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

After the 2025 bonus code from Adobe expired, I continued my photography plan using my credit card.

After receiving the 2026 bonus code, I followed the instructions and switched to a one-year Pro plan. I thought my old plan would be automatically canceled, but it turns out I had to cancel it myself. Therefore, this month I was forced to use both the Adobe bonus membership and my old membership, paying for the service charged to my credit card. (I canceled it immediately upon realizing this.)

Please check your own plans. If you haven't canceled your old plan yet, like me, you are still paying for it.

I use DaVinci for editing my videos to sell on stock photo sites. (I mute the sound, cut the beginning and end, sometimes use image stabilization, and remove noise from night photos.) It's quite sufficient for these tasks.

I used to use Adobe Premiere for client shoots (weddings, promotions, simple commercials). After getting used to DaVinci, I started doing these with it as well. (I don't use many colors, but they always recommend DaVinci for color correction anyway.)

Currently, I use the desktop version of Capcut for my social media clients. While it's not yet suitable for others, it's very simple and fast to use for social media content. It gives quite good results. But I haven't tried it for stock photos. (I don't trust its export version yet.)

By the way, I'm a photographer; video is always secondary for me. What I've written only reflects my own experiences.

Hello,

I live in Turkey, and this experience I'm about to describe applies to Turkey.

When I access Shutterstock from my computer as a customer, the results are displayed as "All images." However, when I access Shutterstock from my phone as a customer, only "Unlimited" images are displayed. It's necessary to select "All images" from the filters.

Many customers are unaware of this, and even if they don't subscribe to an unlimited subscription, they only see "Unlimited" content in the search results, leading them to make their selections from there. Therefore, those who don't provide content for unlimited subscriptions see a significant decrease in their income.

If Shutterstock were a company managed from Turkey, it would face very large fines from the Competition Authority under Turkish law. They can display "Unlimited" images in searches, but this should be a user-selective option. "All images" should be displayed first on the search page. By displaying "Unlimited" images, they are showing leniency to a small number of participants who accept it, while penalizing those who don't, thus violating competition and committing a crime.

If they were in Turkey, I would file a complaint. But I don't know how or where to file a complaint from here in the USA. If US law also allows competition, they will consider the complaint.

It's unbelievable. But editorial photos aren't being reviewed. I submitted photos from a sailing race on January 31st. Dreamstime immediately paid an extra $5. Some of those photos were sold, but they're still pending review on Shutterstock.

They're not among those rejected and added to the catalog. They're just waiting. The next race is coming up. I'll be shooting it this weekend. What are they waiting for?

(By the way, I have a lot of sailing photos and they sell a lot.)

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on January 06, 2026, 23:17

Quote from: BT1976 on January 06, 2026, 21:21
"He didn't take 25,500 photos."
"He uploaded 25,500 photos."
If he's been involved in photography for a long time, it's perfectly normal for him to have even more photos in his archive.

What if his grandparents were photographers and he inherited their stock, what if he had bought a stock of millions of photos, what if he had a body with 18 arms, 9 heads, 18 eyes and 50 cameras, and if he came from the planet Mars... Yes, anything is possible!

I'm sorry. We have different perspectives on photography.

Yuri Arcurs added 1,236,635 photos to Dreamstime in 4 years. Maybe he also took a series of photos, or maybe the photos were inherited.

It's important not to judge anyone without knowing their efforts to earn money. Here, we all have the same goal: to make a living from the visuals and videos we shoot or produce.

I hope everyone here always earns a lot.

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on January 06, 2026, 18:03

Quote from: sinandogan on January 06, 2026, 13:25

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on January 06, 2026, 12:20

Quote from: sinandogan on January 06, 2026, 07:35
Despite all the negativity, Adobe is promising for me. Since I started uploading products at the end of 2022, I've seen my sales increase every year.

2023 -> 102 downloads and $134
2024 -> 217 downloads and $226
2025 -> 491 downloads and $599

From the beginning to the present, there are a total of 860 downloads and $1006.


I know these numbers might seem quite low and ridiculous to some, but they offer hope for the future.

My portfolio currently consists of 25,500 photographs and 1,060 videos. It mainly features travel and landscape photography and videos.

My goal now is to make more than $1,000 in sales by 2026.

Your RPI (royalties per image/video) is around $0.023. And you tell that it's worth the time and (eventual) skill?
To earn a very low income of $8/hour, you have to spend maximum 6 seconds/image or video.
I think you are ready (or already) for AI prompting and flooding.

My RPI on Adobe is around 45x more! And I can tell you that I consider it low...

No, there's no income right now that would justify the effort. But I mentioned that it's increasing steadily. I live in Turkey, and the economy here is very bad. Even an extra $300-400 a month is a very good amount. I earn my living from other jobs, and stock websites are a source of extra income for me.

25,500 images in 3 years... Wow. I suppose your images are pieces of art... or maybe you only shoot in burst mode and send tons of these pictures.
Hem, well, maybe you only use a smartphone. Strange world today... Really...

"He didn't take 25,500 photos."

"He uploaded 25,500 photos."

If he's been involved in photography for a long time, it's perfectly normal for him to have even more photos in his archive.

The emails informing me of my level-up always arrived earlier than expected. Sometimes 15 photos or 10 videos ahead. I always reached those numbers afterward, but I was never entirely sure.

