I conducted an experiment after reading some negative comments about ShutterStock to see if it was worth my time to contribute: I uploaded 10 images. 4 were rejected for very vague reasons (they claim to make these reasons clear so that newcomers can learn from their mistakes, but no such luck). In addition, they make submitters wait an entire month before they can submit another 10 photos. This makes absolutely no sense and totally justifies all the negative things I�ve read about the site. So a month later, I submitted the exact same 10 photos. This time, 5 were rejected and 3 of the accepted ones had been rejected the first time! This proves that they have no set standards and whether you get accepted or not depends entirely on which reviewer you get and his/her mood on that day. This, plus the total arrogance of their sign-up processs (seriously, my credit card number???) and other requirements that NO other sites have (no spaces in file names, what are we, back in the nineties???) make shutterstock the worst stock site on the internet. shutterstock (it doesn't deserve capitalization) is a completely dishonest and arrogant company and doesn't deserve to make one penny from someone else's hard work. They'll certainly never make a penny from any of mine.

I conducted an experiment after reading some negative comments about ShutterStock to see if it was worth my time to contribute: I uploaded 10 images. 4 were rejected for very vague reasons (they claim to make these reasons clear so that newcomers can learn from their mistakes, but no such luck). In addition, they make submitters wait an entire month before they can submit another 10 photos. This makes absolutely no sense and totally justifies all the negative things I�ve read about the site. So a month later, I submitted the exact same 10 photos. This time, 5 were rejected and 3 of the accepted ones had been rejected the first time! This proves that they have no set standards and whether you get accepted or not depends entirely on which reviewer you get and his/her mood on that day. This, plus the total arrogance of their sign-up processs (seriously, my credit card number???) and other requirements that NO other sites have (no spaces in file names, what are we, back in the nineties???) make shutterstock the worst stock site on the internet. shutterstock (it doesn't deserve capitalization) is a completely dishonest and arrogant company and doesn't deserve to make one penny from someone else's hard work. They'll certainly never make a penny from any of mine.

Wow, where to begin?

they make submitters wait an entire month before they can submit another 10 photos. This makes absolutely no sense and totally justifies all the negative things I�ve read about the site.

SS gets a lot of new contributors trying to sign up everyday.  Most simply don't have what it takes.  The 30-day period makes sure that rejected contributors can't simply try again every single day.  SS would get nothing done if that happened.  The hope is that the applicants will review their skills, figure out why they got rejected, get educated about what SS really wants, and be very careful about what they submit again.  30 days is appropriate to take all those steps.

So a month later, I submitted the exact same 10 photos. This time, 5 were rejected and 3 of the accepted ones had been rejected the first time! This proves that they have no set standards and whether you get accepted or not depends entirely on which reviewer you get and his/her mood on that day.

News flash?  People are subjective and everyone is different.  What would you have SS do?  Hire robots to review images?  These people aren't grading tests with answers that are right or wrong.  They do their best, and they don't always agree.  Again, what better process would you suggest?



This, plus the total arrogance of their sign-up processs (seriously, my credit card number???) and other requirements that NO other sites have (no spaces in file names, what are we, back in the nineties???) make shutterstock the worst stock site on the internet.

When you're one of the best sites, with tons of customers and contributors, you earn the right to ask for things the way you want them.  Credit card number helps make sure you're a real person, and serious about wanting to be a contributor.  

shutterstock (it doesn't deserve capitalization) is a completely dishonest and arrogant company and doesn't deserve to make one penny from someone else's hard work. They'll certainly never make a penny from any of mine.

I'm glad to help make SHUTTERSTOCK (deserves every cap) a LOT of money.  They treat me very fairly, and the relationship has been very lucrative for both of us.

I didn't mean to refer to RacePhoto, my comment was directed towards zrmedia.

