i had a very good month with rpd over 1.5 because of 3 large video sales.

Quote from: hansenn on May 20, 2026, 14:12

Quote from: Uncle Pete on May 19, 2026, 16:42
I selected all, then slid off most of them, 1 year option. But $10 for a lifetime/perpetual? I just don't know. That seems kind of low.

I did leave these on for Perpetual nomination.



$10 seems fair for this kind of Crapstock. Each of those actually has one download, lifetime. So assuming that's about how useful they are, the pay, if selected, would be ten years earnings, at the best and maybe 20 years.

I'll take $10 for a photo of a sliced tomato!

If you select everything and add it to the free collection, can you still remove images from the selection afterwards?

yes, if you select everything they will flip the toggle to yes on every asset.  then you can go and switch it back to no if you want.

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: 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?

i get your point but if i use the same model on 5 shoots is that 5 releases with 5 dates?  i know they need to cover their asses but i submit model released stuff to adobe with a 3 year old model release with no issues (same with shutterstock back when i used to submit to them, and they accepted each other's releases as well).

Quote from: ShadySue on May 12, 2026, 19:30
I'm exclusive (and sell different images RM at Alamy, but do better at iS) originally because of simplicity, and later because I happened to meet a bloke who was submitting to SS with the same range/quality of subjects I shoot and wasn't doing well there.  IIRC, Adobe doesn't take Editorials, so that's a non-starter for me.

However, be aware that exclusive files don't always get a great advantage in search. In fact, it's almost 50-50 on the first page of three random searches I did earlier today.
(However, a buyer can choose to exclude indie files)

Also be aware that although you sign up thinking you're going to get 30%, many exclusive sales are made via Getty, for which we get 20%, not much more than the 15% for indies.
I just looked and I have almost double my sales going for 20%, than 30%.
The average rpd of my 30% sales is $1.61 and my average at 20% is 37c (sic).

interesting, thanks for the detailed response.  are you only shooting editorial?  any video? 

Quote from: cobalt on May 12, 2026, 09:04
First time I hear about a problem with releases. Are you not using a standard agency release like shutterstock or from adobe?

when i tried to submit them they were releases from shutterstock or adobe.  always got rejected cause of digital signature or some other thing.  i even tried to use istock's release for a model i used in a lot of shots but they told me the date on the release didn't match or some BS like that.  i gave up trying since i earn pennies on photos anyway.

Quote from: cobalt on May 10, 2026, 14:46

Quote from: stocker2011 on May 10, 2026, 01:47
If I remember correctly there used to be a black diamond tier with 60% commission, but they soon got rid of that.

I think especially if you do a lot of model released content, than going fully exclusive with istock can still be a very profitable idea.

I have no model released content on istock.  I have a little on other agencies but istock always rejects my releases for random reasons and I have no desire to spend extra effort on them given the payout structure.  I appreciate the input though, it seems there is some sort of case to be made for going the exclusive route though it probably won't suite most contributors.

yeah, that's the one.  i don't see any real reason to do it as adobe makes me 2-4x as much every month.  the extra 5-10% would still not cover what i'm getting with other agencies.  i wonder why they don't make their offer more appealing since i can see the benefit of exclusive content on their end.

Hi- sorry if this was addressed elsewhere.  Does anyone prefer to be exclusive with istock to simplify their process and get the somewhat higher royalty rate?  I figured most people wouldn't put all their eggs in one basket but I do recall one stock photo youtuber said he was exclusive and he preferred that. 

