Did you know that you can make extra money by selling photos taken on your smartphone?
Today’s smartphone cameras and their ever-improving image quality have created a mobile photography market where anyone can make money.
The traditional way to make money online from photos is to upload them to stock sites using your computer.
But now there are several apps that allow you to take photos and sell them right from your phone.
Make no mistake, selling mobile photos is difficult because it’s creative. It’s hard because every one of us is a smartphone photographer. But, as many have already proven, you can make money here.
Let’s first understand who’s going to buy your photos.
Who will buy my photos?
It’s cheaper for brands and companies to buy photos from photobank services than from professionals. Buyers are looking for photos with realism, not staged images from traditional agencies.
Stock photography can also go without buyers after a while. It may not be localized enough to reflect culture or festivals. It may not be timely enough to capture a breaking news event or even something as mundane as a city teams’ soccer game.
Today, brands often prefer user-generated images taken from everyday life. For example, children, photos of family holidays, people working in natural environments, and so on.
Your camera brand no longer matters – anything. that carries emotion sells.
Here are the best apps to sell your mobile photos:
1.AGORA.
AGORA is one of the best apps that lets you sell your photos for free. It is available for both Android and iOS.
There is no commission and you keep 100% of your earnings!
In addition, you can sell the same photo to different clients indefinitely.
But if you really want to make money on this site, you need to upload lots of good quality photos to your portfolio, join photo contests, communicate with other users from all over the world and learn from the best photographer in your category.
A little self-promotion will definitely help you make more sales, start sharing your portfolio in AGORA on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc.
Working on a star rating system, your earnings are directly related to your rating.
There are four levels: Junior, Advanced, Pro and Master. So don’t expect everything to happen overnight.
Spend some time to fill your portfolio with good photos, gradually move up and get better prices.
There are two main ways to make money on this site: you can upload and sell your best photos in your profile or you can enter contests (also known as “Quests”) to earn great prizes or win trips.
Quests are photo contests run by companies, bloggers, brands and companies on a specific theme.
Submit your images and compete against other participants on the site. The winner will be chosen at the end of the contest. You will have the opportunity to earn money, travel and other prizes. In addition, you will receive 5,000 starts to upgrade your level.
2.Foap
This service acts as an intermediary to sell your photos. Brands, agencies and companies of all kinds are always looking for images for commercial use. When a business sees your photo and likes it, they are more likely to buy it.
This app is very easy to use! Once you’ve downloaded it and signed up, you can upload the photos you want to sell right from your phone so you don’t have to visit any websites! Just click on the camera icon in the app and you can choose which image to upload from your phone.
How do you make money on Foap?
There are two ways to make money on Foap:
Marketplace. Each picture sells for $10 and you get $5. You retain ownership of your photos, so you can sell the same image multiple times to different buyers.
Missions. These contests are open to all photographers who can submit a photo according to a specific mission provided by the company. The winning photo, chosen by the company, can receive more than $50-100+. Each mission is individual, so it will have its own requirements, reward amount and copyright terms.
Payments are made via PayPal.
Withdrawal
The app is free and easy to use. It has a large and helpful community that can provide valuable feedback. The missions are exposure to big brand companies and high payouts, and that’s great.
But since Foap is available to everyone, there are many competitors. This can make it difficult to recognize your photos, especially if you are a beginner.
3.SNAPWIRE
Snapwire is one of the best apps that allow you to sell photos from your smartphone. It can be downloaded for free from the Play Store as well as iTunes. Unlike Foap, Snapwire is more geared toward people who more or less know what they are doing.
This mobile app provides a platform where a photographer has a chance to sell his photos to a blogger or a big retailer.
How does Snapwire work?
Once you download the app, you will go through a registration process where you can sign up using your Facebook account or email. Once you’re done with that and the rest of the registration process, you can start uploading your photos to your portfolio or entering contests. What’s nice about Snapwire is that you can also upload your photos through their website.
You can get 7 ranks on Snapwire. The higher your rank, the more opportunities you have to earn. So it’s important that you only upload your best work, because the site monitors the photos you upload to see if they have enough value to boost your ranking.
How do you make money on Snapwire?
The best way to make money on Snapwire is to take the challenge. This is basically what Snapwire is known for. When a person or company is looking for photos of a certain type, they will send a request or a challenge.
This challenge is open to all interested photographers and includes details about exactly what the buyer wants, what the prize is and how long it will last.
The amount of money you can earn from these challenges varies, but no matter how much you earn, you get 70% of it.
As a content creator, you retain the copyright to your work. When someone buys your image, you simply give them a license to use your photo. They can’t sell or license your work to anyone else.
