Shutterstock is a well-known name in the photography industry. They've been around for 16 years and have paid out over a billion dollars to their taxpayers.

In addition, the company has a global community. This means it accepts contributors from all over the world and has many resources to help you advance your photography skills and career.

What is Shutterstock Contributor?

The Shutterstock Contributor Program is the premier platform for photographers and illustrators to sell their work and earn money every time a customer buys a license for their work on Shutterstock. It is the largest contributor program and accounts for up to 50% of all photographers' earnings.

Shutterstock Contributor Earnings

As a Shutterstock contributor, you receive 15-40% of the image price. Its percentage depends on the image (or video) levels, which are based on the number of downloads of your content.

So every time a customer downloads your photo, you will get 1 download. So, to earn more as a Shutterstock contributor, you need to submit more content that uploads more frequently.

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Images You Can Sell

You can sell photos, videos, illustrations, 3D images and vector illustrations on Shutterstock. The download process is relatively simple. However, keep in mind that they have submission guidelines for each type of content, as well as a review process that we'll discuss in more detail below.

How to Become a Shutterstock Contributor

With that said, let's take a look at how you can become a Shutterstock contributor, as well as their submission guidelines, payment system, and review process.

Registration Process

To register with Shutterstock as a contributor, you will need to create an account on their contributor platform. Please note that while you may have a free customer account on your main website, you can only upload your photos and other content through the Contributor platform.

Step 1: Visit Shutterstock

To start the registration process, you will need to visit the Shutterstock website and click on the Sell Content link in the top left menu. You will be redirected to a page where you can get a brief overview of the platform. There are several buttons you can click to start the application process.

Step 2: Complete the Application

Once the app is loaded, you will need to enter your information such as your name, username and email address. If you are registering as a company, be sure to enter your company name.

Step 3: Verify Your Email Address

A verification email will be sent after submitting your application to shutterstock.  All you have to do here is follow the instructions in this post to verify your email address, which involves clicking a link.

Step 4: Add Your Address

After verifying your email address, you will need to enter your home and mailing address. If you are not from the United States or a country where English is the official language, please note that you will need to complete the form in English, ie. special characters will not be accepted.

Step 5. Start Uploading Your Photos

Congratulations, you are now an official contributor to Shutterstock and can start uploading your photos to the platform. As you can see, the Contributor platform and your account dashboard give you an overview of your earnings and where your images are uploaded. There are also links to useful resources to help you get the most out of the Contributor platform.

Requirements to Submit

Shutterstock lets you sell photos, videos, and vector artwork.

You can upload images in both JPEG and TIFF file formats, although we recommend uploading your photos as JPEG files as they are converted to this format anyway.

For vector files, you can upload EPS files as long as they are compatible with Adobe Illustrator 8 or 10.

Shutterstock also has official guidelines for color profiles. It is recommended to convert all photos to sRGB as this is the most common color profile on the internet.

For file size and dimensions, images should be at least 4 MP or larger and set to the highest quality settings. The maximum sizes you can upload are 50MB for photos, 100MB for EPS for panel uploads, 50MB for images, 100MB for EPS, and 4GB for TIFF images for FTP uploads.

                                           Go to Shutterstock

Verification Process

It is worth mentioning that your first submission requires you to submit some of your best photos or artwork. This content will be reviewed by internal experts to ensure it meets platform guidelines and quality expectations.

Account will be fully active after the approval of first submission. This means that you will be able to download any type of file without limitation.

In addition to the initial review, your images will continue to be reviewed periodically as you submit them to Shutterstock. Once you've uploaded images and added keywords and other information, you can submit the photos for review.

Shutterstock will send you a confirmation email that your submission is being reviewed, and once the review process is complete, you will receive another email. Typically, the review process can take up to 72 hours, although it can take up to 7 days during peak shipping times.

Payments

As for payments, Shutterstock pays its contributors on a monthly basis. You will be paid at the end of each month when you reach the minimum payment amount of $35. You can receive payments via Payoneer, Paypal or Skrill.