So far this month in January 2024.  This is sad.  It's on pace for only 1/2 the January 2023 sales.  Shutterstock used to be the King.  Whatever gone wrong there. 
Shutterstock used to pay us $0.38 minimum for subscription sale like Adobe Stock does.  Since they introduced wonderful $0.10 photo sub commission, contributor enthusiasm seem eroded.  Probably Shutterstock nowadays doesn't get as many newbielink:https://upcomingslots.com/ [nonactive] quality photos or videos as Adobe Stock does.  They still own Pond5 now.  So, they get the best stock videos on Pond5.  But for the photos, Adobe Stock is the King now, no question.  They totally had a wrong approach toward contributors belittling us while Adobe Stock is trying to work with us.  Big mistake.

Totally agree with you

My stats for this month:

SS downloads (mix) 2.5x more than AS
SS RPD (mix) 0.65$ (AS RDP is over 1$ per file (mix))
SS earnings 1.5x more than AS

I see a small decrease in income on SS side mostly due the video income, on images im doing better than last year, on AS I see an increase of income almost 30% in the first 2 months compared with the average of last year.

Overall both agencies are bringing more income montly than last year.

0 AI images.

You don�t upload to istock?

So far this month only 1/14 of Adobe Stock's photo sales earning.  On its way to less than $100/month earning on SS.  I used to make average of $600/month from photos on Shutterstock.  This is disastrous.  I wouldn't recommend anybody starting stock photo today to upload to Shutterstock.  Adobe Stock is the only site worth your time uploading and tagging.  Sad.

Looks like video is headed in the same direction. I stopped uploading photos on Shutterstock months ago and now going to pause on uploading videos. I'll restart if video earnings-per-download pick up again but given the last 3 months of pitiful commissions it is not worth it. Video RPD on Shutterstock is now much worse than Adobe Stock.     

In 2024, I have the same video RPD on Shutterstock ($6.06) and Adobe Stock ($6.08), with Shutterstock offering lower commissions. However, my level on Shutterstock is about to reach level 3, so in the upcoming weeks, my RPD on Shutterstock will likely increase and surpass Adobe Stock.

In contrast to Adobe Stock, I occasionally receive large value sales ranging from $60 to $130 on Shutterstock, particularly for niche content. In a crowded market, it is becoming increasingly crucial to find a profitable niche to succeed. To do so, one must use one's "unfair advantage(s)," but I assume most experienced contributors are already aware of that.

I started to price my top selling videos on Pond5 at $299/HD and $399/4k.  I get 60% commission as exclusive.  I did a research and found customers actually pay top $$ for quality content they really need.  I already had a few sales at $299/HD this week.

https://www.pond5.com/community?thread=246291911&page=1

"Pricing is a difficult thing on Pond5. I see 2 successful high-price contributors.

FilmPac and FilmRaw. They are not related, I think.
FilmPac joined Pond5 16 months ago in late October 2022. They have nearly 100k videos priced at $299/HD and $399/HD. I checked their portfolio and found their clips have sold 954 times in those 16 months. If they were exclusive getting 60% royalty, my guess was their RPD would be about $200. 954 x $200 = $190,800. If I divide it by 10 to make it equivalent to a portfolio of 10,000 clips, it's $19,080. Divide it by 1.3 years = $14,677/year. I was actually surprised to see they are selling that much at the high price. Also looking at what kind of clips have sold, I felt like why not my clips sell at that high price too?
https://www.pond5.com/search?kw=salegt:0&media=footage&artist=Filmpac_for_Pond5

FilmRaw seems much more successful than FilmPac at similar $329/HD and $389/4k price setting.
https://www.pond5.com/artist/filmraw
49 clips out of 12k clips have sold 5 times or more. That's equivalent of 20 sales for regular price $79/HD clips. Also, 15 clips out of 49 clips with 5 or more sales are from 2020 and after if you sort by "New".
https://www.pond5.com/search?kw=salegt:4&media=footage&artist=FilmRAW

So, I'm experimenting by changing all my best sellers to $299/HD and $399/4K. At this price, if I sell more than 1/4 as often as before, I'll end up making more from those clips. I hope this will work well."

Yesterday I got a new level (video). But!!! CC shows only 45 sales. There are no returns this year. According to the photo, I moved to a new level 35 sales earlier than the statistics show.