How To: Make Money from Your iPhone Photos

While the majority of photos taken on phones are used for personal reasons, mediums like Instagram and Flickr offer a means to show them off to the world. But those pictures of your brunch or beach day can actually go beyond that to make you some money.

While apps like Foap and Scoopshot have been out for sometime, it's really difficult to actually sell a photo on them. That's where Snapwire comes in.

Snapwire is the newest app to the photo-market game which allows you to connect and sell your iPhone pics with other mobile photographers, businesses, and brands that need creative imagery, with a higher payout and less restrictions than other apps. Plus, its interface looks great, compared to similar apps like ImageBrief.

Build Your Snapwire Profile

Snapwire for iOS is very straightforward to set up; just login with your Facebook or email account. On your profile, you can upload photos or tap on the three-line menu to access other parts of the application (which we'll get to later).

Begin by uploading your photos from either your iPhone's Camera, Camera Roll, or third-party cloud apps like Dropbox, Google Drive, Facebook, and Flickr.

Tapping on one of your uploaded photos will show more details about it, including size, orientation, license type, and more.

Once you upload four photos, Snapwire will ask you if you're ready to submit those photos in order to be nominated/purchased for points (to build your reputation) and real money.

Make Money from Challenges

From Requests in the slide out menu, you can view challenges for photo submission. If your picture is nominated, you can earn points that can be used to build up your reputation, and if your photo is purchased, you earn the amount of money for that challenge.

Tap on READ BRIEF to view more information about the challenge and to view inspiration photos. At the bottom, you can swipe left and right to view submitted images, those that have been purchased, and those that are nominated, just to get a gist of the competition.

The more you submit, the better your chances of getting nominated. The more you're nominated, the better your chance of getting a sale. Building up your profile is crucial, as you'll earn perks in order to make the entire process of selling your photographs easier, such as the ability to sell your photos directly to buyers (rather than go through nominations).

If you're someone who takes great photos from their smartphone (or DSLR), this is a great opportunity to engage with the photography community and earn some dough at the same time.