Quote from: Her Ugliness on May 06, 2026, 15:21
I am surprised that the experience is so different for different people, because for me the change is so DRASTIC that it is hard to imagine what could cause such a great difference in performance for different people. I do microstock full time - or used to, really have to search for something else now. There has not been a single month where I did not earn 4 figures in years, I used to sell hundreds of photos on SS each month.
A week into the month and my current earnings on SS this month are 3.38$.
That's not just "a bit different" or " a slight decrease", that's a drastic free fall and it is hard to imagine that other people aren't expereince such a drastic change. What is happening? What is different about my portfolio that I am affected like this and others are not? I really do not understand it. I haven't changed anthing on my end, so clearly, if it is not an overall decline due to Ai that everyone is affected by, something must have changed on SS's end that is causing such a decline for specific portfolios. What have I done to piss SS off?

ha, i literally have the exact same amount

Quote from: Her Ugliness on May 06, 2026, 15:21
I am surprised that the experience is so different for different people, because for me the change is so DRASTIC that it is hard to imagine what could cause such a great difference in performance for different people. I do microstock full time - or used to, really have to search for something else now. There has not been a single month where I did not earn 4 figures in years, I used to sell hundreds of photos on SS each month.
A week into the month and my current earnings on SS this month are 3.38$.
That's not just "a bit different" or " a slight decrease", that's a drastic free fall and it is hard to imagine that other people aren't expereince such a drastic change. What is happening? What is different about my portfolio that I am affected like this and others are not? I really do not understand it. I haven't changed anthing on my end, so clearly, if it is not an overall decline due to Ai that everyone is affected by, something must have changed on SS's end that is causing such a decline for specific portfolios. What have I done to piss SS off?

this is exactly my experience too.  i don't have an "unlimited" option on my account and perhaps you don't either or opted out.  i have no idea if "unlimited" people are earning more than $3 but i'm abandoning any agency that pays less than $100 per month with my portfolio size.  i gave up on a bunch of agencies a while ago but SS was showing growth and promise a year ago.  now it's dead and i'm done with them.

it is interesting to see different experiences for different contributors but if even DaLiu is reporting a downturn it's clear the end is near.

how many of you are still contributing?  i've stopped uploading to SS, you guys can have all the dimes.

Quote from: SimonSays on March 25, 2026, 19:21
As I can see they report UTC+2hrs, so depending the timezone you are in, it might be a future time or past time relative to your local time.

just curious where you see the "UTC+2hrs" because mine just lists a time with no indication of time zone.

i have considered that.  i just find it hard to understand how a company would report times with accuracy down to the second from some unnamed time zone somewhere in the middle of the atlantic ocean.

wondering if anyone else noticed this...  i'm the type to check my sales often throughout the day and sometimes i notice sales are ahead of time.  what i mean is for example right now i have two or three sales from about 5 minutes from now.  other times it's more like an hour or two from now. does adobe have some sort of predictive algorithm to be able to report sales a few minutes or hours before they happen? 

i have made more $ today on AS than the entire month at SS.  it took 2 more days to get to level 2 than last year and i have 1000s more assets now.  currently for jan AS is 23.15x what SS is.  not sure how much more abuse i can take.

3rd worst month out of the last 12.  only a tiny bit better than the last 2 decembers despite a much larger port.  disappointing though i was expecting it given the low volume all month.

interesting.  i wonder if the contributors who have opted in are getting any real money or if it's 13c per month.

having a good start to the year, prob my highest ever rank

i'm pretty close to stopping contributing to shutterstock.  it's been absolutely pathetic and only getting worse. 

does anyone actually contribute here anymore?  i quit a long time ago. pond 5 for me seems dead.

imagine if they tried to sell your images instead of charging you for your images

it just doesn't seem possible with compensation the way it is.

Quote from: SuperPhoto on November 20, 2025, 17:36

Quote from: yuriy on November 20, 2025, 17:30
yeah i really think they should rethink the marketing strategy of dangling giant sums when they know they will likely choose 5%.  i had hundreds of eligible files including almost all of my unsold ones.  they picked like 8.  on the positive side they did choose 5 files that never sold so that's a tiny win.

For me - lol - its not even "5%".  "5%" would have been possibly $20k+ for me. Mine was like 0.0001%...

yeah it wasn't 5% for me either.  i think it was around 5% for photos but yeah maybe 1% from video and what i'm hearing it's even less for others.