I received a notification from Getty Images that there is a corporate merger in progress with Getty Images and Shutterstock.
I am a member of Getty/iStock and it is one of my highest producing stock agencies. I would say that over the years, I’ve been pretty happy with my sales there. I used to be a member of Shutterstock, and when I was a member it was my highest selling stock agency. But some years ago, I left Shutterstock because they cut back the payment percentages for their stock image sales in a big money grab. Where I was making an average of about 75 cents per image sold, that average declined instantly to about 10 cents per image sold.
Nobody selling stock photography expects to get rich. It’s merely a sales outlet that can produce steady income for those of us who sell photographs in large numbers. To me, Shutterstock went from a top stock sales market to being the biggest money grabbers in the market by thrusting their hands deep into the pockets of it’s contributors and skimming more of our sales payments without blinking an eye. I have several stock agencies and when I left Shutterstock, it initially lost about 1/4 of my overall stock revenue. I would have lost that much anyway as they were going to take it from me before I ever got it. Many of their contributors left the platform as a result. In the time since I quit Shutterstock, my sales have recovered. As a matter of fact, my 2024 sales are my second highest on record. Perhaps having too many stock agencies in the portfolio is actually detrimental, as you end up competing with yourself for image sales. Leaving Shutterstock didn’t hurt my revenue flow. Shutterstock opening my wallet and pulling out some extra cash did hurt and for that reason, I refused to do business with them.
Also, not common knowledge, in 2009 Shutterstock purchased a microstock company called Bigstock. I am/was a member of Bigstock and though not a large stream of income for me, I did have some success on that platform. Bigstock stopped accepting new contributor content in July of 2003 and as of September 2024, Bigstock ceased operations. I don’t know what happened with the content I had there but it was technically part of Shutterstocks business umbrella. Bigstock still owes me for unpaid royalties (about $10), and I assumed I’d just eat those sales. But, with Getty acquiring Shutterstock, I am assuming what ever still exists of Bigstock’s catalog will now also become part of Getty/iStock offerings. Maybe I’ll finally get paid too, but I doubt it. Bigstock still maintains their website, so something is still there if only on paper (digital)
So, I’m not really sure what all this means yet. The merger has yet to be completed, and it may not pass all the required approvals for the merger. If the merger does occur, it may actually be of some benefit to Getty Contributors by broadening the customer base to include customers of Shutterstock and Bigstock. I don’t know what the implications are for customers either. From the perspective of a contributor, more customers could be better, but if Getty decides to change the payment percentages of photo sales given to contributors, it might not be that great.
Online microstock sales have been in decline for years. I can track the lower revenue year by year with my own sales. The big Kahuna’s in the business now are Getty/iStock, Shutterstock and Adobe Stock. Since I stopped using Shutterstock in 2020 when they did their big money grab, I’ve relied mostly on sales from Getty and Adobe. For me, Adobe is my top sales site, with Getty being a very close second. With the acquisition of Shutterstock, Getty could well vault into the biggest microstock sales platform in the business. As long as I see more sales and more revenue, I won’t complain, despite my dislike of Shutterstock.
Here is the link to the official press announcement from Getty images regarding the merger.
Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge, Creating a Premier Visual Content Company
