Quote from: Wilm on May 16, 2026, 19:44

Quote from: Uncle Pete on May 16, 2026, 18:13
Then take a look "Similar Images" their own content.  https://www.shutterstock.com/search/similar/1483126889

Fantastic!  :-(

Disgusting 

Shutterstock is dead for me as well, I have 20K+ videos and $10 in sales this month, but randomly got a $400 sale today, so that reminds me of the old times and gets me to $410 then 

Quote from: PeteStock on May 18, 2026, 17:12
Shutterstock is dead for me as well, I have 20K+ videos and $10 in sales this month, but randomly got a $400 sale today, so that reminds me of the old times and gets me to $410 then 

congrats on the big sale.  are you still sending them new files?

Has anyone managed to get in touch with a person in Shutterstock support? Some time ago, someone used to reply to me when I wrote directly to their mailbox. Now only a bot responds, and it's impossible to sort anything out. Have they fired everyone or what?

By the way, I have $106 this month, which is 4x less than the average of the last three months. We're going down!

Quote from: Micha91 on May 20, 2026, 08:51
Has anyone managed to get in touch with a person in Shutterstock support? Some time ago, someone used to reply to me when I wrote directly to their mailbox. Now only a bot responds, and it's impossible to sort anything out. Have they fired everyone or what?

By the way, I have $106 this month, which is 4x less than the average of the last three months. We're going down!

I actually tried when I figured out that all of my bestsellers lost their ranks to images by people who are part of the unlimited program. Just wanted to make them aware of it, as I don't feel like unlimited downloads should be counted the same for ranking.
But all I got was a reply from a bot. Lot's of "We are sorry you feel that way" and the claim I could just turn on unlimited downloads for my account (no, I can't, I have no such option in my account settings). Didn't really get me anywhere, as expected with AI bots. They never have any kind of info that you couldn't already find yourself somehere in the FAQ.

Quote from: Her Ugliness on May 20, 2026, 10:12

Quote from: Micha91 on May 20, 2026, 08:51
Has anyone managed to get in touch with a person in Shutterstock support? Some time ago, someone used to reply to me when I wrote directly to their mailbox. Now only a bot responds, and it's impossible to sort anything out. Have they fired everyone or what?

By the way, I have $106 this month, which is 4x less than the average of the last three months. We're going down!

I actually tried when I figured out that all of my bestsellers lost their ranks to images by people who are part of the unlimited program. Just wanted them to make aware of it, as I don't feel like unlimited downloads should be counted the same for ranking.
But all I got was a reply from a bot. Lot's of "We are sorry you feel that way" and the claim I could just tun on unlimited downloads for my account (no, I can't). Didn't really get me anywhere, as expected with AI bots. They never have any kind of info that you couldn't already find yourself somehere in the FAQ.

I am in the exact same situation, and I had many supersellers. My best bestseller sold over 26,000 times, but now it's somewhere rotting in the depths of Unlimited content. I still don't have access to Unlimited, and it seems to me it's only a matter of time before sales are generated solely by Unlimited accounts. I don't even want to contact them anymore to being added to this Unlimited program because every time they respond with the same sh*tty template email.

Now I have a new problem - they are rejecting animations I send after render ends, claiming they were uploaded to another author's account, and they're threatening to close my account, haha . Talking to a bot is pointless.

as i said i stopped contributing but i'm pretty close to actually disabling my account.  today's sales:

- 8 images
- $0.81

i'm at level 4.  this is nothing new from ss but the complete lack of any larger sales with almost no exception has made this utterly a depressing site to even bother checking.  i haven't made it to a payout yet this month meanwhile adobe has earned 2x the entire MONTH on ss just today and yesterday as well and the day before it was 4x the entire month on ss.  all 8 of the images sold are not easy to get drone shots that not too many other people have.  they have value and earn real money occasionally on other sites.  i'm gonna wait a month or two but i don't think ss deserves to make money from my work.

Quote from: Micha91 on May 20, 2026, 08:51
Have they fired everyone or what?

Now that would be such a 'darn' shame.

edit. MSG forum doesn't like naughty words.

I left last month and deleted my whole portfolio. No regrets, just relieve.

In 2025, they made participant fund payments on May 27th. I'm eagerly waiting to see if payments will be made this year.

Quote from: SimonSays on May 20, 2026, 21:02
I left last month and deleted my whole portfolio. No regrets, just relieve.

That's a great idea! It's about time I closed most of my accounts, too. There's not much sense in allocating resources to this industry anymore.

Yesterday I made 10 cents, 5000 assets. So proud of my accomplishments.

Quote from: Mantis on May 21, 2026, 11:22
Yesterday I made 10 cents, 5000 assets. So proud of my accomplishments.

Just to put that into perspective: I made 32 cents with Meta monetization yesterday, with just 1 asset .

Quote from: Mantis on May 21, 2026, 11:22
Yesterday I made 10 cents, 5000 assets. So proud of my accomplishments.

6537 and I don't bother looking on Saturday which is "No Sales Saturday" for me, for years now.

May 2026 is my first month this year on Shutterstock I have earned over $100. Overall for the year it is still a bit behind Storyblocks but if the trend continued to change I would be considering again to upload some clips to Shutterstock. Will see how it goes though. 

Quote from: Pacesetter on May 27, 2026, 04:23
May 2026 is my first month this year on Shutterstock I have earned over $100. Overall for the year it is still a bit behind Storyblocks but if the trend continued to change I would be considering again to upload some clips to Shutterstock. Will see how it goes though.

I had 156$ last month at SS, now I have 12.6$, complete chaos.

Quote from: yuriy on May 19, 2026, 01:04

Quote from: PeteStock on May 18, 2026, 17:12
Shutterstock is dead for me as well, I have 20K+ videos and $10 in sales this month, but randomly got a $400 sale today, so that reminds me of the old times and gets me to $410 then 

congrats on the big sale.  are you still sending them new files?

Well, I have them anyway, so why not I guess. But to be honest, I am lagging in uploads, cause of the 100 videos per week upload limit.

3,400 stock photos used to make a reasonable $300 per month on average

$9.43 as of May 30th stopped getting monthly payouts January 2026 

So yeah shittystock really screwed it.