MICROSTOCK VS MACROSTOCK

What is the difference between microstock and macrostock image websites?

The traditional form was macrostock agencies. This is how stock image agencies used to operate. Then came the microstock agencies.

The quick answer is the macrostock image websites sell rights to super high quality images, and that these image rights are normally sold exclusively or in very few copies.

And that microstock image websites sell rights to good quality images to an unlimited number of buyers.

But the truth is that it is a little bit more complicated than that.

Let’s start with the macrostocks:

Macrostock image websites generally sell you exclusive rights to images (or other media products). This means that only you have the right to use them, they are yours only.

This exclusive right to an image also means that the cost will normally be high compared to an image sold at a microstock image agency.

Some users need, or at least want, exclusive rights to use an image (or other media products).

For instance, if an image will be used in a marketing campaign intended to reach millions of people, one would ideally want an exclusive product.

Meaning, one would not want the same image to also be used in a different marketing campaign by someone else, to appear on someone else’s website, blog, etc.

This happened a few years ago when PC competitors Dell and Gateway used the same photo in their “Back to School” promotional campaigns. Needless to say, this was a big embarrassment to both PR campaigns.

In addition, many website owners would not want the images they use on their website to also appear on other websites or elsewhere.

Microstock image websites on the other hand, sell you images and other media products without giving you an exclusive right to them.

In other words, these agencies can sell the same image to several users. These users then normally get what’s called a royalty-free license to the media product, or in some cases a rights-managed license.

To have such non-exclusive rights to use products works well in many circumstances.

Let’s say you have a blog and you need a few images every week for your blogposts. You are probably fine if your images are also used 10 or 20 other places on the web.

Or if you have a website that needs 100 different images on various pages, you are probably also OK to use images that are used sparingly elsewhere.

The big upside of non-exclusive licenses, is that they are significantly less expensive than exclusive ones. While an exclusive license can cost you $100 or more, a non-exclusive license can cost you less than $1.