I would like to add that P5 is completely dead for me with 2 sales so far
AS is lower in the same rate as SS
And Vimeo reports a month later so I�m blind.

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I'm seeing a bit less sales on ss but pond5 and as are on average..obviously the reason is hard to know but i guess covid19 and its economic impact will affect all of us in some way...

same here, about 50% less earning then usual.

last month was pretty good to me, even better then April 2019

But May is very low.

"I wish all the comments here will be BME or solid sales or even normal because then I�ll know that i can do something about it, adapt, change style/subject. I know how to adapt to trends and I love it when things are �my problem� cause it�s up to me to fix it or get lost" and that rather than whining about unfairness is why you normally achieve very high sales 

I don't earn anywhere near the number of downloads and $$$ as many do, but there is an absolute clear drop in both downloads / $$$ for the first week of May. I'm just hoping the tide turns for the remaining part of the month. I say I hope for this because I have seen a couple of posts elsewhere which show good sales.

We are heading into the worst recession of our lifetimes. Advertising spends are going to drop off massively. It takes a month for subscriptions to end, some may even have been downloading more last couple of weeks to make the most of their spend or to stock pile for the lean times ahead shielding us from the impact for a while.

Even facebook etc are reporting drops in ad revenue already.

If you think it's bad now wait a couple of months...

I'm maybe down a little over the start of April, but there was the May day bank holidays in Europe, particularly, which gave me a slow start on the first day or two. I don't get $100 a day from Shutterstock, but have enough to see the trends.

But I do agree that this is not going to get better soon although it does depend on your portfolio, I guess.

Steve

It's not too bad for me so far. I deleted half my portfolio after they forced the Sensitive Use terms onto our portfolios so I was expecting much worse. It was going down even before the pandemic though.

@pauws99:
Hmm... I don't see anyone whining here, just sharing information.
But good to see we have guys with your level of wisdom here ;-) Thanks for your helpful comment!

Not on this thread...but if you have been on here a while you will know what I mean.

April dropped off massively to me and May looks to tracking April almost identically.Its 50-60% down on average so far.
Not just on SS but on AS etc.  My AS rank doesnt seem to have changed so im guessing its a theme for most people.

A lot is going to depend on content.  If, like me, most content is travel and outdoor related im guessing not many people or advertisers are buying that or using that content at the moment...

Typing without historical notes here - so my opinion may be all wrong. I think during the 2008 recession the macro stock sales tanked pretty quickly. Big businesses didn't buy the high priced stuff. Micro stock sales went up, at least for a short while, as big business bought the cheaper images. In a sense the whole market shifted down a category and the lower buyers no longer bought.
This time I think the recession hit so fast that the whole stock image market has been hit across the board. As said above, the remaining buyers may be using up the last of the current monthly subscription and then bailing out. So we have a few lingering sales. But with businesses not only short on money, they also have laid off the workers who would otherwise be buying stock images. Projects that need images, buyers to get images, money to buy images, are all gone at the moment. I expect a serious drought of image sales worldwide.

I think the recovery side will be slow. Projects will eventually come back as companies reopen - but at different scale and with much lower spend rates. Employees will eventually come back to make businesses run and to buy images.  However, the budget disaster of temporarily or permanently closed businesses will depress the image transactions for quite some time. Micro stock will start selling before higher macro stock. Though, today, pricing is not as separated as in the past so macro stock will still rise to a fair degree. So the big concern is how long it will take to get companies back open. (Something like 80% of businesses in Ohio, USA, should be open within this month - but we don't know how scared customers will be to visit, while wearing masks and taking precautions).  And then, how long until image needing projects get restarted and purchase money is available. I figure July to August would be early for companies to get their feet back under them and start to make some projections for future projects. Maybe our sales could start a meager recovery as we go into September. Then let's hope the world can avoid a rebound of the virus and another round of shutdowns.

All above is novice guess work on my part. I'm not an economist and do not play one on TV. As an image supplier, I have to cut all arbitrary spending and try to catch up of the recurring bills. When Adobe went to monthly plans, this type of very small business low cash situation was my significant concern to get on board. I keep a fully paid old copy of Photoshop in my computer so I can avoid the recurring fees and still get my editing done.

April was good and May is a bit better than normal for me so far, I suppose it's because I adopted to Covid in time as well and managed to achieve good ranking with some files that still last. But the theory about companies downloading more while subscription lasts to "stock pile for the lean times" makes sense to me. Let's hope the upcoming recession won't hurt the microstock industry too bad and won't last too long.