Quote from: wds on April 20, 2026, 13:59

Quote from: Her Ugliness on April 20, 2026, 08:38
April 2023 445$
April 2024 481$
April 2025 424$
April 2026  38$

Sadly my income is decreasing on all agencies due to AI, but it's not as drastic anywhere else as it is on Shutterstock. And the development is not just because of AI, but because of different pricing. I used to get a lot of "on demand" sales for around 2.5$ and "singe and others" for 1-10$. Now almost everything is just 0.10-0.17$, no matter in what category. The categories don't even make sense, because there really isn't any difference in pricing anymore.

Outside of SS, have you seen the rate of year over year decrease take a visible downturn after the introduction of AI...or is it just continuing the same year over year decrease that existed before AI?

For me the decrease started around autum last year on Adobe and at the end of 2024 on istock.
Before that my income had been increasing each year.

Quote from: rod-09 on April 17, 2026, 07:41
15K videos, daily uploads. March 90$ - April 28$   

15K and continue to upload daily, why bother?

10K videos.  I still upload, not daily, but at least a few per week.

March, 2024: $1.700
March, 2025: $900
March, 2026: $1.100

April, 2025: $1.150
April, 2026 (so far): $860

Not terrible, but I do see a definite downward trend.

Quote from: Stockhome Syndrome on April 20, 2026, 19:48
10K videos.  I still upload, not daily, but at least a few per week.

March, 2024: $1.700
March, 2025: $900
March, 2026: $1.100

April, 2025: $1.150
April, 2026 (so far): $860

Not terrible, but I do see a definite downward trend.

Not terrible....really? And how much time and energy did you spend building up your portfolio? And what about expenses? Up-dating cameras? Lenses? Not to mention travel  time and costs? Your compensation is terrible, IMO. If you're as good as you think, I would recommend starting your own, independent website and sell your videos getting 100% commission...

Quote from: Asthebelltolls on April 20, 2026, 23:39

Quote from: Stockhome Syndrome on April 20, 2026, 19:48
10K videos.  I still upload, not daily, but at least a few per week.

March, 2024: $1.700
March, 2025: $900
March, 2026: $1.100

April, 2025: $1.150
April, 2026 (so far): $860

Not terrible, but I do see a definite downward trend.

Not terrible....really? And how much time and energy did you spend building up your portfolio? And what about expenses? Up-dating cameras? Lenses? Not to mention travel  time and costs? Your compensation is terrible, IMO. If you're as good as you think, I would recommend starting your own, independent website and sell your videos getting 100% commission...

In this current environment, in particular with Shuttestock, are you doing any better? I don't see anywhere Stockhom has boasted how good he is, only to mention his earnings while not terrible are in decline too. It's good to see someone is still making something above what many of us are. I'm very interested to read of your stats.

Quote from: Pacesetter on April 21, 2026, 00:28
In this current environment, in particular with Shuttestock, are you doing any better? I don't see anywhere Stockhom has boasted how good he is, only to mention his earnings while not terrible are in decline too. It's good to see someone is still making something above what many of us are. I'm very interested to read of your stats.

I read here regularly, but I don't post too much.  I think a key to success is to remain stealthy.  Keep your head down, mind your own business, and work.  But to get an idea of my particular decline, my peak at SS was in late 2019 when I made about $9K one month with about 3K fewer videos in my portfolio.  It's been a steady downhill ride ever since, but more dramatically as of late.

My year-over-year results for April:

2015 – $1476.75
2016 – $3632.88
2017 – $4279.75
2018 – $3464.22
2019 – $4082.64
2020 – $3656.61
2021 – $3112.74
2022 – $2557.24
2023 – $2266.04
2024 – $1919.26
2025 – $941.15
2026 – $260.12

Still excluded from unlimited. Regular uploads don't help, new content sells occasionally, but the higher sales gone. Currently, Shutterstock is a waste of time for me.

It's a disaster. And to add salt to wounds, few of my bigger sales just disapeared overnight...

If this trend continues, I'll soon be selling more on Dramstime than on Shutterstock...

Quote from: FHphotography on April 21, 2026, 08:10
It's a disaster. And to add salt to wounds, few of my bigger sales just disapeared overnight...

That's the issue for me as well. The number of downloads hasn't dropped significantly—it's still within the normal range—but higher-value sales have completely disappeared. As a result, my income for April is currently about three times lower than in March and roughly 40% lower than in April 2025.

I'm still getting high value sales but definitely less than before.

Soon you will hear news that either they are reducing the contributor earnings or they are shutting down.
Their stock price is already at their lows.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Given that there seem to be many contributors whose earnings have plummeted, I would expect that there will be some changes made.

March 2026: 1,814 downloads — $1,698 (330$ was from unlimited)
April 2026: 1,013 downloads — $507 (until today 21st of April)

And Adobe Stock is performing very well this month—within just two weeks, I've already matched what I earned during the entire month of March. It almost feels like customers are shifting from one platform to another.

Deleted my whole portfolio this week. It did not make sense anymore with the low sales and low rpd. When they go broke my portfolio does not seem safe over there. And if the merger with Getty's goes through then I have sort of the same content over there so no harm done. Just  Adobe and Istock now. Simplify your life 

Quote from: Micha91 on April 21, 2026, 07:36
My year-over-year results for April:

2015 – $1476.75
2016 – $3632.88
2017 – $4279.75
2018 – $3464.22
2019 – $4082.64
2020 – $3656.61
2021 – $3112.74
2022 – $2557.24
2023 – $2266.04
2024 – $1919.26
2025 – $941.15
2026 – $260.12

Still excluded from unlimited. Regular uploads don't help, new content sells occasionally, but the higher sales gone. Currently, Shutterstock is a waste of time for me.

