guides

How to sell photos online to make money

Are you passionate about photography? Do you like to make money with your photo? In this article, we will explain to you how to sell photos online! 

Following our previous article regarding how to sell art online, we would like to share a few more tips dedicated to photography as a relatively new contemporary art medium. It plays an innovative role in the art industry and goes hand in hand with digitalization. 

The 2 different ways to sell your photos are: selling digital images, and selling physical photo prints. Each is suitable for different artists who have different artistic goals and visions. You may make money both ways. At balthasart, our Artist Success Managers can offer you free consultations with advice if you are unsure which way is the best for you!

How to sell photos online: the easiest ways

One of the easiest and most popular ways of selling photos online is through stock photo websites such as Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, and iStock. While making potential sales, these stock photo websites also protect your works with licensing contracts as well as strong watermarks. This is a commonly used approach for digital images.

Online art galleries or marketplaces, on the other hand, is a great way of selling physical photography prints. They have much higher quality products and high exposures to potential clients who are actively looking to buy printed photography. SINGULART and balthasart are a couple of examples of online art galleries and marketplaces that sell photos online. 

Many professional photographers who have years of experience would also have their own website apart from multiple collaborations with other marketplaces or online art galleries. It allows artists to have full control of the design, and brings artists the full revenue from each sale. 

Where to sell photography prints online

There are many art marketplaces that are risk-free where you can sell photography prints online. The top 3 benefits of selling photography prints with an art marketplace are:

  • Dedicated page to present your portfolios
  • High exposure of your works
  • Easy-to-read statistics about your clicks and sales

On top of that, balthasart also offer additional services:

  • Free shipping for your sales
  • Art Success Managers at your service for advices and consultation
  • A community where all artists grow together their artistic careers

While considering which marketplace to sell photos on, it would be interesting to compare their pricing, percentage of commission and the services they offer. Meanwhile, certain websites have their niche targeting in the market in terms of the style, price, geographical location, and requirement of the photography. Balthasart, for example, is dedicated to sell affordable photography below 1000€ that are original with no more than 50 editions.

How to make more money with photography

If you are already showcasing your portfolio on balthasart, that is a great start!

Balthasart is a platform dedicated to affordable art that gives photographers an access to over 500k potential buyers across the European Union. This can help beginning photographers make money from selling their photography.

Apart from that, to make money from photography, it is also very important to have continuous learning and improvement of the skills through frequent practices and exchanging with your fellow photographers. Lastly, photo editing and retouching. Thanks to various digital and illustration tools available nowadays, photo editing can bring your creation to the next level.

We hope this article can provide more information to you regarding how to sell photos online and how to make money from your photography. If you would like to go one step further in your artistic career, apply here to become a balthasart artist, and we will accompany you towards your success.