2024 $1,100
2025 $6.39 - what a joke

Quote from: SimonSays on September 14, 2025, 20:29

Quote from: Brasilnut on September 14, 2025, 17:05
I had to rant...

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/09/14/switched-off-my-september-stock-sales-have-collapsed-at-shutterstock-pond5/

Well it ain't over until the fat lady sings (end of month). I had given up on Adobe because of a trend for weeks of diminishing downloads and just had the best week ever (downloads, not $). Pond5 is dead for sure, no argue there. But otherwise, besides that microstock is not viable anymore, you could be having a poor month on SS. It happens, just like good months.It's all random and unless you have a lot of data, it's difficult to say that things are going down the drain or that you just had bad luck this month. But yeah, golden days are over.

It's not random; it's a trend that started this January. And I do have data 2020 ave $380(ave Dls 30) per month, 2021 Ave $296(ave Dls 33) per month, 2022 ave $386(ave Dls 53) per month, 2023 ave $504(ave Dls 65) per month, 2024 ave $494(ave Dls 69) per month, 2025 ave $258(ave Dls 40) per month. Compared to the last two years, income has reduced by 50%. The only conclusion I can make is that since Getty acquired Shutterstock in January, they are "turning the light off", slowly becoming a monopolist on the market.

Sales in January dropped by 70% compared to 2024 and 2023, February was normal, and March is looking to beat January's record  , terrible

Question: now that the new minimum number of accepted assets is 150, where on my account can I see how many were accepted this year?

Question for contributors in the US.
When filing taxes to IRS is this a legal way -> form 1040 -> Schedule 1 (line 6 royalties) + Schedule E (income line 4 royalties)?
All my 1099MISC forms do say Royalties box 4.
I want to simplify things, and it seems like if I file Schedule C (profit and loss), it will require me to pay self-employment tax, and I can't think of any deductions that would lower my net income.

Quote from: MatHayward on May 17, 2023, 16:32

Quote from: MatHayward on May 12, 2023, 17:38

Quote from: Unamas on May 12, 2023, 05:17
Something started to work, but now I'm stuck on "This code has already been redeemed" when I try to redeem the code on https://redeem.adobe.com/

Obviously I didn't redeem it before

We are looking into this. I'll provide an update asap.

Thank you,

Mat

The issue described above has been resolved. If you are still having trouble redeeming your code, please reach out via the contact us link found at the bottom of the Adobe Stock Contributor Portal.

thank you,

Mat Hayward

Hello Mat! The issue is still not resolved. When I click on the blue bar I get an error message:
"We are experiencing a network outage which is impacting your partner offer. We do not have an estimated timeline for resolution yet, but it's being treated with the highest priority.

Our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. Please check back soon. "

here is my 5 cents
year to date downloads SS - 150, P5 exclusive - 15, difference in revenue only $150 in favor of SS
I think it depends on what you shoot. If you can produce some unique content, go P5 exclusive 

Quote from: alexandersr on June 03, 2021, 02:23

Quote from: digipro on June 03, 2021, 01:54
Anyone knows what type of license a customer should take to use a stock footage clip in Broadcast TV commercials. One of my clips was sold with a standard license at iStock, however, I saw it being used in my local news ad. The ad is shown multiple times a day for several months on one of the main TV channels in the US.

How many dollars did you earn for that clip?

$0.00592 

Anyone knows what type of license a customer should take to use a stock footage clip in Broadcast TV commercials. One of my clips was sold with a standard license at iStock, however, I saw it being used in my local news ad. The ad is shown multiple times a day for several months on one of the main TV channels in the US.

A word of caution for anyone using Backblaze to backup videos, check your account and see if any of your video files were actually backed up. I've had Backblaze running for almost 8 months and decided to go and see what was backup up so far and I was very disappointment to see that none of video files were there. Yes, I checked the files exclusions in the settings, no mp4 or mov. Also the control panel is very buggy and often freezes.

ok, these low amount downloads seem to be pay-per-view clips used on their new platform https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/projector-shutterstock-integration

Kate from Shutterstock answered a few hours ago that "Customers who purchased these licenses can only use the clips on that platform. They can't save or download them, or re-use them" https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/100567-043-cents-video-yes-you-are-reading-it-right/page/3/

Everything was normal until today $16.76 - $122.30 sales . June 25 - 3 sales $0.43, 2 - $0.84. 

I say it does.

If we would just use SS to sell our work we would be able to determine the prices of our work and yet the prices are determined by SS so they are clearly in charge here setting standards and defining rules.

