Account balance

[Chicago]

Hi everyone 👋, just a quick question about my alamy account balance. I have been with alamy for just over 2 years. In that time I have not sold many photos as the numbers of photos I had loaded up to alamy were low in number, I had started to make more of an effort in the recent year and started to see a rise in the number of sales, and to date I have sold $134 worth of photos and taking into account alamy's commission (60%) that should have left me with a account balance of a little over $53 and should have then met the account balance required to trigger a payment from alamy. This never happened and I have never in all my time with alamy received any payments whatsoever or at all. so I emailed alamy and was shocked to have a reply from a customer service representative saying my account balance is only $24 and has not met the required $50 trigger amount and also saying I will have to sell more photos 😯 how is this possible when I am looking on my alamy account balance and it clearly states that I have had a total of 7 sales and my account balance is $134 ?. is there something I am missing here or have alamy made a mistake ?. Kind regards

[Skyscraperfan]

What is the cleared balance at the moment? It usually is below the account balance. So if the balance is at $53, but the cleared balance is still below $50, you might still have to wait.

[DJ Myford]

Go to your dashboard and see what it indicates for Cleared balance. You can get further details by clicking the Account balance button. Funds do not clear until Alamy has been paid by the customer, so if your cleared balance is below $50 you are not due a payment.

 

[Chicago]

Hi folks, thanks for your replies, on my account the total sales to date states 7 sales and $134 in total sales, and before I mailed customer services the cleared account balance was $45 (which was still under what it should have been for $134 worth of sales, should have been $53) but now today and since mailing customer support it still states total sales 7 equaling $134, but the current cleared balance has gone from $45 to $24. I just think something is badly going wrong with the alamy account balance

[DJ Myford]

You need to click the Account balance button and enter the appropriate date range to see details. The drop in balance probably indicates that a sale has been refunded. Balance may be lower than you expect due to sales being made via a distributor. All of that will be in the detailed statement.

[Steve F]

5 minutes ago, Chicago said:

Hi folks, thanks for your replies, on my account the total sales to date states 7 sales and $134 in total sales, and before I mailed customer services the cleared account balance was $45 (which was still under what it should have been for $134 worth of sales, should have been $53) but now today and since mailing customer support it still states total sales 7 equaling $134, but the current cleared balance has gone from $45 to $24. I just think something is badly going wrong with the alamy account balance

 

Click on 'Download Sales report' on your Alamy Dashboard. Set the date range for 2 years. Hopefully that should explain what's going on

[Chicago]

Hi, yeah, did the account balance button and chose all sales, and taking into account a sale that was refunded and then bought again for half the price the total sales still add upto $134

[Chicago]

Hi, yeah, did the account balance button and chose all sales (so all the photos I have sold to date) , and taking into account a sale that was refunded and then bought again for half the price the total sales still add upto $134

[NYCat]

Are you looking all the way to the right to see which sales are marked "cleared"? Alamy has to be paid first before we get our money.

 

Paulette

[Chicago]

 Think I have just figured out why my balance is so low, alamy are now charging a image submission fee of $2 for each image submitted 😯😯😯 so not only are they charging 60% commission they are now also charging a submission fee of $2 for each photo people submit to alamy 😡 I'm sorry but that is ridiculous, time for me to stop submitting photos I think 🤔🤨

[DJ Myford]

Submission and storage fees were part of an obsolete membership plan. Recently some members were charged storage fees in error, so if you are seeing submission fees you should query it with Alamy.

[Chicago]

25 minutes ago, DJ Myford said:

You need to click the Account balance button and enter the appropriate date range to see details. The drop in balance probably indicates that a sale has been refunded. Balance may be lower than you expect due to sales being made via a distributor. All of that will be in the detailed statement.

