Downloaded Stock Image of 2021

This other images from my Don Cesar series is number two and another Editorial image with 16 downloads in 2021.

#3 Most Downloaded Stock Image of 2021

Hello again Luquillo Beach! Third place bringing in 13 downloads for 2021.

#4 (tied) Most Downloaded Stock Image of 2021

In fourth place we have our first tie starting with this shot of my wife Michelle. It is a rare model released image in my portfolio of her performing a PCR covid swab. It had 11 downloads and earned $3.66.

#4 (tied) Most Downloaded Stock Image of 2021

Tied for fourth most downloaded is this one again with 11 downloads. 

#5 (tied)Most Downloaded Stock Image of 2021

In 5th place with we have another tie with 7 downloads each. The Pink Palace strikes again with this on angle wide shot of the Don CeSar. Another editorial image and was also #9 in the top 10!

#5 (tied)Most Downloaded Stock Image of 2021

Rounding our fifth place tie is the winglet view of Oahu again. Number 10 earning and top 5 downloaded. Not bad for an editorial image.

My Number 1 Lesson from 2021

Notice how 4 of those were editorial? My number one lesson asa stock photography contributor in 2021 was not to neglect the Editorial images.

I originally thought editorial images would not sell as much and I was wrong. I had this notion in my head that every image had to be released and commercially licenseable. It was just ignorance on my part, as I didn’t understand the value of editorial images.  

Looking at the top 5 downloaded images, or 7 if you count the ties, there were 82 total downloads which accounted for $45.39 in sales. Editorial made up $12.34 of the $45.39, that’s 27% of my most downloaded sales!

In fact it makes me want to go back through some of my older shoots and find more editorial images that I overlooked at first, especially in the travel category. So the lesson here is don’t be afraid to create and contribute editorial images.