Shutterstock is a prominent brand in the global creative market. Founded in the year 2002, Shutterstock owns and operates a vast library of over 200 million royalty-free stock photos, vector graphics and illustrations, alongside around 10 million video clips and music tracks. Furthermore, the company has expanded its library to include AI-generated assets and 3D models. Shutterstock is also operating in other segments, such as data distribution, services and custom production, with brands including Giphy, TurboSquid, Pond5, Envato, Splash News, PremiumBeat, PicMonkey, Offset and BigStock. For those wondering about the revenue streams of the company, some essential details are in order.
Key Operational Processes
With a library of over 415 million assets and 1.8 million customers, Shutterstock’s operations revolve around creative content, leveraging automation, AI-driven features and contributor engagement to drive content ingestion, curation, distribution and customer support globally. Let’s have a look at some of the primary operational processes of Shutterstock.
Over 1.5 million contributors upload content on Shutterstock platform through self-service portals. Shutterstock drives high-volume submissions through guidelines, tools and incentives like tiered royalties.
Shutterstock deploys automated AI tools and human moderation to ingest and curate content. AI integration has served to reduce the content review time by 30-40%. Content is categorised using machine learning to ensure search optimisation.
Core operations run on cloud-based infrastructure for global content delivery network distribution. Customer support is multilingual and round-the-clock through email, chat and phone, supported by AI chatbots and self-service FAQs.
| Company/Brand | Shutterstock Inc. |
| Establishment Year | 2002 |
| Headquarters | New York City, United States |
| Founder | Jon Oringer |
| Industry | Stock photography, stock video, stock music |
| Net Worth | $0.74 billion (November 2025) |
| Total Revenue In 2024 | $935.3 million |
How Does Shutterstock Make Money?
1 Subscriptions
Customers pay a monthly or annual subscription fee, depending upon the plan. Plans range from a fixed number of image downloads a month to enterprise-level unlimited or high-volume downloads. Subscription model is the biggest and most stable income source for Shutterstock. It contributes around 60-70% to the company’s total revenue.
2. On-demand Purchases
Customers purchase individual assets or image/video packs at specific prices quoted by Shutterstock. Prices of the assets are higher as compared to subscription rates. On-demand purchases are made by occasional buyers who don’t need long-term subscriptions. This revenue model contributes around 15-20% to the company’s income.
3. Enhanced and Enterprise Licencing
Shutterstock sells higher-priced licences to customers needing broader rights over the content, such as resale rights, unlimited print runs and indemnification. Shutterstock Premier caters to large corporations and agencies, with benefits like dedicated support and custom pricing. This model accounts for 10-15% of the company’s revenue.
4. AI Generated Content and Tools
Customers pay for using Shutterstock’s AI tools to generate or edit images. The AI tools are sold through credits or subscriptions. At present, this segment contributes less than 10% to the company’s revenue but this figure is steadily rising.
5. Additional Revenue Streams
Shutterstock generates revenue through its acquired platforms like Offset, TurboSquid, PremiumBeat, Pond5 and others. Each platform has its own subscription/on-demand revenue models.
Shutterstock Studios earns revenue by producing customised content for brands.
Shutterstock Over The Years
Shutterstock’s journey began in the year 2002 when it was founded by photographer and entrepreneur Jon Oringer in New York City. It commenced operations as a stock photo subscription service, with Oringer’s own collection of 30,000 photos. The monthly starting subscription fee was $49.
By the year 2006, Shutterstock had 570,000 images in its collection. In the same year, the company ventured into videos with the launch of Shutterstock Footage. Shutterstock’s photo collection reached 1.8 million in the year 2007. The company expanded beyond subscriptions to on-demand purchase or a la carta pricing in August 2008.
Shutterstock reached a collection of 11 million royalty-free stock images by the early part of 2010. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in the year 2012, raising $70 million in IPO. In the 2015-20 period, Shutterstock diversified to premium images, 3D models and music by acquiring platforms like Offset, TurboSquid and PremiumBeat. The company entered the generative AI segment in the year 2021 through strategic partnerships and launched a contributor fund to pay creators for AI training data.
Shutterstock appointed Paul Hennessy as CEO in 2023 to drive AI and growth strategies. The company launched its own AI tools in the year 2024.
