How to sell photos online: stock sites, prints and downloads

Where to sell photos online today

To sell photos online, pick how buyers pay and where they find your photos. Stock sites license the same photo to many buyers and pay you a share of each license. Photo platforms such as SmugMug host your photos and sell prints and downloads; SmugMug's Portfolio plan includes full-service customer order fulfillment. Marketplaces such as Etsy show your listings to their own shoppers. Own stores built with Shopify, Squarespace or Sellfy charge less per sale but add a monthly plan, and every buyer comes from you. Gumroad has no monthly plan but takes a larger cut of each direct sale: $2.74 on the $15 example below, against $1.88 on Etsy.

How to sell photos online, step by step

These steps apply to stock licenses, prints and downloads.

1. Pick what you sell

   Stock pays a small share per license, so it suits a large library of everyday subjects. Prints and downloads suit a recognisable style, such as landscapes, wildlife or travel.

2. Check you own the rights

   Sell only photos whose copyright you own, or photos you hold a license to resell. Photos of identifiable people may need a model release, as the sections below explain.

3. Prepare the files

   Export each photo at full resolution. For downloads, state the pixel size and the license. For prints, check the file holds enough detail for the largest print size you offer.

4. Choose where to list

   Start with one stock site, marketplace or photo platform if you have no audience yet, or one own store if you already have followers. Add a second channel later.

5. Write titles and keywords

   Say what the photo shows, where it was taken and what the buyer receives. Buyers find photos on stock sites and marketplaces by searching, so use the words a buyer would search for.

6. Set a price that covers fees

   For prints, add up the print cost, packaging, your time and the platform fee from the fee section below. Downloads have no print or shipping cost, so the platform and card fees are the main cost of each sale. The guide to pricing art walks through the full calculation.

How to sell photos on stock sites

On a stock site, you submit photos with titles and keywords, buyers pay the site for a license, and the site pays you a share. Adobe Stock's own example: if a buyer's plan costs US$29.99 per month for 10 monthly photo licenses, the contributor earns US$0.99 per licensed photo. Stock income therefore depends on how many licenses your library sells.

Shutterstock pays by earnings level, and its levels reset to level 1 on January 1st of each year. iStock pays a higher rate to exclusive contributors; for non-exclusive contributors, downloads do not change the royalty rate.

Adobe Stock asks for a signed model release for anyone who can be identified in the photo. Contributors must submit one whether they are working with professional models or capturing candid moments in public. Read each stock site's own release rules before you upload.

Fees to sell photos online: one $15 download

Example: one $15 full-resolution photo download, sold with a personal-use license and paid by card. Each platform's own published rates are applied to the same sale. Etsy brings shoppers; own stores do not, so their lower fee comes with the work of finding buyers. Gumroad takes $2.74 on this sale and has no monthly plan.

Rules for selling photos: copyright, releases, drones and tax

A few federal and agency rules apply to many online photo sellers, and some apply only to certain photos, such as drone shots. State and city rules vary, so check with your state revenue office and city hall. This section is general information, not legal or tax advice.

• Copyright: your photo is protected from the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form. In general, registration is voluntary, but you have to register if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. A group registration covers no more than 750 photographs for $55, and all of the photographs must be created by the same author. Photos in a published group must all be published within the same calendar year.
• Publication: the Copyright Office says the public display of a photograph, in and of itself, does not constitute publication. Whether a photo has been published affects both the legal relief available for copyright infringement and which registration option you may choose.
• Releases: for prints and downloads that show identifiable people, check your state's rules on using a person's image before you sell. Stock sites set their own release rules, covered above.
• Drone photos: the FAA regulates almost all non-recreational drone flying under Part 107, and its examples include taking photos to help sell a property or service. A Remote Pilot Certificate requires you to be at least 16 years old, and drone registration costs $5, valid for 3 years.
• Sales tax: states treat photos differently. In Washington, sales of digital photographs are subject to retail sales tax, although granting specific rights to use a photo is not a sale of digital goods subject to retail sales tax. In California, tax applies to the sale of photographs sold in tangible form for noncommercial use, and the CDTFA lists fine art prints as noncommercial, while photos are generally not subject to tax when sent electronically with no tangible copy.
• Shipping prints: under the FTC mail order rule, if you state no shipping time, you must have a reasonable basis for believing you can ship within 30 days. If you cannot ship on time, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delayed shipment.
• Income tax: the IRS describes the gig economy as activity where people earn income providing on-demand work, services or goods, often through an app or website, and says you must report income earned from the gig economy on a tax return, even if the income is from part-time, temporary or side work. The IRS also says you must pay self-employment tax, at 15.3%, when net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more.

Example: how one photo shop could be set up

This is a labelled example, not a real store, and it has no sales figures. Example: a landscape photographer with a library of mountain and coast photos, a small Instagram following and no shop yet.

What a Nation store would and would not do for a photographer

Nation is an AI store builder. Nation says one description of what you make builds the store, then agents handle orders, customers and delivery and run ads, content and social posts, with you approving the work. Applied to the example shop above, that would mean the store, the orders and the marketing, while the photos, the rights and the releases stay with the photographer.

Nation is pre-launch, with a waitlist on withnation.ai, no shopper marketplace has been announced, and its pricing is not announced yet, so it is not in the fee comparison above.

Where Nation fits

Questions about selling photos online