Like consumers flocking to Wal-Mart during the economic downturn, photo buyers are spending their money on micropayment stock images.

Leading microstock site iStockphoto expects to record revenues of $200 million in 2009, not quite double last year’s performance, chief operating officer Kelly Thompson said in a recent interview.

The Getty Images-owned site, which licenses photos, illustrations, audio clips and videos, is preparing to launch a new, higher-priced image collection, called Vetta. IStock is also touting a major upgrade to its search engine, and recently surpassed 5 million images in its library.

The new Vetta collection is launching with 35,000 images priced at 20 to 70 credits per image depending on the file size, compared to 1 to 27 credits for most photographs on the site. (Credits, the currency of iStock, vary in price depending on how many a customer buys, but generally cost a little more than $1.)

The idea is to charge more for unique images that cost more to create. “Customers seem to really understand that some images are more expensive to produce,” Thompson says.

Vetta images are submitted on an opt-in basis by iStock Exclusive contributors—photographers and illustrators who have agreed to work with iStock only—and must be accepted by iStock’s review team.

The higher price puts iStock in the same league as some discount royalty-free image distributors, such as Getty-owned PunchStock.

IStock also recently rolled out a new search algorithm called Best Match 2.0. The new system considers the keyword history associated with each image, giving higher priority to words that led to a sale. It has also been adapted to consider regional language differences, so a customer in Germany who searches for "beer" sees different images than a customer in Mexico searching for the same term. A search for the word "lorry" in the U.S. automatically returns a page of search results for "truck."

IStock has been going at a rapid clip since Getty Images acquired it for $50 million three years ago. In 2006, iStock’s revenue was $22 million and in 2007 it was $72 million. Revenues for 2008 were not disclosed, but as of late 2007 they were projected to be $122 million.



No microstock agencies publicly report their finances. However, executives at competing sites, including Fotolia and ShutterStock, have said they are managing to grow during the ongoing recession.

No one disputes that iStock is the largest of such companies. “Our best guess is we’re still twice as big as all our competitors combined,” Thompson said.

It has been a bad year for stock photography, as the recession has been especially cruel to media and advertising businesses that buy images. Dozens of staff have been laid off at Getty Images, Corbis and Jupiterimages (which was recently acquired by Getty). All U.S. stock agencies are now privately held, so financial data is in short supply.

IStock, which is based in Calgary, Alberta, has made a point of trumpeting its successes, however. The company boasts that it pays $1.2 million a week in royalties to contributors.

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