123RF

Tobias Kvant

I was contacted the other day by 123RF, asking me to sell my fonts on their site. Anybody have experience with them?

George Thomas

No, and I would not consider doing so. A buyer can currently buy one of your fonts for as little as $7.50USD or maybe less. Their site makes it appear that they control pricing, not you.

Tobias Kvant

George Thomas said:

No, and I would not consider doing so. A buyer can currently buy one of your fonts for as little as $7.50USD or maybe less. Their site makes it appear that they control pricing, not you.

Thanks!

Thomas Phinney

The site is clearly not meaningfully curated, and in more than one regard. The categorizations are laughable, for a start.

André G. Isaak

I like the fact that they offer fonts in ".zip format".

Tural Alisoy

They also wrote to me. I accepted, joined, and the next morning asked for my account and fonts to be deleted. The management system is a mess. It is very disturbing.

John Butler

123RF, not to be confused with 205TF

Michael Rafailyk

There are some potential issues with such a stock markets in general, due to the fact that they don't specialize directly in fonts.

The packages.
If the package contains complete font family, client simply can't pick up some one style from that package. So the seller need to make a different packages trying to make everyone's happy, like "Complete family", "Just Regular", "Regular + Italic", trying to predict which style or combination will make a sense for client.

The license type.
The package means you need to place inside just files for Desktop, or for Webfont, and so on. Some markets recommend the seller to place there all the possible files, and they tell the client "Please use just Desktop's files" or what the license was purchased. In some other markets there is not even an option to choose the license type and the seller must to explain what he's selling. For the same reason, some such a markets do not provide a EULA.

Audience expectations of prices.
People who buying on a stock sites, expect everything at a very (ridiculous) low price. I saw some "Collection of 50 fonts" by $8. Maybe there is hastily done work containing only the English alphabet, I don't know.
Well, just forget about a value-destroying politics for a minute. Some other vendors where the seller's work may be presented, may ask the seller to set price in other markets no lower than theirs. That mean you need to keep the price for the typeface the same everywhere, that is logical, but that doesn't work well for stocks.

A sample text live preview.
In the reason most of stocks not specialize in fonts, they don't provide a live text preview using a font. The customer relies solely on promotional images provided by the seller, which most likely do not cover their specific needs. It's like a cat in a bag.
You hardly want to buy bread packed in a cardboard box, not knowing whether it is light or brown, whether it is sweet or salt, whether it is bread itself.

Ray Larabie

Reflecting on the evolution of font licensing, the pre-2010 era marked a time when selling fonts through stock services was quite feasible, primarily because sales were dominated by desktop licenses. The landscape has dramatically shifted since then. In the 2000s, I ventured into selling individual display fonts via stock services, but the returns were minimal. Although some of my free fonts remain accessible on a well-known stock site under a flat-rate agreement, the paradigm has indeed changed. Nowadays, any font distribution service that lacks embedded license options doesn't align with the current market demands and isn't a viable avenue.

Delve Withrington

I received the same invite from 123RF via email and no, I didn't sign up. Here it is (sender's name redacted):

Hello Delve Fonts!

I came across your impressive portfolio and was wondering if you would be interested to upload your collection to us at 123RF!

I’m ------ and a member of the 123RF Content Team. We are looking for talented Fonts contributors with some fantastic Fonts to be a part of our community. 

Here are 3 reasons why you should get onboard with us: 
Passive income - earning with Fonts is here to stay. Let us put your work in front of millions of users.
Fast approval - we will prioritize approving your content so it appears in your portfolio quickly.
The Bonus: If you upload more than 10 sets of fonts (fonts only) in your account within 14 days from the day you registered, you will be upgraded straight to 50% contributor commission rate.

Did my pitch get your attention? Great!

Start by registering as a contributor and;
Send us your userID by replying to us at this email address. 

We will get your account approved and ready to go!

Thanks! I will be waiting here for your reply.
###

James Hultquist-Todd

I got the same email. They said they found me on Instagram.

Vasily Draigo

They write several times, which is more alarming than attractive.

The Bonus: If you upload more than 10 sets of fonts (fonts only) in your account within 14 days from the day you registered, you will be upgraded straight to 50% contributor commission rate.

This generally looks ridiculous, I don’t know who and why we will do business with them, I don’t see any prospects for this service in our time.

JoyceKetterer

@James Hultquist-Todd the next time I'm inclined to feel guilty about neglecting our social media accounts I will remind myself of this benefit. 

Michael Rafailyk

So far I've only received two letters from them, and it looks like everyone will, it's just a matter of time. Therefore, I want to ask if it make sense to reply to this email in case of my refusal?

On the one hand, not responding at all (unless it's spam, of course) is not a good tone. Nobody likes it.

On the other hand, I remember another, very similar service, which I refused by email. Instead, it worked as a trigger for even more quality solicitation emails form them, which felt like pressure on the edge of spam.

Ray Larabie

Judging my the multiple emails I've received, I think the script is probably using a database generated by spidering various font sites. Noting the lack of personalization in the contact attempts, I don't see any reason to put any effort into crafting a response.