Now that it's the end of the year, it's up to you to determine this. I'll be eagerly watching to see if 16 video sales will be achieved by December 31st.

(Could it be that, like on Depositphotos, "subscriber sales" and "sales on demand" differ in the total number?)

Things are getting increasingly difficult. PayPal doesn't work in Turkey. We are forced to use only Payoneer.

"We're updating when the annual account fee will be charged
12 Ara 2025
Hi Berkin

Starting February 23, 2026, we'll be updating when the annual account fee will be charged.
You'll be charged this fee only if you receive less than 6,000 USD (or equivalent) in any 12 consecutive months. The 12-month period considered will include the time before February 23, 2026.

If you're on a paid annual plan, you won't pay this fee in the first year of the plan.

As soon as the update takes effect, you'll see the updated fee details on the Fees page of your Payoneer account.

Click here to learn more

Thanks for choosing Payoneer."

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 12, 2025, 19:17

Quote from: BT1976 on December 12, 2025, 13:45
I check every month to make sure there are no mistakes.

In Alamy Image Manager, go to "Attributes" from the menu at the top, and at the very bottom of the menu that opens, you'll find "Exclusive Alamy". If you select that and an image appears, correct it immediately and disable the Exclusive Alamy feature in the settings.

Have you ever found one that you didn't mark? I'm asking because there was no reason for me to do that, but I could have hit a wrong button. There are a few other people that have told me, they never marked anything exclusive and they think that Alamy did that. Considering mine was really old, maybe when Alamy did the transition from the old system, to the new?

Have you ever found one, or are you happy, just being careful

I'm just checking to make sure. I haven't found any Alamy exclusive content so far. (I have 19,335 images).

I'm checking to make sure I don't accidentally select "Alamy Exclusive" when marking editorial content. (Sometimes I drink alcohol while working on the computer )

I check every month to make sure there are no mistakes.

In Alamy Image Manager, go to "Attributes" from the menu at the top, and at the very bottom of the menu that opens, you'll find "Exclusive Alamy". If you select that and an image appears, correct it immediately and disable the Exclusive Alamy feature in the settings.

It just sold for $0.26. I wonder how much lower it will go?

Or is it heading towards Shutterstock?

When I looked at the earnings details in PDF format, there was an additional $100.64 in "fixed usage fees" for connect sales.

Does anyone know what this is?

It's only 20% compared to 2024. When I look at "Other Payment," I see two different payments. One for video, the other for photos, I think.

I thought it wouldn't be as much as last year. But I never expected it to be this low. At this rate, we'll either get nothing or $3-5 in 2026.

The "Firefly Contributor Bonus" winnings were deposited on September 17, 2024.

Will the same payment be made this year?

I earned the same amount as in July 2024. But in the last year, I've added 1,000 photos and 100 videos to my portfolio.

A photo RRP is $1, and a video RRP is $1.12. (This is the first time I've sold so many photos for over $4. Most of them are from France.)

Quote from: SimonSays on June 24, 2025, 22:26
Everybody excited about their nickel and dime. It's like tossing treats at children.

I live in Türkiye and the extra few hundred dollars I earn goes a long way towards my budget.

The minimum wage in Türkiye is around $500 a month

I also only see those who were selected last year. None of them have changed since last year. Probably tomorrow the newly selected ones will appear. Because money was added to the accounts on June 24th last year and the visuals appeared.

I received an email from Shutterstock saying the payments were sent. However, I did not receive an email from Payoneer stating that the money had been sent. When I checked my Payoneer account last night, I saw that the payment had been transferred to my account as of June 11th.

I also sold 23 vertical videos on istock in 1 day. I would have been excited if it was before, but now I feel like these sales are from China and I will earn 0.03 per video.


Shutterstock sales are going pretty well in June. RPD was $0.58.

Adobe sales numbers are down but there were a few high-earning sales. I think it will be a better month than the previous months when we get paid for free content towards the end of the month.

Everything is ok. But there is something we missed.

Right now, as a buyer on Shutterstock, when we search for an image we want to buy, the first image that appears is "those who allow unlimited downloads". In other words, it shows the images of "those who allow" to each customer first. If the customer selects "All images", they can see all of them.

This hides the images that are not niche but simple and very popular. If all customers do not know this and are looking for "apple on a white background", the first images that appear are "those who allow unlimited downloads" and the customer will buy one of them.

This is actually a small penalty for those who do not accept.

Try it. Enter the site as a customer. Search for many different images and videos. If you did not allow it, your products will definitely not be visible at first. However, if you select "All images", you can reach them.

$69.08 in participant funds was transferred to my account. I have both a photo and video portfolio. I don't know which one they deposited participant funds for.

May is going badly for me at Adobe. While istock and shutterstock are making the same stable sales, depositphotos has left Adobe behind in both sales and earnings this month.

As of May 13, Adobe has fallen to 4th place.

(Also, the photos I took for Ramadan are still waiting to be reviewed. I hope they won't be reviewed for another 9 months and will be available for sale in time for Ramadan 2026. )

They were sending our payments regularly between the 15th and 18th of each month. The February payment has not been sent yet. The information section says "Upcoming". There is also a warning saying "Final amount may vary due to payment processor fees". My payment method is Payoneer.

Is there anyone else who has not received their payment this month like me or is there a problem with my account?

Depositphotos The ai payment was made as "Special Sale" on August 2, 2024. I have both photos and videos in my portfolio. I don't know which one it was made for.