 

24 minutes ago, Steve F said:

 

Click on 'Download Sales report' on your Alamy Dashboard. Set the date range for 2 years. Hopefully that should explain what's going on

 

[Chicago]

Yeah thanks for the replies again, yeah they charging me submission fee's, and yeah I will certainly take this up with alamy as I would hardly say my account is dormant 

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Chicago said:

 Think I have just figured out why my balance is so low, alamy are now charging a image submission fee of $2 for each image submitted 😯😯😯 so not only are they charging 60% commission they are now also charging a submission fee of $2 for each photo people submit to alamy 😡 I'm sorry but that is ridiculous, time for me to stop submitting photos I think 🤔🤨

 

beyond the non contractual fees, a little note that 60% is only the charge of Alamy's commission.  Plenty of licences also has charges for additional intermediary like distributors and affiliates, so even without the error, it would be possible that $134 would have resulted in less than $50 net.

 

and also as of today, an estimated half of contributors will be charged 80% commission by Alamy. 

Edited July 1, 2022 by meanderingemu

[Diana Sanchez]

On 01/07/2022 at 05:43, Chicago said:

 Think I have just figured out why my balance is so low, alamy are now charging a image submission fee of $2 for each image submitted 😯😯😯 so not only are they charging 60% commission they are now also charging a submission fee of $2 for each photo people submit to alamy 😡 I'm sorry but that is ridiculous, time for me to stop submitting photos I think 🤔🤨

As I read in one post the submission charging would be from July 24th, why Alamy started now? Really submission charging?

[Chicago]

Meanderingemu... 😮 80% 😶😮😮 I'm sorry but that is just plain crazy, and I'm also sorry but alamy are already charging too much commission at 60%, i cant remember for sure but I think they charged 30 or 40% when I first signed up to alamy. It's hardly worth my while or effort of taking the photos and loading them up and tagging them as it is. And i finally manage to get $134 and cleared balance of $45, then contact customer support to question the cleared balance of $45. Then look at my cleared balance again and went down to $24 as since contacting alamy customer support they have now decided to charge me $2 for every photo I submit to QC (submission fee) it's just crazy. I feel as though I am being ripped off by some dodgy conman company. And I think if alamy continues to rip people off the contributors will come to the same conclusions as me and end their relationship with alamy. Does anyone know the commission Shutterstock ect charge ?. As I am seriously thinking of closing my alamy account.

[Chicago]

Yeah Alexander, it seems to be just me they have started to charge the $2 submission fee's ($2 per submission/photo), think this is because I had the audacity to politely question my account balance with alamy customer service 

[meanderingemu]

13 minutes ago, Chicago said:

Yeah Alexander, it seems to be just me they have started to charge the $2 submission fee's ($2 per submission/photo), think this is because I had the audacity to politely question my account balance with alamy customer service 

Quite a few reports of $2, all on July 1, and seems all Silver level which was introduced that day, so my guess is again Alamy introduced a system change with none or little testing to see if it went properly, and surprise "it doesn't ".  Also why would they have scheduled the change on a Friday so no one is going to address it immediately baffles me.

[Marianne]

10 hours ago, Chicago said:

Meanderingemu... 😮 80% 😶😮😮 I'm sorry but that is just plain crazy, and I'm also sorry but alamy are already charging too much commission at 60%, i cant remember for sure but I think they charged 30 or 40% when I first signed up to alamy. It's hardly worth my while or effort of taking the photos and loading them up and tagging them as it is. And i finally manage to get $134 and cleared balance of $45, then contact customer support to question the cleared balance of $45. Then look at my cleared balance again and went down to $24 as since contacting alamy customer support they have now decided to charge me $2 for every photo I submit to QC (submission fee) it's just crazy. I feel as though I am being ripped off by some dodgy conman company. And I think if alamy continues to rip people off the contributors will come to the same conclusions as me and end their relationship with alamy. Does anyone know the commission Shutterstock ect charge ?. As I am seriously thinking of closing my alamy account.

 

Good luck at that other place you need to make over 25,000 sales to get 40% - they start you at 10 cents a download (or 15% for some sales) each year no matter how well you did the year before. At least here you stay at 40% if you made $250 gross in the period from July 1- June 30 the year before. If you don't then it's down to 20%. Guess you missed the new contract - here's the commission info: https://www.alamy.com/blog/new-contributor-commission-structure#:~:text=If you sell more than,marked as exclusive to Alamy.