Shutterstock Reviews 

Defaults to auto-renewal but fails to make this clear to customers or provide an opt out when they sign in. This is sharp practice at best, but could be considered deception. Additionally they route their UK sales via Ireland, presumably to avoid paying a fair share of taxes in the UK. My advice, if you are going to use this company which extracts wealth from the UK is to make certain you have turned off the auto-renewal option.

Excellent customer service from Shutterstock. Their support team went above and beyond to investigate a historical licensing issue and provided the documentation I needed. Professional, helpful and responsive throughout. Very grateful for their assistance.

I purchased their unlimited plan, but in reality, it only allows downloading a maximum of 100 assets per day, and it is limited to only certain specified assets—how ridiculous. Moreover, if you try to download the maximum of 100 assets per day to make the most of the money you paid for that image plan, you risk having your account locked without receiving a single cent back, under the pretext of abuse (which is utterly stupid). Users must maximize their downloads as much as possible to benefit themselves, not pay money to benefit this stupid, disgraceful Shutterstock company.

I should have read reviews before buying a print. Recieved a wallpaper print and the colour was so dark and different to the one ordered it looked like something else. The print is on the wall and now wanting to remove as its terribly disapointing. No option to contact via their website or they just make it too difficult to raise a dispute.
With an already 1 star rating you would hope they close down.

My first time to use Shutterstock: I selected my image and began the download process with the understanding that I was buying a picture for less than $10. At checkout I was FORCED to pay $29 for a month to month, cancel anytime, but could receive 100 pics per month. 2 days later, I tried to download a 2nd photo using my new Shutterstock and was quoted another $29, as if I had not already paid 2 days before... I see SCAM, SCAM, SCAM. Perhaps I did something wrong (But I don't think so) however that was the way it shook out. So now I am off to my credit card company. Beautiful pic but why all the BS. I am soooo dissapointed !! I recomment you NOT USE SHUTTERSTOCK !!!

The plans are extremely unclear and confusing, and the customer service experience was very disappointing. I spoke with an agent named Alex, who was rude, impatient, and not helpful at all.

Even when I tried to change my plan, I received no real support. I’m now stuck paying £69 per month, and although the website shows £69, £82 is actually being taken from my account.

In my experience, the service is simply not worth the money. I strongly recommend reading every detail of the contract and pricing very carefully before signing up, because once you have a problem, getting proper help seems almost impossible. The whole experience has left me feeling misled and that the priority is taking payment rather than genuinely helping customer

I believe Shutterstock is a scam! I am a "contibutor", meaning I have TRIED selling my photos on this sight.
I have been a "contributor" for 4 yrs now and have earned the total of $6.30. When they sell your photos and only give you $00.10 to $00.45 per photo there's a problem. I have gotten so frustrated with them having its "pending" for weeks and supposedly the have AI catalogs that don't do anything! When you email them you get an AI responding back! I think they should be taken to court for fraud.

Do not use Shutterstock under any circumstance. Their plans are difficult to understand and I you get billed for plans that you did not sign up for. It is IMPOSSIBLE to contact the company to ask questions, to discuss problems with billing or for any other reason. The only option you have is to pay extra to cancel your subscription that you did not sign up for!

Similar to other customers, I am stunned by the sharp practices Shutterstock use to rip off customers.
I took out a small, 5-credit pack a year ago. Not only did they auto-renew it (I don't recall an option to make a one-off purchase), but:
There was no notification to me that they were about to auto-renew it, they simply charged my card;
This didn't even happen at the end of my year's subscription, but about 6 weeks before it ran out!
I checked online how to get a refund, and their website says they will only refund where the law says they have to.
Luckily I live in the UK and got a refund promptly after ringing them. But their whole business model stinks. I will be using Adobe, Photobucket, etc and other sources in future.

They say free text to video, but i must pay to download. Crap

While, like others, I got a Shutterstock subscription I didn't think I had asked for. I was able to speak with Jim via chat and get it refunded. I had downloaded one picture that I wanted, but after I paid for that, my refund came. There was good communication with the representative.