[/quote]
The way I see it, no lawyer will take a case against SS, because there is no money to be made. There needs to be some kind of federal legislation protecting the content creators. We are the artists, we produce a product and SS is simply giving us a platform to sell our product. SS doesn't own the product, so why do they have 100 % control over the price of the product? I've been working in ecommerce business for the past 15 years, and I can't imagine if the platforms like eBay or Amazon attempt setting prices of my product without asking me. When I started selling my works on SS, IS and other agencies I was very surprised to see that the market is so nontransparent... how can we even be sure that the sales they are reporting to us are legit, there is no way to see who the buyer is and maybe there are sales that SS is simply not telling us about?
Internet is a highly regulated environment these days, all websites require consumers now to opt in or out their privacy polices and many of them ask you to agree with all sorts of terms and conditions, so why are we not allowed to opt out of 0,10 prices? This is beyond my understanding. Correct me if I am wrong but there needs to be a law protecting the artist from the abuse by the corporation (who is essentially a monopolist in the market) in terms of not allowing the artist to opt out of sales that the artist feels unfair to him/her.

Adding to my post. He/she was able to remove website logo or make it almost invisible (including my clip, which he downloaded from Shutterstock, if I saw this video on Youtube for the fist time, I wouldn't have even noticed the Shutterstock logo, it was that invisible). I submit videos to 3 sites Pond5, SS and Adobe. I looked at my clips on these sites and noticed that Adobe and SS are not doing a good job at protecting the content. The watermark they are putting over video is too small and transparent, so on certain types of videos for a person with the right set of skills, it would be very easy to hide it. FYI 

Found one of my clips on this Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkhq8AcpDOSofeAvemHi0Tg
He/She also gives instructions how to download any video from any website for free.
I would think that all clips are from various microstock sites, some of them clearly showing Shutterstock watermark.
I don't understand the motive of why would somebody put in so much work to offer stock videos for free download. Is he/she hoping to earn $0.10 though Youtube ads?
I submitted copyright complain to Youtube.

Is DeepMeta broken? It is only showing a very small portion of sales in the statistics and sales section. Right now it is showing only 4 downloads in December and 61 lifetime downloads. These numbers are completely wrong. Running version 3.12.0

Thank you, Jo Ann for your answer. Interesting is that most of my Premium Access video downloads bring me pennies... Go figure!

Being in stock photography for only a few months, I wasn't even aware that a single image could sell for $300. Normally it is only a buck or two. Looked at my Deepmeta stats for the month of August and was pleasantly surprised to see that two of my images sold for $220 and $300 each. I am wondering how is it possible? When I open these files on iStock, it shows me that I can buy them for $12 each. According to Deepmeta info, these files were sold on Getty, however, when I am trying to locate them on Getty website, I get a message saying that it is a Restricted asset and I am not able to buy it due to country, company and/or publication restrictions. I am located in the USA and both of the files in question were purchased in the USA. So why am I not able to see the price, when at the same time somebody from my region somehow was able to buy them. I am stunned? I would appreciate if somebody could explain this or maybe provide a link to iStock pricing structure and explanation or transaction types?

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on September 07, 2018, 00:07
Knowing now how this works, would you submit to another brief?

Not all briefs have 12 months selection period, most of them are about a month or so. From now on I will only submit if I already have some content that would fit the brief, or if the brief requires little to no effort to produce. I just submitted some images, which were exported as stills from a video footage. Will see how it goes.

Sharing my experience with CC Briefs. Submitted some content back in January only to learn several weeks later that the client's selection period is ONE YEAR. I know for a fact that my content was selected and I already saw it in a commercial. It seems strange to me that I have to wait until the beginning of the next year to receive my royalties.   

Quote from: Shelma1 on January 08, 2018, 11:47
http://stories.gettyimages.com/custom-content/

So chances of your work being chosen are slim, and then you can't sell what you shot elsewhere.

I was under impression that whatever is not chosen by the client can then be submitted to other agencies. Isn't that so?

Got an email from Getty about American express video custom content brief. I am curious to know if it makes sense (moneywise). I understand that the videos you produce for this type of work will not be flown to iStock and Getty websites and will only be licensed by Amex. Let's say they license 5 of my videos,  at 20% from $200 - $400 fee per image, which means I will get $200-$ 400, and that's it, finita la commedia. OR I could submit those 5 files to all other agencies in hope that they will sell someday, maybe... Does anyone have any experience with those custom briefs?

Question from a newbie.

I've been an iStock exclusive videographer since December 2016 and I am really confused with their licensing/royalty rates. I've had some clips sold for as low as $2.6 including 4K video sold for $2.9. Is it the same situation with other agencies? I am curios how does one buy a 4K video for $3?

On the other hand I've had my HD clips sold for $575 producing a very nice payout.