Sales and payment help page

We will pay you when your cleared balance is over $75. ‘Cleared’ means we’ve been paid by the customer.

We start the payment process on the 1^st working day of each month, it may take up to nine working days for the funds to reach your account.

We can pay you in USD, GBP or EUR via PayPal or funds transfer. You can update how you get paid under the ‘Account Settings’ section of your Contributor Dashboard.

See this handy guide on how to understand your Balance of Account page.

A payment reminder is needed as once saved we only store your payment details on a secure offline server; so they’ll not be visible in your account. The reminder should help you remember what account you added. For example, ‘my current account’.

For security reasons we don’t display your full bank details externally or internally. They’re only stored on a secure offline server which is why a payment reminder reference is important. If you want to check or amend then you’ll need to enter your payment details again.

Cleared means we’ve been paid by the customer.  Because we show you sales as they happen you can also see sales we’re waiting to be paid for (uncleared). The time it takes for a sale to clear depends on the customer but it’s usually between 45 days and 4 months (or up to 6 months for Distribution sales).

If you’re registered for VAT in the UK you can enter your VAT details when you register for an account, or later in your Account Settings. We’ll email you a self billing invoice each time we pay you. If you’re not registered for VAT in the UK don’t worry about this, VAT won’t affect you.

We don’t provide any tax forms or require that you fill them out, it’s up to you to declare any earnings you make from us. If you’re not sure, we recommend you contact your local tax office.

There is no set price you’ll earn per image, the price will depend on the customer and the end use. The average license price on Alamy is $35.

You can check if you’ve made a sale in My Alamy under Sales History. We report sales as they happen and we have some great tools to help you compare your sales year-on-year.

We can’t always give you full details of who used your image and what they used it for because of confidentiality agreements we have with our customers. You can see some information about what your image has been used for in your Sales History in My Alamy.

The time it takes for our customers to report image uses varies depending on what industry they’re in. This can mean they don’t tell us they’ve used an image until the end of a month, quarter or publishing cycle. If you’ve seen an image being used, and it hasn’t appeared in your sales history within 4 months (or 6 months for a distributor sale), then please let us know by filling in our unauthorised use form which you’ll find on your contributor dashboard and we’ll follow it up.

You can find a copy of the Alamy commission table here. There are 4 tiers and the commission you receive will be based on the specific tier you are in: 

Bronze – 15% to contributor, 85% to Alamy 

Silver – 20% to contributor, 80% to Alamy 

Gold – 40% to contributor, 60% to Alamy 

Platinum – 50% to contributor, 50% to Alamy ((when images are exclusive to Alamy and qualifying criteria are met see Clause 13.14)

All contributors are automatically put into Silver tier when they sign up. At the end of each Revenue Year the tier you are in will be calculated as follows: 

If your total Licence Fees, net of any refunds, exceeds the threshold for the tier you are currently in during the Revenue Year, then you will automatically move up to the next corresponding tier. The commission on the new threshold will apply to future sales during the Revenue Year.

The Revenue Year runs from the 12 month period starting on the 1st September every year and ending 31st August the following calendar year.

Your gross sales exclude any ‘other income’ payments, so for example DACS and ASCRL payments would not be included in your gross sales. 

The exclusivity of your images does not affect which commission rate you are on unless you are in the Platinum tier. 

If you’re a student photographer, you can get 100% commission – visit our student page to find out more. 

Some of our customers report usages to us over a period of time which can be several months.

If the sale doesn’t show in your report within 4 months for a regular customer (or 6 months for a distributor), or if you suspect there’s been an infringement (there is no license in place or there is a license mismatch) you can use the Infringements form found here when logged into your account (or from your dashboard access the form under “Report an unauthorised use”).