And FTP is sooo 1990 anyways...

I don't know. But I know one thing - there is always a way to pay for services I don't need! 

Hi @Pauws99

I'm Robert, the software engineer behind dropstock.io

Not sure if I got you right, once you put in your FTP credentials you don't have to come back to dropstock.io (unless you want to add more agencies or want to check on upload status of files manually).

We try to make things as safe as possible. Neither your FTP credentials nor photos ever touch a disk on our servers - we can't even write to our server's disk, which (among other safety features) also makes them very hard to hack.

But yes, there is a potential security risk. As is backing up your data to a cloud provider - or not backing them up offsite. Or as using unencrypted FTP from a public WiFi. Or loosing money from uploading fewer pictures to less agencies because of the hassle. Or leaving the house for taking new pictures.

Your call

As far as I understand, each agency requires different things to do after upload - set categories, submit, tag as editorial (or upload to a different folder), ... so we decided to strictly handle the uploading part only.

Even if all those tasks could be automated just with the metadata in the pictures, it would be a ridiculously big task to implement that for each and every agency out there, in most cases by logging into the agencies web sites with a fake browser, using fake mouse clicks and hoping the layout doesn't change or everything falls apart (and would require even more access to your accounts).

So we focus on one thing we can do well and which has the potential to boost productivity for many photographers, especially those with many photos and agencies or bad connections, which is moving files.

We might eventually do some more sophisticated workflows (photos got to X agencies, photos with "_editorial" got to Y agencies, videos go to Z agencies), but you'll still have to categorize and submit photos on the agencies websites.

We just try to save you from babysitting your uploads. You can edit pictures offline, move them to the Dropbox folder and next time you're online, your pictures will show up in your agencies inboxes automatically.

Oh, and you really should have offsite backups (external disk/sd cards don't count if your house burns down or broken into), especially if you earn your living with this data! dropstock.io automatically solves that for you, too

That's why when I slot in the SD-card from my camera to my Mac it's copying the RAW photos to a folder that's synced with Dropbox, so all photos are backed immediately without me touching anything. Big fan of automating stuff as much as possible, my time is too precious (and I'm too lazy and forgetful) for backing up manually. dropstock.io just fits in nicely.