Answered

Drop in sales from september

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
November 27, 2025
4 replies
1939 views

Hello,

I'm writing because I've been experiencing a drop in sales for a few months now. Maybe this is caused by the fact that I started uploading photos from a different niche some months ago (around August and September). I started uploading photos from my previous niche again about a month ago, but I'm not seeing any difference compared to before. I still earn very few dollars per day (sometimes none).

Do you know how I can improve, and whether I will ever return to earning the same as before? Have you experienced something similar?

Thank you so much

Alessia

Correct answer ZALEZPHOTO

It's clear Adobe has shifted on accepting AI content. The buyer's site has become inundated with AI assets, that personally I find it annoying and selfdestructive in the long term. I suspect they had to put a brake to accepting at the same rate they have been, and are now shifting to accepting only exceptional work.

Frankly, It's hard for me to imagine creating 100 assets per day. My advice is that you focus on improving the quality of your assets, and the only way you can do that is by creating less and putting more time to perfect your final work.

Also, in my personal opinion, 20,000 assets to sell $150 per month is a poor sales percentage of your work.

I am willing to bet that if you make it a goal to create and upload 100-150 High Quality assets per month, your sales percentage will improve significantly.

Again I emphasize to you and everyone else experiencing decline in sales and higher rates of refusals that this trend is only happening with AI assets. With photos and videos I am experiencing steady growth in sales, good acceptance rates, and faster approval times.

S

SANALRENK

Inspiring

Sales and earnings are trending significantly downward. What's happening?

New uploads are being rejected: Similar content already exist in our collection

daniellei4510

Community Expert

U.S. federal holidays for one. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years.

Adobe Community Expert | If you aren't submitting your assets in sRGB, you probably didn't read the rules.

Jill_C

Community Expert

Adobe has always recommended a "slow but steady" approach to submissions rather than large batches, which will ensure that you're always adding new content to your portfolio. If your assets are AI generated (not "photos"), you should know that hundreds of thousands of new assets are added to the database every day, which means that competition in virtually every niche is fierce. Your challenge is to find a topic or theme that is not already over-represented.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer

A

Alexia1993Author

Hello,

Thank you for your reply!

I think that if Adobe recommends this approach, it seems to contradict my experience. I increased my upload volume almost a year ago, and from that point I saw my sales grow by about 100%. My monthly earnings went from around $80 to $150 simply by uploading 100 photos per day instead of 30.

I’ve found a fairly strong niche topic, so what makes this situation strange is that the drop in performance was sudden. It didn’t decline gradually over time, as you would expect when more contributors upload similar content—but instead it happened all at once.

Jill_C

Community Expert

A couple of months ago, Adobe changed the Generative AI filter on the filter panel in stock.adobe.com to be a "sticky filter". Now Buyers who want to always exclude Generative AI from their searches are saved the task of having to update the filter every time they search. It's possible that this filter change has been felt by AI contributors.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer

ZALEZPHOTO

Legend

It's very hard giving you feedback without more details like how many total number of assets you have, or your monthy sales, if they are real photos or AI.

I can say that if your niche was working, it's a good thing you started uploading that again.

Yes, daily sales are an important indicator. But more is seeing overall monthly growth.

My best advice is to set yourself ambitiuos and realistic goals fot the entire year and commit to uploading "Consistently" every month to reach your goal. Look at the world with a very curious eye, looking for what you haven't notice before.

I've uploaded many assets with people working and are not recognizable. Make it that it becomes hard to go out of your house and not comeback with at least 4 assets to upload.

What I am noticing is that the algorithm reacts with a domino effect, and my sales growing at a faster rate.

One more thinng, Adobe Stock and all the other stock houses, have been saturated with AI content, and if you take a closer

look at this forum you will see most assets are being rejected. So I suggest you focus on real photos and videos.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and everyone else!

ZALEZPHOTO

A

Alexia1993Author

Hi,

thank you for your reply.

I actually have a portfolio of about 20'000 images, all AI-generated (except for a couple). I’ve been uploading consistently every day for almost two years now. I started with around 30 uploads per day, then after a year I increased to about 100 per day. This helped me grow my sales to around $150 per month, with almost 60 downloads per week. Unfortunately, after September my sales dropped.

I’ve also noticed a significant increase in rejections for “similar content,” in addition to quality issues. Previously, my rejection rate was around 2% (mostly due to “quality problems”), but now it’s closer to 30%, and the reason is almost always “similar content,” while quality-related rejections remain roughly the same at about 5%.

Do you think that is it possible that Adobe Stock is no longer interpreting my niche correctly, since around 5,000 out of my 20'000 assets are not aligned with my current niche?

Thank you again,

Alessia

daniellei4510

Community Expert

By today's standards, 100 per day was excessive. Over a year ago, some "enterprising" contributors were submitting thousands of sloppy, unedited AI assets per week. Half of Adobe's database now consists of AI. Turns out, it wasn't photographers who needed to worry about AI pushing them aside, but AI competing with AI. I as well have only submitted AI assets and continue to do so, despite my sales last year being higher with fewer assets than they were this year with twice as many available. Consider it the new normal, and it's not likely to change going forward.

Adobe Community Expert | If you aren't submitting your assets in sRGB, you probably didn't read the rules.

RALPH_L

Community Expert

just keep uploading. best if different niche.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.