Crestock Increases Contributor Royalties

Since the stock photo site Crestock was acquired by Masterfile in July 2010, many changes have occurred. The new owner has brought consistency to the business and site operations, stabilized payouts, and assembled a responsive support team to assist contributors and address inquiries without delay.

However, there are still many areas needing improvement. The most important are increasing image sales volume and ROI. Work in these directions is ongoing.

So, what has already been implemented at Crestock? Let’s start with two important updates relevant to all contributors. These changes are described in detail in the updated Crestock Contributor Agreement.

Higher Royalties for Image Sales

New payout tiers will be calculated using a progressive model based on a contributor’s cumulative sales on Crestock since the start of their account:

• Before these changes, royalties were capped at 30% and $0.25 per sale.
• Now the cumulative sales calculation includes subscription sales, so you can reach higher tiers faster. Previously, tier upgrades counted only single-download licenses and excluded subscription downloads.

Crestock Collection Added to Masterfile.com

Starting November 9, the Crestock image collection will have its own presence on Masterfile.com. This is a trial step to evaluate whether Crestock images can boost sales on Masterfile while simultaneously increasing contributor royalties.

Meanwhile, a development and promotion plan for Crestock.com is also underway. By offering contributors two licensing systems, the new owners aim to increase overall sales for Crestock authors.

What is Masterfile?

Founded in 1981, Masterfile is an established stock imagery seller with offices in Toronto, Düsseldorf, London, Milan, and Paris, plus independent representatives in more than 100 countries.

Masterfile’s site search is available in six languages: English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and transactions are supported in multiple currencies. Masterfile’s business is built primarily around direct relationships with ad agencies, designers, enterprise marketing departments, and editorial publishers.

Masterfile is not a microstock, since most of its revenue comes from direct client–seller contacts using contracts and invoices rather than interactive credit card transactions.

It’s a business model with a higher level of personal service. Still, the popularity of microstock can’t be ignored, even among top clients, and Masterfile aims to serve all customer segments.

During the trial period, Masterfile.com will offer Crestock images in low-resolution for websites and mobile use. Larger files will be provided to Masterfile clients upon request.

All Crestock contributors’ images will be included in the Crestock collection on Masterfile. On Masterfile.com, the Crestock collection appears under a separate tab labeled “$10 RF” (or the local currency equivalent) – which looks very promising!

At this point, more than 1 million Crestock images have already been added to Masterfile.com, with the remainder to be added by early December. After that, Masterfile.com will update the Crestock collection about once a month, in line with uploads on the stock site.

Masterfile doesn’t add images in real time; this is done to optimize fast, relevant search and power advanced services such as SimSearch, Image Upload, Visual Pairing, and Colour Search. Updates on Masterfile occur offline approximately every two weeks. For now, Crestock images will not be sold via Masterfile subscriptions.

Please note: at this time, Masterfile does not display the contributor’s name next to the image as Crestock does. This will be fixed in the next collection update on Masterfile and should take about a month.

Your royalties from Masterfile sales will be calculated from client prices, even though Masterfile’s rates are higher than Crestock’s. Any revenue split among Masterfile, its affiliates, distributors, and Crestock will not reduce Crestock contributors’ royalty percentages.

For example, if your royalty tier is 30% and:

a) Masterfile sells one of your images for $10.00, you will receive $3.00 from Crestock;

b) If a Masterfile customer pays €7 for your image, the sale price will be converted to USD and you’ll receive 30% of that amount in your Crestock account.

Best of all, you don’t need to do anything beyond your normal workflow – the changes are automatic. Just keep uploading to Crestock, and the team will handle the rest!

If you have questions or feedback about these updates, please email [help@crestock.com](mailto:help@crestock.com), and you’ll receive a reply within one business day.

Based on a message from Steve Pigeon, CEO of Crestock Corporation