Site Review: Pond5
(Click above to sign-up)
Recommended!
08/2012 - Pond5. Start here. If you are looking for a place to start submitting your stock video footage I would highly recommend starting with Pond5. It's generous 50/50 royalty and ease of submission will take the pain out of getting started. You'll be online and able to sell quickly!
Pond5 was the first site I began to submit to after I canceled my exclusive contract with iStockphoto. Contrasting Pond5 with iStockphoto is like contrasting night and day!
Where iStockphoto is hard and tedious, Pond5 is easy! Where iStockphoto is selective, Pond5 takes anything and near everything. There is no lengthy submission process and your application is accepted pronto! Rejections of submitted clips are rare - at least compared to my 70% acceptance rate at istockphoto. After 1500 footage submissions (I used to upload multiple formats of the same clip, don't do that) I had my first rejected clips last year. I love to experiment there with new subjects and ideas - footage I would normally not submit to my other sales agencies. I love Pond5! It the majority of my sales come form Pond5.
Pond5's back-end has lots of options for maximizing your time and effort by offering a well done working interface. Use it for setting your clip prices, key-wording and applying the same data to multiple clips. You can inspect clips recently uploaded, clips waiting for review and clips online in volume and sorted by views, sales, file name, title, etc. It's takes some getting used to and I'm still discovering it's many features.
Click for large view
Pond5 has a helpful staff which usually responds to questions and technical problems promptly.
Pros
Easy Enrollment
Helpful Staff
Templates for easy key-wording
Reasonable review times
Thumbnails changed in site
Seller can set the price for clip
Cons
Lots of competition as entry level is low
Limited curation of content, lots of
Royalty: 50% to the seller
Exclusivity: Not offered
Ease of upload: FTP and HTTP
Ease of submission: Easy
Editorial footage: Accepted
Pricing: Seller can set the price of clips and re-price
Multiple formats: Accepted but no automatic conversion