SS significantly down, but Alamy already up on last years total. AS should also smash last year. But I am one of those who doesn't give SS or IS new work and never sell on freemium sites etc.

Fingers crossed 2022 should be my BYE, before that 2021 was. Been at it since 2006.

Pre 2020, SS video sales used to be a year on year great earner, but I suspect that like many other contributors I have been hit with a triple whammy of reduced revenue via the (1.) level based royalty model (2.) reduced overall number of sales per month (3.) subscription model. All combined has resulted in roughly a month on month loss of over 75% in revenue.

Quote from: Wilm on October 30, 2022, 13:55

if shutterstock doesn't want them, I don't care. They'll do fine somewhere else - I'm pretty sure!

It's funny to see the images rejected by SS, but being sold next day on Adobe ...

It happens in both directions. I have images rejected by SS but which sell on Adobe and images rejected by Adobe which sell on SS. I've stopped trying to look for any logic in the decision making.

Pre 2020, SS video sales used to be a year on year great earner, but I suspect that like many other contributors I have been hit with a triple whammy of reduced revenue via the (1.) level based royalty model (2.) reduced overall number of sales per month (3.) subscription model. All combined has resulted in roughly a month on month loss of over 75% in revenue.

I do not agree. SS revenue has dropped dramatically since January of that year, when they drastically reduced the income percentage for authors. Yes, during the year this percentage increases, but this did not add income. I think there are 2 reasons:
1. By his actions, SS created a scandalous situation as a result of which buyers left for other stocks.
2. SS deceives the authors and takes their money.
On other stocks, income has not changed and has grown in some places, which means that the problem is only in SS. Then the leadership changed there, the policy changed, everything became cloudy and not transparent.

Quote from: stoker2014 on October 31, 2022, 04:22

1. By his actions, SS created a scandalous situation as a result of which buyers left for other stocks.

As if buyers care or are even aware of how much % the contributor gets....

There was a big scandal on the shutterstock forum, it lasted for a long time until shutterstock closed the forum altogether. I remember the securities (shares) shutterstock because of this began to decline in price on the stock exchange. Authors in Google wrote bad comments, which also lowered the rating of shutterstock. Naturally, buyers saw that shutterstock began to become toxic, and began to leave. Moreover, many major authors withdrew their portfolios from sale, which also gave a signal to buyers to move to other stocks.
But I still think that such a strong drop in income would not have happened anyway, so I think that we are still being deceived in terms of money.

Yeah, some buyers may have left SS lured by the free stuff dumped on the market by AS & Co.

Net gain for contributors = Zero (or less)

PS. It's very likely that 99% of the buyers are oblivious to what happens to contributors or don't care.

In my experience a lot of buyers even think the agencies own the images or employ the artists.

Then why did they leave, and why don't they buy like before?

Maybe you have to ask yourself why did they leave you and why don't they buy your content like before.


Downloads SS January 22: 647
Downloads SS October 22: 823

Can't say I see customers buying less.

Shutterstock made me more money this month than Adobe, doesn't happen often, usually only when you get a $30 photo sale....SS $130 Adobe �121 and iStock $85, Alamy �40, all the rest were pennies......ref SS rejections I try to avoid uploading at weekends, AI rejections seem to be at full force on a sat or sun, so upload on a Monday and seems much better....

SpaceStockFootage, how much has your income from video sales on SS decreased compared to 2020?

For the first time ever I had more downloads on AS than on SS.

In terms of downloads, it was the second best month of the year for AS. And for shutterstock, the worst ever.

Her Ugliness, here in the subject everyone complains about the drop in income, except for you. 

... and me 

It's increased by about 25%

I watch with interest people who haven't noticed the collapse in shutterstock revenue. I spoke with many stockers, incl. those who have an income of 10-15 thousand dollars a month. And everyone I spoke to confirmed a very strong decline in shutterstock revenue.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on November 01, 2022, 02:50

It's increased by about 25%

I watch with interest people who haven't noticed the collapse in shutterstock revenue. I spoke with many stockers, incl. those who have an income of 10-15 thousand dollars a month. And everyone I spoke to confirmed a very strong decline in shutterstock revenue.

It is very hard to make comparisons. If someone has a small portfolio they can double or triple the size in a year, far outstripping any fall in income someone with a bigger portfolio will notice. That is why there is a wall people hit; when they can�t upload enough images as a percentage of total portfolio in a given period to offset drops in RPI.