My point is, I get a much fairer commission at Alamy and Fotolia (and do great there each month), and their sign-up requirements didn't spit in my face. Therefore, Alamy and Fotolia earned my business. I am currently visiting review sites and informing new artists where the real money is and where the corporate greed and lack of ethics are. I and others remember that we, the artists, control the success or failure of these sites, not the other way around. By informing people, we will see to it that fair and ethical sites succeed and greedy, dishonest sites get edged out. I've steered several people away from SS in favor of the truly profitable sites and they have thanked me and are spreading the word themselves. This will result in more sign-ups at other sites, which in turn will mean more profit for those sites. This will result in better ratings and reviews, resulting in still more sign-ups, which will ultimately snowball. Pond5 has left its stock video market competitors in the dust and the gap is only growing. This is due to positive word of mouth, which in turn is due to fair commissions and an easy, non-nazi sign-up procedure. I and others are the reason for this, because we constantly post on the review sites and report who's screwing us artists over and who isn't. You SS fanboy hoop-jumpers that don't mind making $20 a month for weeks of work can save your keystrokes, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to people that value their time and trouble and remember how much time they spent studying and how much they spent on their gear. I'm talking to people that don't enjoy a constant corporate erection in their anus. The rest of you should just stay bent over and save some wear and tear on your keyboard. That is all.

SS isn't perfect. Not even close. But it's the best place we can upload to. And that's all there's to it. We can't realistically expect more in this situation the industry and economy is in, overall the climate is bad. Especially because of sites like IS and FT. FT IMO is worse than IS. Not only they've cut comissions twice, they can't deliver decent earnings for most ppl (according to polls, comments etc). Low volume, mostly subs and really low prices made me stop uploading over there months ago

I conducted an experiment after reading some negative comments about ShutterStock to see if it was worth my time to contribute: I uploaded 10 images. 4 were rejected for very vague reasons (they claim to make these reasons clear so that newcomers can learn from their mistakes, but no such luck). In addition, they make submitters wait an entire month before they can submit another 10 photos. This makes absolutely no sense and totally justifies all the negative things I�ve read about the site. So a month later, I submitted the exact same 10 photos. This time, 5 were rejected and 3 of the accepted ones had been rejected the first time! This proves that they have no set standards and whether you get accepted or not depends entirely on which reviewer you get and his/her mood on that day. This, plus the total arrogance of their sign-up processs (seriously, my credit card number???) and other requirements that NO other sites have (no spaces in file names, what are we, back in the nineties???) make shutterstock the worst stock site on the internet. shutterstock (it doesn't deserve capitalization) is a completely dishonest and arrogant company and doesn't deserve to make one penny from someone else's hard work. They'll certainly never make a penny from any of mine.

Did you ever get accepted?

Just sent my 10 submissions in and I will await the rejection.

Oh, no...hang on. I have got in. Excellent :-) At last.

congrats - I hope it proves as worthwhile for you as it did to me.

On your account page there are buttons to opt in or out of various types of selling - guess you can just opt out of everything until you're ready (never tried this myself so no promises).  Need to be quick as you probably have sales already 

That's great. Thanks for the tip off :-) I like the way you can upload more than one image at a time with easy key wording. Much quicker and less painful than IS. Now for some serious uploading. Not sure which is my home page though as it doesn't show all my accepted images. I need a landing home page where I can see everything.

Quote from: zrmedia on December 12, 2011, 18:00

Therefore, Alamy and Fotolia earned my business. I am currently visiting review sites and informing new artists where the real money is and where the corporate greed and lack of ethics are.

Putting Fotolia and "corporate greed" and "lack of ethics" into one sentence makes a lot of sense.
Only the way you do that and the conclusions you draw from that makes me think you have lived in a different world than me in the last years.

He doesn't make any sense and claiming ft as ethical is a tale thet he's a total dope. Can't pass at SS so he's crying on all of us. No photos on SS lying troll. Cut and paste the same words on everywhere.

Well, after a couple of days uploading and keywording I thought I would update on my progress. I have had 76 images rejected and 39 accepted. To me that's pretty bad going and at this rate I will be finding it hard to match the numbers I have in IS. Or, is this pretty normal, are they very picky once you are in ?

I initally found them easier than IS, now it's probably the other way round for me at least.  What are the rejection reasons?  If it's focus, I usually try a resubmit with a downsized image and a note to the inspector saying that I'm resubmitting.

Sorry if this is stating the obvious, but it's probably worth uploading any IS rejections you think could sell too.  I've had a few that didn't make the cut on IS but are on SS.  Congrats anyway and I hope they start accepting more.