Dreamstime – Complete Review
Dreamstime was founded in 2004 by the romanian designer Serban Enache, therefore it’s one of the most established microstock agencies in the market. Over the years Dreamstime has maintained its position thanks to its renewal ability, such as in 2006, when it was the first agency to introduce subscription plans for buying images in addition to the credits system. It has a portfolio of over 52 million images (data from January 2017) despite the proliferation of other more aggressive agencies in the last years.
To become contributors at Dreamstime you simply need to register on the site and there’s no need of admission test or preliminary review of your portfolio. Given the large amount of images available in the archive, it is normal that the reviewers are quite demanding, although not as much as the reviewers at Fotolia or Shutterstock. 
Maybe also because, unlike Fotolia, Dreamstime agrees to sell editorial images, moreover without the need to mark them as editorial during the submission on the website. Again, as is the case for 123RF and Depositphotos, it’s up to the reviewers to decide whether an image can be approved for the royalty free or editorial market.
The uploading process is rather easy and can be made via FTP. During the submission on the website there is a bit of work to do, because you need to categorize all the images one by one. However, the possibility to “auto-populate” categories from similar files uploaded earlier makes the process less time-consuming than you might expect. There are also weekly limits to upload, depending on the approval rate of the images of each contributor, but in any case large enough to be able to upload at least several hundred, if not thousands, of files per week. The revision of the files takes quite a long time, usually more than 1 week.
The earnings for the standard contributors are above average, as well as those for the exclusivist contributors, and follow a specific growth plan, depending on the seniority and sales generated over time by the single files. The accepted payment methods are the most common ones (Paypal/Skrill/Cheques) and the minimum threshold for payment – which must be explicitly required by the contributor – is $ 100.
The Dreamstime community is highly addictive and the interaction between the contributors is very encouraged and promoted by the agency. You can join contests with prizes for contributors, there is a very active forum and even the ability for contributors to write their own blog within Dreamstime. Also, an interesting photo map, which simply orders images on the archive on a world map (of course only for those images which incorporate GPS data).
Below is the table with the main informations about Dreamstime:
| Logo |  |
| Website | www.dreamstime.com |
| Social Links/Blog | Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Blog, Forum |
| Headquarters |  Brentwood, USA  Bucharest, Romania |
| Portfolio | 52,000,000 (updated to January 2017) |
| Website Traffic Rank | by  |
| Admission Test | Not needed |
| Image Size | Minimum 3 Megapixel |
| Accepted File Types | Photos, Vectors, Footage |
| Severity of the Reviewers | High |
| Editorial Images | Accepted, and no specific description needed. Reviewers decide whether an image is suitable for sale with standard license or editorial |
| Types of Licences | Standard License, Editorial License, Extended License |
| Price of the Images | Credits start from $0.77; for purchase on subscription starting at $0.20 per single image |
| Earnings for Contributors | From 25% per single download and from $0.35 per download on subscription, growing according to this schedule |
| Payout Minimum Threshold | $100 |
| Payment Mode | Upon request once thresold exceeded, via PayPal/Skrill, Bank Checks, Prepaid Dreamstime MasterCard Payoneer |
| Exclusivity | From 60% per single download and from $0.42 per download on subscription, growing according to this schedule |
| Referral Program | 10% of purchases or sales made by referred customers or authors for the first 3 years, plus a special instant bonus of $5 for promoting Dreamstime through a referral banner placed on your own website |
| Uploading Mode | Java Plug-in on the website or via FTP |
| Recognition IPTC data from file | Automatic |
| Currency | $ US Dollar (USD) |
| Supported Languages | English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Greek, Japanese, Polish, Swedish |
| Tools | Contests, Games, Photomap with Geotagged images, Blog |
| Download Release Forms | Model Release Property Release |
Related Pages:
- Check the list of the Top Microstock Agencies
- Check my Microstock Agencies Evaluation Criteria
- Check the Earnings Comparison
- Check the Payout Comparison
- Check the Referral/Affiliate Programs Comparison
- Check the Exclusivity Comparison
- Check the Editorial Images Management Comparison
- Download the Model Releases Forms for Each Microstock Agency
Liked this article? Would you share it?
