How much Money can you make with Stock Footage?

In this video I talk about how much money you can make with Stock Footage/video. I have a lot of experience talking with people about this and I believe my figures are very accurate.

Check out Black Box!
By using the Black Box platform you can sell your stock footage on all of the major agencies. It will save you a lot of time uploading content and you will be able to track of all your stock footage sales on one platform. Highly recommend you check them out!

Check out my gear:

A great guide book on Stock Footage:
I wish I'd read this book when I started in this industry. Robb Crocker is one hell of a shooter. I learned a tone from him.

My website:
If you need curation for stock footage, feel free to give drop me an email with some links to your work. I'd be happy to take a look :)

Social:
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Thanks for watching!

[FrancoisTutos]

Very inspiring William. You are not uploading anymore here or you have a different channel now?

[manojmohan]

Huge respect for replying to all the comments below. I've never seen a creator interact so much !

[RTSFoto]

Thanks Will, I have watched all your video's, the one which covers your editing and workflow is excellent. I recently paid $99 for a course on how to sell stock footage and editing but, I have learnt more watching your video's than I did from the course, so thank you for the time you take to produce your video's, by the way you now have a new subscriber.
Just got myself a Mavic Air so I am going to start shooting stock footage with it. All the best and thanks again.

[chrisklugh]

Thanks for being frank about this. It seems like this is better suited for those that have a ton of content sitting on a hard drive, or, like you mentioned, your already on a job, why not take some extra clips for the work your doing, do better for the client, and sell off whatever else that might. But to do it as a job? Forget about it. The equipment costs, time and labor multiplied by 1000's of clips, even if they are short, just wont add up to anything unless your time and equipment is already being paid for. Stock Video is passive income to add a little extra gravy to the work your already doing. Thanks for managing my expectations. :)

[kthx]

Thanks, Will. I'm at the 350 clip mark on Shutterstock and I am seeing some sales! My goal is 1, 700 high quality high variety of clips on Shutterstock and Pond 5.

[michaeldobbs]

Hi, I think that you are in the UK - do you shoot 25fps (standard for UK) or 30fps (US)?

[throughmylens]

Thanks you very much for such a nice video, and the best part of it was the last clips of those beautiful shots.

[ricardomiranda]

When typing up the tag lines, is there a way to do it quickly, since blackbox doesn’t let you copy and paste (for similar clips), and when uploading large volumes of clips...

[dreamvisitor]

still waiting on my 1080p camcorder to come in the mail. black box only accepts 4k where as shutter stock will accept 1080p. I'll upgrade to 4K as soon as I can. Thanks for the advise. Good video.

[ReubenAStern]

To grade, or not to grade? That is the question.... seriously, will ungraded footage sell better, so the consumers can grade it themselves, or do they just want maximum prettiness like amateurs and lazy people?

[nadiaalmisekan]

umm...average of 42 cent/month??
so I would say $5/month is way above average.
imo $5 is nothing, especially that BlockBox works with Filezilla which doesn't for many people.

[Sebski]

Really enjoying your content William!...I am just looking at getting in to Stock Footage and your information is really useful!

[FreeDreamStudios]

Interesting with the black box. If you already have an account on pond5 do they just connect to your account or does their account upload your content?

[nodge]

Hi William, Just came across your channel and I'm finding it very informative. I'm just thinking of starting out with stock footage and the thought of having to come up 1000+ clips is a bit daunting but I'm recently retired so I have a bit of time on my hands. Can I assume that if you upload a clip to Blackbox there is nothing stopping you selling the same clip on your own website for whatever price you see fit?

[edinburghcitymom]

whoa I am so surprised. Is that still the case as I just removed all my video from Getty/Istock for paying $8 a clip when Pond 5 paid me $55 for 2 clips. Maybe I have been a bit hasty?

[remotedarren]

I think you're underestimating the potential with stock. Made $50 per clip and only just starting, that's 1080p. The niche is where is it is.

[dcstudio]

Thank you William for your video! Hope to see more tips and tricks on selling stock footage :) Keep up the good work!

[PJski]

Second consecutive video I just watched. Helpful, insightful, and genuine. I feel guilty for having 25k subs, while you only 3.7k. Considering the quality of info you provide, I feel like you should have many more than I do. In any case, looking forward to getting started with stock footage. I have over 10 yrs worth of footage from all over the world, and haven't once considered selling it. Your videos have me reconsidering it. Thank you again & looking forward to more!

[vraskoa]

Cool video, it helped me a lot. What do you think about making videos by phone + gimbal (osmo mobile 2) with using a good camera app like ProMovie. Is this setup good enough for stock footages?

[arkstudios]

$5 is a joke, videographers are seriously under selling their work, put on pond5 and sell for minimum of $50 don't race to the bottom like the photo stock market.