Getty Images

Getty Images, a sister site to iStock, encourages freelance photographers, videographers and illustrators to upload their art for resale

Expected pay: varies

Husl$core: $$$

Commissions & fees: 60% to 85%

Where: Worldwide

Requirements: 18 or older

Getty Images Review:

Getty Images, a sister site to iStock, encourages freelance photographers and videographers to submit a portfolio and apply to be contributors. If accepted, the site will represent you in the sale of photos, videos and/or illustrations. The site has two ways to do that. You can be an “exclusive” contributor or a non-exclusive contributor.

Non-exclusive contributors sell their images through Getty and iStock (registering with one gets your photos on both). But you can also sell these and other images on other sites. Generally speaking, non-exclusive contributors sell their photos for less money and get a slightly lower royalty — usually 15% vs. 20% for exclusive contributors. However, you maintain your right to sell your photos, videos and illustrations elsewhere. 

Exclusive contracts

“Exclusive” content is generally sold at premium rates — usually at least $50 per upload. So you should make a little more. However, you give up a lot with this pledge of exclusivity. Getty’s exclusivity contract not only lays claim to exclusive licensing rights to the photos you upload to the site, it bars you from selling that form of content (i.e. photos or videos) anywhere else. And while you can terminate your contract at any time, it’s not clear that you can ever regain the rights to the photos you’ve already provided to Getty/iStock through their exclusive license.

You have no direct control over the price that Getty/iStock gets for your work. (iStock and Getty share images and contracts. Thus our review for iStock is identical to our review of Getty.) So, if they don’t do a good job of representing you, you’re out of luck.

It’s worth mentioning that contributor reviews of iStock and Getty images are pretty bad. So, we’d suggest you think carefully before granting them an exclusive license. However, given their size and reach, listing your non-exclusive content here isn’t a bad idea.

Recommendations

In addition to signing up with a non-exclusive license here, we’d suggest photographers consider Shutterstock, Adobe Stock and Alamy.

What their users say (from Reddit)

I uploaded 63 files and have made over $20,000 on iStock, which is around $300 per file. Some made a lot and others very little. I am still getting some downloads, but the bulk came in 2009-2012. I dropped exclusivity in 2016 to see what SS was like. My iStock placement and downloads plummeted as expected. And the added SS did not make up the difference so I went back to exclusive. They key is in the search results. Most of the old files have moved far down in the search.

Be aware that not all exclusives are doing well. I’m earning between 1/3 and 1/4 of my previous earnings

I was exclusive to istock till 2013, shooting mostly food. Downloads were decreasing every month since 2011. My content just doesn’t fit to the exclusive collection. It was just too expensive. Customers getting much more of the same or better work for less money at istock.

From Trust Pilot

From the Better Business Bureau