Another way to make money on this platform is to create a portfolio, which then becomes available on the Snapwire marketplace. A portfolio with really high quality images will help you earn points and increase your ranking.
The higher your rating, the more sales you’ll make, but you can also earn commissions directly from buyers. You only get 50% of the price by selling directly to buyers.
Payment is made through PayPal and Stripe.
Withdrawal
This is a good app if you are a confident photographer and you have great skills because there is a lot of competition in this app!
You can also use the app as a hobby. You can take part in challenges to improve your photos.
Who knows, over time, one of your photos might attract a buyer.
4.EyeEm
EyeEm is a great combination of a social photo sharing app with an incredible community and a marketplace where you can sell your photos. You can download it for free on both Android and iOS.
How does EyeEm work?
You can sign up for EyeEm (using social media or email) as an individual or business through the app or website.
However, before your images can go on sale, they go through a vetting process.
Once your photo is approved, you can idly wait for sales to begin. There are no guarantees as to when your image will sell and how many times. To increase your chances of making money, I advise you to consistently upload quality photos.
You and EyeEm split the sales income 50/50. Payment is made through PayPal and can take up to 7 business days to arrive in your account. You retain the copyright to your image and earn money every time it is sold.
How do you make money with EyeEm?
As mentioned, you get 50% of the money you earn from the sale of the photo. How much you get paid for the photo depends on the type of license the buyer chooses to buy.
Here are the license options and their costs:
- Social license = $20 per photo
- Web license = $50 per photo
- Full commercial license = $250 per photo
EyeEm also has what’s called a Partner Collection. If your image or images make it into this collection, they will also be featured on partner sites such as Getty Images . It’s not yet known how much your images will sell for on third-party sites.
They set the price, but even then images from these sites are often purchased through subscriptions or high volume packages. This means you probably won’t make as much money on third-party sites.
Conclusions
If you’re looking for a great photography community, choose EyeEm. It’s a fantastic place for photographers to connect with each other and learn about some of the big brands. I love that they also allow you to keep the copyright on your work. And to be able to make money on the same picture over and over again is great.
The photo upload verification process can take a while, depending on the photo. Also, waiting up to seven business days for payment seems a little long.
5.miPic
Similar to the other services above, miPic is an app that allows sellers to earn extra money. What makes miPic different is that it’s an on-demand printing app that allows you to print and sell your photos on a variety of products. It’s pretty cool!
It’s basically a custom print platform that allows photographers to turn their photos into real money. You don’t have to worry about production and shipping. They take care of that.
Unfortunately, the app is currently only available on the Apple App Store, but there is also a web version for non-iPhone users.
How does miPic work?
Getting started with miPic is very easy. All you have to do is download the app (or visit their website) and create an account. Once you add your PayPal credentials, you can get started.
You can choose which products you want to sell and promote them to your friends and social media followers. You can earn up to 20% commissions from each product you sell.
When someone searches or browses the miPic site and finds your work, they can click the image and see what products they can print your picture on. Once he or she has selected the product he or she likes, he or she makes payment and you earn money.
miPic takes care of the stock and production costs, so all you, the photographer, have to do is upload great images. They also handle shipping and customer service.
How do you get paid at miPic?
When an item has been purchased, it is produced and then shipped anywhere in the world to the buyer. The owner of the image will receive up to 20% commission on the sale.
Keep in mind that one image can be printed on several products of varying value, so it’s hard to say how much you could earn from each sale. However, the more items with an image you sell, the more money you make.
Some of the products that miPic prints:
- Prints.
- P illows.
- Phone cases
- Wallpapers
- T-shirts
- Flip-flops
No matter what money you make, miPic pays into your PayPal account .
Conclusions
miPic is a completely different way to make money from your photos compared to other apps. They have a very wide range of products you can print on, and their quality is pretty good.
The 20% commission isn’t too bad, and given the number of products you can print, you can make good money even with one really good picture. You can also privately print your own pictures without putting them up for sale.
You may need to advertise your products to make some serious money with this app. If you promote your products to your social media followers, it will definitely help your sales.
You can also ensure your visibility on miPic by tagging your images with good keywords that will make your images appear in searches. Even then, your pictures have to be really awesome because the competition will be fierce.
What do you do with your photos on your smartphone?
Smartphones can take great pictures, you just need to start working on your creative eye. The bad news is that the number of photos you download every day exceeds the number of people who buy them. The good news is that people are making a decent amount of money from their smartphone photos rather than letting them become memory bytes for the future.
Pick the right app or several apps and try your luck. An app like Foap might be suitable for novice photographers. Snapwire may require more professional work.
Even if you don’t sell any photos, rest assured that your photography will improve every day as you work on yourself.
