When you’re working on microstocks and it’s time to receive your earnings, usually you have 3 options: Skill, PayPal and Payoneer. Sometimes the choice could be simple, as when only 1 option works in your country. However, the choice might be as complex as using different providers for different agencies. Usually, the difference between these providers is fees in getting the money out of them. In this blogpost we’re going to shed some light on what you can use and why.
Skrill
Skrill is a service for gambling industry, which conveniently enough is adopted by many microstock agencies. The gist of this service is that you can create a Skrill account and then you can accumulate (and use) money there. For a separate fee they will create you a virtual visa debit card, which you can use for your purchases online. Getting money out, though, is a subject to different fees, which range from 5 EUR for SWIFT transfer in EU to whooping 4% for other kinds of transfers. Your account is also a subject to “inactivity fee” of 5 EUR every month in case you did not do any transactions in the last half a year. In case your account’s currency is not equal to the payout currency (remember, some microstock agencies pay only in USD), Skrill will use their own exchange rates and you would also need to pay currency conversion fee of 4%.
As you can see, Skrill is not the best option in terms of keeping your microstock money in one piece.
PayPal
PayPal is another popular choice for withdrawing microstock earnings. PayPal is more friendly in terms of fees, if you live in a right country and you are using right bank. In such case, you can withdraw your money for free and the only fees you will pay is the draconian exchange rates (of up to 2.5%) between USD and your local currency. However, this is infinitely less than, for example, Skrill fees. In case you’re withdrawing money not to your bank account directly, but to a card, linked to your PayPal account, more fees might apply, but they depend on the card itself.
Other benefits you can get with PayPal is the fact that there are many services (e.g. Ebay and Etsy) that are well integrated to PayPal and you might use some of the money without withdrawing them.
Payoneer
Payoneer is probably the only service that initially started as the online bank for freelancers, but now it’s not much different from others. Like Skrill, Payoneer also provides you with a bank card and like PayPal, it has lowish withdrawal fees. Withdrawal fees are fixed $1.5 for withdrawals in the same currency and 3% for withdrawals in other currency. Payoneer has a lot of integrations for freelancers, for example with Fiverr and Upwork. It also has a referral program where you can get “free” $25 once, but it’s hardly a big advantage.
Microstock payout options
Shutterstock interface to select a payment provider
Microstock agencies allow you to configure payout provider and minimum payout threshold. But themselves, they usually have a minimum threshold too. The industry standard nowadays is $25, but there’re some exceptions, notably Dreamstime which is one of the lowest earners for everyone, but has the highest payout threshold.
| Agency | Minimum payout threshold |
|---|---|
| Adobe Stock | $25 |
| Depositphotos | $25 |
| Shutterstock | $25 |
| Dreamstime | $100 |
| 123RF | $50 |
| Pond5 | $25 |
| Alamy | $50 |
| Creative Market | $20 |
Which one to choose
It could be just that there’s only a single provider available in your country then you have no choice. But other things being equal, see if the bank you’re using has a better integration with PayPal or Payoneer. However, it might be most beneficial to use few of the providers to minimize the fees. If the microstock agency pays in your local currency (e.g. Adobe Stock can pay in EUR), then use PayPal and transfer money for free to your bank account. For other currencies, check who has lower fees for that particular currency. If you know you will be using money on partner websites (e.g. Ebay for PayPal or Upwork for Payoneer), there’s another possibility to optimize there. As somebody says, “paying taxes is an obligation, paying low taxes is an art”.
