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Shutterstock Reviews Summary
Shutterstock's reputation is marred by significant customer dissatisfaction primarily due to its subscription model and billing practices. Many users report feeling misled by the terms of their plans, often facing unexpected charges and high cancellation fees, which has led to accusations of deceptive practices. Despite these concerns, some customers appreciate the platform's diverse image selection and filtering capabilities, which enhance user experience. Overall, the feedback highlights a troubling disconnect between customer expectations and the company's service approach, suggesting a need for improved transparency and customer support to regain trust.
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Does not respect people they work with.
Their crated a new kind of dependance/slavery, in the name of God money.
There should be a 0 star rating exclusively for this company. After being loyal to Shutterstock for more than 10 years and contributing increasingly higher quality content for them, they announced a 75% cut to artist royalties with only a 6-day notice of the change, effectively reducing the bulk of royalties to an unbelievable $0.10. Why would any artist pour money into expensive photography gear and spend countless hours producing high quality photos for a 10 cent commission? Even Chinese factory workers get paid better. Buyer beware, this company profits from slave labor.
Graverobbers! Shutterstock have arbitrarily increased their profits by cutting contributor revenue by a colossal 75%!
Shutterstock is unethically changing contracts with its suppliers with 6 days notice reducing the minimum commission payed by 40%!
Buyers: Move on to a more ethical company like Adobe Stock who treat their suppliers better (until now). They will get fresh content by their happy suppliers.
Artists: Stay away and send your fresh content to other distributors.
Terrible company who do not look after their customers or contributors. Nothing but greedy. Go to Adobe stock or pond5 for better content, customer support and better support of the artists who contribute to them.
#boycott_Shutterstock Shutterstock pays authors 10 cents for their work, imagination, time, eyesight, amortization of equipment and electricity. Do this during a pandemic. This is disgusting
They write on their blog about pandemic support, care and respect. But the reality is 4 times reduction in payment to contributors. Shame on Shutterstock.
On May 26th Shutterstock suddenly gave its contributors a 6 day notice that they would cut their earning by 60%. They sent an unclear, haphazard communication (with one correction mail hours later) on how they would screw over the very people who make the content you love.
Shutterstock rips off its contributors. No business ethics whatsoever. They have now decided to pay their contributors 15% of the sale!?!? Can you imagine your manager taking 85% of the money your creativity and hard work produce? Whatever happened to "and 10% for his manager"? If Shutterstock stabs its contributors in the back then I would be very careful in doing any sort of business with them.
The site is a hive of stolen material. If you buy the assets there you have high chance of being stolen from.
Buying stolen designs results in you having NO USAGE RIGHTS at all. They set you up for legal trouble and steal from you.
Their policing of their own platform is slow and reluctant as they have financial incentive in letting their users steal designs and try to sell them.
Scam site.
I have been a longtime Shutterstock customer - and their platform is integral to our marketing and our branding. I am an accomplished photographer and appreciate the quality of the imagery. We are now extremely happy with their video footage - and the way their team handles any customer service issues.
Time to move on to a new platform. Shutterstock is a scam, everyone please leave a bad review everywhere so that people are aware and they could stop scamming people.
Rubbish company that have no idea about photography. They are scammers and their approval processis laughable. AVOID!
As with many other reviewers on here I signed up for their 10 free images trial and thought I was getting ripped off when they charged me 29 USD a few days before the first month was over (I just wanted the 10 free images and didn't read the fine print). However, when I called Shutterstock and spoke with a representative she politely cancelled my plan and refunded the money to my credit card. So overall I had a good experience with them.
BUYER BEWARE!
I signed up for the trial and forgot to cancel within the month. When I tried to cancel the next month, the only way I could was by paying their HIGH cancellation fees. Their monthly fee is expensive enough, and then they hook you to pay the cancellation fees. STAY AWAY!
... but i was not! I didn't understand the terms of free trial and discovered too late to be bounded by the annual plan. So i contacted support, i really was in angry, but the operator immediatly explained me the misunderstandig, cancelled the autorenew and refunded the last charge on my credit card. Nothing to say about customer service, i'll subscribe again for sure when i will need some high quality images
I purchased one image form Shutterstock so I was amazed to see a recurring $36 per month charge to my credit card. When I tried to cancel this plan, it got worse. I was then presented with a message that said "Cancellation of an annual plan early may incur a plan price adjustment". In other words, not only did they lock me into an annual plan without me knowing about it, but also it looks like they are going to try and charge me an exit penalty. This outrageous price-gouging by Shutterstock. Stay away from Shutterstock, unless you want to get a nasty surprise!
Honestly, the images available at shutterstock are great, and they have helped me host legit sites. However, their billing process is as scammy as they come. I've seen MLMers that are less trashy than this. Free trial? That's cool until you get an email saying your credit card has been charged multiple days before the free trial ends. If you get an image pack of, say, 5 images, guess whose getting charged again after your 5th download. What kind of idiots run this company? If you go on Amazon and buy 5 t-shirts, you don't get charged for 10 t-shirts just in case you decide you want 5 more in the future. Trashy service.
Uploaded a few dozen pictures which were extremely well received elsewhere. Shutterstock disapproved them with negative comments.
This company has been charging me for four months even after I cancelled my trial membership. Whatever you do, do not sign up for shutterstock. Scammy, pathetic company who offered no help on the phone. Shutterstock's entire business model is built on running up people's cards past trial memberships whether they have cancelled or not because most people don't even realize they are being charged. You know a company is worthless when their entire business model is built on scamming people instead of providing a valuable service. As I explained to them on the phone, I only signed up for the trial membership which I cancelled soon after. Since then, I haven't even logged on to their site in the past four months. That didn't stop them from stealing my money or refusing do give it back. I urge all consumers to protect themselves from this despicable company.
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- SmartCustomer’s sole mission is to increase online transparency for buyers and businesses
- SmartCustomer has helped over 200M buyers make better purchasing decisions online
- Suspicious reviews are flagged by our algorithms, moderators, and community members