How many images do you have?

April looks bleak indeed, very bleak. March was saved for me with a few bigger sales, but none of those so far in April, and also very low volumes otherwise.

I suppose many customers migrated to unlimited. My March commissions for unlimited subscription were the highest so far, so if that trend continues, a bigger chunk of the April earnings will sit in the unlimited commission.

Needlessly to say, it means a further erosion of our earnings.

Quote from: Roscoe on April 27, 2026, 09:58
April looks bleak indeed, very bleak. March was saved for me with a few bigger sales, but none of those so far in April, and also very low volumes otherwise.

I suppose many customers migrated to unlimited. My March commissions for unlimited subscription were the highest so far, so if that trend continues, a bigger chunk of the April earnings will sit in the unlimited commission.

Needlessly to say, it means a further erosion of our earnings.

Just opt ​​out of the unlimited program (as I did, the program is not transparent about sales and earnings), like we did with the Dollar Photo Club in 2014, which Fotolia was forced to withdraw due to protests.

We once united to prevent exploitation; today, it's okay to pick up even the crumbs with unlimited programs, Freepik, and more.

We deserve all this.

Quote from: Bauman on April 27, 2026, 17:07

Quote from: Roscoe on April 27, 2026, 09:58
April looks bleak indeed, very bleak. March was saved for me with a few bigger sales, but none of those so far in April, and also very low volumes otherwise.

I suppose many customers migrated to unlimited. My March commissions for unlimited subscription were the highest so far, so if that trend continues, a bigger chunk of the April earnings will sit in the unlimited commission.

Needlessly to say, it means a further erosion of our earnings.

Just opt ​​out of the unlimited program (as I did, the program is not transparent about sales and earnings), like we did with the Dollar Photo Club in 2014, which Fotolia was forced to withdraw due to protests.

We once united to prevent exploitation; today, it's okay to pick up even the crumbs with unlimited programs, Freepik, and more.

We deserve all this.

Also contributors producing and uploading content just for AI purposes earning a fraction of what the work and content is worth.

Quote from: Bauman on April 27, 2026, 17:07

Quote from: Roscoe on April 27, 2026, 09:58
April looks bleak indeed, very bleak. March was saved for me with a few bigger sales, but none of those so far in April, and also very low volumes otherwise.

I suppose many customers migrated to unlimited. My March commissions for unlimited subscription were the highest so far, so if that trend continues, a bigger chunk of the April earnings will sit in the unlimited commission.

Needlessly to say, it means a further erosion of our earnings.

Just opt ​​out of the unlimited program (as I did, the program is not transparent about sales and earnings), like we did with the Dollar Photo Club in 2014, which Fotolia was forced to withdraw due to protests.

We once united to prevent exploitation; today, it's okay to pick up even the crumbs with unlimited programs, Freepik, and more.

We deserve all this.

I wasn't around on Fotalia back then, but I guess those were also different times. Way less contributors, a much more united and tighter connected community, easier to set up mass protest that actually has impact.

I do remember and joined the protest against the Shutterstock earnings slashing and tiered system with resets early 2020's. A lot of people disabled their portfolio back then, and it barely made an impact. Best case, we were able to slow down the growth of the library for a few weeks, but in general: minimal impact and things stayed as they were, the ones who disabled lost some weeks, months of income.

Also, the industry wasn't what it is today. Things evolved, and not for the better, at least not from a contributor perspective. Photography changed too, and competition between contributors increased in a way our content doesn't really matter. My picture not available? No problem, there's another one that does the job jus as well for the customer. Companies were much more sensitive for negative press as they are now. Nowadays, they don't care, and they can afford to not care as nobody seems to care anymore.

Boycott initiatives are a respectful thing to do, but in the end, if we're serious about it, it would mean boycotting the whole microstock industry, except for some very few agencies, maybe. It won't change the industry, but it will impact your earnings. The unlimited program isn't a fair deal, but the 10 cents are insulting as well. The problem with companies as Shutterstock is that they also show a different face, every now and then, and bigger commissions are still around. Dangling carrot.

To me it feels as a choice: either I accept the industry standards, except for a few which I avoid, and stop caring (which I can, because I don't really depend on it, although the extra money is a very nice), or I stop uploading to Microstock altogether to keep my dignity (which I can do too, except for the fact that I don't have the nice additional bonus income).

As long as I'm around on microstock, I look at my combined earnings across agencies. And those are still... well rising every year. On first sight it doens't look that bleak. Until you start looking at inflation and the work you put into keywording and uploading to keep the carrousel running.

Pond5 back to zero sales in the month with April being 0. This reduced my overall earnings. 

The default "Unlimited Video/images Only" filter seems to be off on my side lately. I  now have the "all images/videos" filter by default.

Are you having the same experience?

Well, April looked really bad on Shutterstock, until the unlimited earnings were reported.
Turns out I made quite a decent month there.
Regularly reported sales (subscriptions, on demand, ...) accounted for only 11% of my earnings, the rest was unlimited.

I wonder how much more I would have made without the unlimited plan being offered to customers.

For me it was 25% earnings from unlimited in April 2026.

Quote from: Pacesetter on May 01, 2026, 05:53
Pond5 back to zero sales in the month with April being 0. This reduced my overall earnings.

I have one sale for the year.  The only reason I am hanging on to P5 is to see if the IS/SS merger does anything to it that might benefit me.  I have around 6K assets there so I don't want to just close the account without giving it every option.