A reader wrote, “Over the years you’ve published Shutterstock’s gross revenue number. It would be good to see the ratio of corporate earnings to photographer earnings after this weeks
1 billion horn blow.”
The list below shows the years from 2004 through 2019, Shutterstock's gross income, the share paid to contributors, the royalty share percentage and the total images licensed during the year. In the 16 years Shutterstock had generated a total of
$3,847,690,000 and paid out
$1,011,659,000 to contributors.
I have estimated the gross revenue and royalties for 2019 since we don't have the full year figures yet. The figures for the years 2012 through 2018 are from their annual reports after they went public. They did not report gross revenue figures for the years 2004 through 2011 prior to going public . To arrive at the gross revenue figures for these years I used the
royalty figures reported recently, assumed an average royalty share of 28% and calculated the Gross Income for each of those years. The average royalty paid photographers for the entire 16 year period has been about
26.3%. The average license fee for an image has been
$2.84 and the average royalty per image licensed has been
$0.75
It is also interesting that based on the Shutterstock 2019 Proxy Statement
CEO Jon Oringer owns
16,354,133 shares of the company and they are currently trading at $42.73 per share. Thus, his holdings are worth
$698, 812,103.
| Year |
Gross Income |
Contributor |
Percent |
Images |
| |
|
Royalty |
Royalty |
Licensed |
| |
|
|
Payout |
|
| 2019 |
$645,000,000 |
$145,000,000 |
22.48% |
187,000,000 |
| 2018 |
$623,300,000 |
$159,000,000 |
25.55% |
179,600,000 |
| 2017 |
$557,100,000 |
$150,000,000 |
26.92% |
172,000,000 |
| 2016 |
$494,300,000 |
$139,000,000 |
28.12% |
167,900,000 |
| 2015 |
$425,100,000 |
$116,000,000 |
27.28% |
147,200,000 |
| 2014 |
$328,000,000 |
$88,000,000 |
26.83% |
125,900,000 |
| 2013 |
$235,500,000 |
$64,000,000 |
27.17% |
100,100,000 |
| 2012 |
$169,200,000 |
$47,000,000 |
27.78% |
76,000,000 |
| 2011 |
$120,271,000 |
$33,000,000 |
28.00% |
58,600,000 |
| 2010 |
$82,973,000 |
$23,000,000 |
28.00% |
44,100,000 |
| 2009 |
$61,099,000 |
$17,000,000 |
28.00% |
34,000,000 |
| 2008 |
$52,744,000 |
$14,000,000 |
28.00% |
34,000,000 |
| 2007 |
$30,066,000 |
$8,000,000 |
28.00% |
22,600,000 |
| 2006 |
$10,720,000 |
$3,000,000 |
28.00% |
|
| 2005 |
$1,925,000 |
$539,000 |
28.00% |
|
| 2004 |
$42,857 |
$12,000 |
28.00% |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
$3,837,340,857 |
$1,006,551,000 |
|
1,349,000,000 |