Shutterstock, Inc. has announced that its contributor base has reached
$1 billion in earnings paid. The company released its
Contributor Earnings Report, which breaks down the massive achievement shared among its global community of artists, photographers, videographers and musicians. The report showcases an overview of earnings by region, a snapshot of high-growth countries and features a selection of contributors who helped make the achievement possible.
Over 1 million contributors across Shutterstock, Shutterstock Editorial, Shutterstock Custom, Bigstock, Offset, and PremiumBeat are responsible for making more than 300 million images, 16 million videos and 24 million music tracks available on the platform. Each time an image, video clip or music track is licensed through Shutterstock, the contributor behind that content earns money.
In 2018 the average earnings of each contributor was $159.00. By region 2018 earnings break down as follow:
| Europe |
$105,300,000 |
66.23% |
| Asia |
$26,600,000 |
16.73% |
| North America |
$23,700,000 |
14,91% |
| South America |
$1,500,000 |
0.94% |
| Oceania |
$1,200,000 |
0.75% |
| Africa |
$700,000 |
0.44% |
| |
|
|
| |
$159,000,000 |
100% |
It is interesting to note that two-thirds of the earnings went to European contributors while only about 15% went to those in the U.S.
German contributors earned 5.5% of European earnings but only 3.6% of worldwide earnings. U.S. contributors earned 78.5% of North American earning, but only 11.7% of total worldwide earnings. This is despite the fact that one-third to maybe more than 40% of the customers for stock images are in North America and Germany.
It is also important to remember that Europe includes Eastern Europe and Russia. The European countries that saw the greatest percentage growth in 2018 were Kosovo, Estonia and Albania. Likewise, in Asia the countries were Shutterstock saw the greatest growth were Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Only a little over 1% of total Asian sales went to South Korea, one of the more prosperous Asian countries.
One of the takeaways from this data seems to be that a few contributors in countries where the cost-of-living is very low can possibly earn enough money from stock image licensing to justify putting forth the effort to produce and upload images. On the other hand, contributors from the more developed countries, where the basic cost of living is much higher, are finding that no matter how much they enjoy taking pictures, how talented they are and how hard they work, they must find other ways to actually earn the money needed to pay their bills.
Commenting on the milestone, Shutterstock Founder and CEO Jon Oringer said, “our 1.9 million customers around the world rely on the inspiring work provided by our contributors to create effective promotional campaigns, social posts, websites, movies and other creative projects for their organizations, ranging from Fortune 500 brands to the mom and pop coffee shop on the corner. We are incredibly proud of the network effect of our platform and this monumental achievement reached by our contributor community.”
With over six images downloaded every second, Shutterstock’s platform provides contributors with real-time information on the performance of their content, as well as trending topics to help them deliver fresh images, video and music to meet current market demands.
Becoming a Shutterstock contributor has never been easier. With the recent launch of in-app contributor registration for iOS and Android, image and footage contributors can start earning money from their mobile photos and videos right away. The contributor-facing website and mobile applications are also now available in 21 languages and a newly upgraded contributor portfolio page offers an enhanced experience for these users to showcase their image and video content in one place.
In addition to the report, Shutterstock is celebrating this impressive achievement by increasing the contributor commission for new customer referrals starting today. Contributors will earn 50% commission on all net new customers they refer for a 30-day period.