Shutterstock Overview

Shutshutterstock-logo1terstock is one of the top stock photo agencies in the market, leading the industry with a huge library of Royalty Free images, low price points, and a simple and straightforward buying system.

Back in 2003, they were responsible for introducing the stock photo subscription concept, as they launched in the microstock segment with this business model. Not long after, most stock agencies included subscriptions in their offers as well.

In the years since, Shutterstock has consolidated as an industry leader, growing its collection to tens of millions of images, expanding into the premium market and other media types like footage and audio, and keeping some of the lowest price points in the market.

To date, they are a great choice for anyone looking to buy lots of stock photos cheap and wanting to have a wide variety of content to choose from.

Explore the Shutterstock offer, and sign up for free to start downloading great, low-priced images. And there's more: with our special Shutterstock Coupon Code, you will get up to 15% off all stock photo subscriptions!

Get a 15% discount on Shutterstock Footage products, including video subscriptions, video packs and video clips, and the new Flex plan with ...

 

Shutterstock Photography

Shutterstock in Brief

In short, this is what you need to know about Shutterstock's offer:

  • Over 94 million images, vectors, and illustrations
  • Variety in themes and styles
  • Royalty-Free licensing model: affordable, simple, and with a wide range of usage
  • Simple and straight-forward pricing, in USD
  • Buy on demand with image packs, getting discounts for volume
  • Subscription options to save up to hundreds of dollars in large volume purchases
  • Intelligent search engine, based on computer vision technology, to find the best and most suitable content for your needs in less time

Shutterstock: Millions of Images, Great Variety, Volume Buying

Those are the three concepts that resume Shutterstock's offer. They focus on quantity (without neglecting quality), variety, and the best prices for large volume buyers. Of course, this doesn't mean they don't have great buying options for those of you who only need a few images now and then.

In the 13 years since their launch, their collection of stock images has grown to over 94 million files, and they are adding an average of 800,000 new images every week! With such a huge library, they ensure you will have a lot to choose from in any possible topic, subject, or style you look for.

All Shutterstock images are sold under a Royalty Free license, which gives you multiple usage rights, perpetually, for a one-time, flat fee. This means you only pay for the image once, and you get to use it forever, in any of all the accepted uses. And they sell these licenses at very low prices, both on demand and with their flagship product: stock photo subscriptions.

Shutterstock Photography Featured Collections

Buy On Demand with Image Packs

Shutterstock prices their images in USD, simple and straightforward. But they don't sell images à la carte.

www.shutterstock.com pricing

Instead, they offer image packs:

  • 2 images for $29
  • 5 images for $49
  • 25 images for $229

You buy the image pack that you need, and then use it to download the images you want. Note that the price covers all image sizes and resolutions.

Like this, a single image would be costing you $14.50 with the smallest pack, but that price can go as low as $9.16 per image if you're willing to pay the $229 for the largest pack upfront.

Shutterstock-pricing-June-2016

Stock Photo Subscriptions, the Solution for Large Volume Buyers

Subscriptions are Shutterstock's star offer. As we said before, they were the first company in using this selling model. And it was so successful and disrupting that most other agencies ended up adopting it.

With subscriptions, you get access to a determined amount of downloads per month in return for a flat, periodic fee. Shutterstock's subscription plans let you save hundreds of dollars from regular image prices.

All their plans are set up in monthly download limits, but you can opt for hiring the plan monthly or annually (in both cases you are billed every month). They have two volume tiers: 350 and 750 images per month.

With a monthly plan:

  • 350 downloads per month are $199
  • 750 downloads per month are $249

Annually:

  • 350 downloads per month are $169
  • 750 downloads per month are $199

Monthly plans take a single image price down to $0.56 and $0.33. Annual plans are the cheapest of all, lowering image price to as low as $0.48 and $0.26 each!

If you were going to buy 350 images using image packs, you'd need 14 packs of 25 images each, costing you $3206… a monthly 350 images subscription saves you thousands, at only $199.

And more recently they introduced the Shutterstock Flex subscription, which gives you multimedia downloads all with the same plan. For $69 monthly –or $49/mo with annual commitment–, you get up to 25 images, 6 music tracks or 3 video clips, or a mix of all, every month.

And now you can save even more! Our special Shutterstock Coupon Code gives you 15% off all subscriptions!

Get a 15% discount on Shutterstock Footage products, including video subscriptions, video packs and video clips, and the new Flex plan with ...

If you're after lots of great stock photos, want to have a lot to choose from in every category, and want to save hundreds of dollars, then Shutterstock is the place to go.

Amos Struck
We will be happy to hear your thoughts

Leave a reply

Stock Photo Guides
Logo
Shopping cart