LGBTQ + ?? Realy
Are you proud of that?
My friend, homosexuality is a relapse in human nature
You should never be proud of this! It’s a disaster!
God, the Almighty, the Creator, who created us, is angry with humans for this sin
He destroyed the villages of the people of Lot, as is well known, because of their denial of the Messengers and because they committed that immorality!

I totally agree my friend!! I gave up, was useless!!

I used to love Shutterstock as a designer but am increasingly displeased with them as a contributor. I shoot stock just for the love of shooting. I recently had my storage drive totally blow up and when I requested access to download my own images I was told I had to buy a subscription as a contributor, pay the subscription price but let them know I was downloading my own content so that it was not counted as income. I haven’t uploaded a single image since.

Now I have about 800 images (I know this is miniscule compared to the thousands of images that some photographers have in their catalogs, but I don’t shoot fulltime anymore and stock doesn’t pay what it used to, so time is of the essence), on file with Dreamstime, istock, Shutterstock, Adobe/Folotila and used to work with Alamy, but they didn’t get a lot of action, and, like every other photographer on these same sites, I’m making pennies on the dollar and spending hundreds of hours to barely earn a $50.00 monthly royalty payment. It’s ridiculous. I don’t shoot commercial any more, just fine art and occasional assignment work, so I simply shoot stock to keep my hand in it, but still, time is time, and a lot of it is being wasted shooting stock. I’m rethinking the whole process.

In order to make a “living” at stock, you need thoooouuusands of images in circulation, and ideally, have a one-on-one relationship with one of the agency’s art directors to work with you to help produce shoots, which, frankly, I don’t know if they even do that anymore, but they did.

I may try exploring a couple of the other stock sites mentioned, but the result will likely be that. Sure, the royalty might be higher, but they are lesser known sites with fewer sales so it all evens out in the end. You’re not really earning any more money than you are now, but you may be saving a lot of shooting and editing time to get the same financial reward. Maybe that’s the way to go, I don’t know. I do know that I haven’t uploaded an image to any of the sites I’m on in at least two months because it’s become so discouraging.

I can assure you this isn’t paid content, Henry. While we have affiliate links across the site, nothing on here has been sponsored, nor is it biased. The content of this article has been thoroughly researched, although we do appreciate your feedback!

Shutterstock was paying around $.30 for download, and last year they brought it down to $.10.
Depositphotos also brought their earnings down.

Unless you have thousands of photos in your portfolio, your earnings on these sites will be pretty low.

Ok, I’ll reel it back in a little. Sorry mate. These are my views, based on personal experiences with both Getty and Shutterstock.

Shutterstock now gives contributors 0.10c per image. It’s not much use talking percentages like they do because , Shutterstock refuse to tell contributors how much an image actually sold for.

Yes, contributors can work towards “higher levels” according to the number of their images sold. These ‘levels’ see them earning into the thirty-cents-per-image-sold bracket. However, all contributors, no matter how long they have been a contributor and no matter how hard they work, get their levels reset to the base 10 cents per image sold on 1 January each and every year. Happy New Year. As an aside, the CEO of Shutterstock received a record bonus this past financial year. What a surprise.

On the subject of Getty, and like Shutterstock, they also refuse to reveal the selling price of images. You’ve indicated “$150 for a small image sold” and then mention the contributing photographer gets 20%. However, you didn’t mention in the Getty section that most all buyers buy using the subscription model, allowing them to pay well under $1 for each image. Therefore this supports my experience and those voicing their disgust on many forums, that the yield from Getty is one of the worse at, as low as, 0.03c per image. Getty also contractually bind contributors to be “exclusive” so no chance of improving sales on the same images elsewhere.