If I could put zero, I would. Completely convoluted and unsatisfactory experience.

Not worth the money. Thought I was signing up for a month-to-month Plan. Tried to cancel after spending a substantial amount of time trying to locate where I could cancel. Contacted Customer Service services by email. Zero response. Was informed online that I had to pay six months subscription to cancel the plan I had. I have cancelled my bankcard because I refuse to pay this. It took at least eight layers of processing to get to the point where I found this information out. Guidelines dictate that cancellations of subscription should be a very easy process. Without wishing to sound like a drama queen, this is the worst process for cancellation I have experience. Anyone looking for a suitable alternative should look to Adobe. At least they’re cancellation process is crystal clear. Broke the golden rule I didn’t check the trustpilot reviews first.

worst expirenise it audo-detect my money and never refunded

This photo selling platform is a real joke. It takes million years to just approve a photo and for that only they have some serious ridiculous criteria especially when there is no visible trademark/brand/logo , it just shows like that and simply reject your photo. Customer Support center is super unhelpful. They don't even assist you to change the country and you cannot change it with your phone , you should have a computer to simply change. Minimum payout is 25 $ but it takes 25 years to make 25 bucks . Absolute Waste of Time

If i could give -100 i would! take heed everyone and read these reviews. I subscribed to AI generator. The AI tool gets it wrong every time and you lose 10 credits each time so the more it gets it wrong the more credit you a use until you use up all your credits and IT NEVER GETS EVEN THE SIMPLEST INSTRUCTIONS CORRECT It's like the coders put in some sort of machine learning that makes the ai tool go off on its own to devise its own creative output instead of following specific instructions. This I believe could be intentional to ensure you spend a good amount trying it out before your drop your subscription. I have subscribed for 2 months had 200 credits and SS AI generated nothing I can use DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY. THEY ARE ROBBING YOU IN BROAD DAYLIGHT AND IT KEEPS THE INVESTORS MAKING MORE AND MORE ON YOUR HARD WORKING DIME WHILE YOU KEEP PAYING UP HOPING TO GET A GOOD OUTPUT. CUT YOUR LOSSES AND RUN!

Absolue con-artist don't use!!!!!!!! No way of downloading unless you get another app - BIG fraudsters.

I cancelled my subscription over a year ago. I've sent all the paperwork to prove that this happened. I can not get a single person to respond about this. The CS is horrible, not one single person will help you.

I am a WooCommerce plugin developer with over 10 years on CodeCanyon, part of Envato, which Shutterstock acquired in 2024. I need to speak directly to Shutterstock leadership: you are destroying one of the best assets you purchased, and you may not even realize it.

You bought Envato to strengthen your position in digital assets. But your core business, stock photos and video, is being wiped out by AI. Midjourney, Sora, and similar tools can now generate in seconds what used to take professional photographers and videographers hours. That market is gone. You know this.

But here is what you apparently do not know: Envato's CodeCanyon and ThemeForest are different. Themes, plugins, and scripts cannot be generated by AI. They require real developers, years of expertise, ongoing support, security updates, and compatibility maintenance. This is a living product, not a static asset. This was the one part of Envato that still had a genuine, defensible future.

And what has Shutterstock done with it? Raised the author commission cut from 30% to 50%, effective July 1, 2026. For me personally this means losing nearly $1,000 per month. For top authors with millions in sales, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Those authors, will simply leave. They have their own audiences and the resources to sell independently. When they leave, their traffic leaves with them. Then smaller authors lose too. This is a textbook marketplace death spiral.

You acquired Envato for $245 million. The plugins and themes marketplace was the crown jewel inside that acquisition, the one segment with a real future in the AI era. And you are killing it to squeeze out short-term revenue.

There is still time to reverse this decision. But not much.

A major issue is the way image usage limits were handled. The images used were standard stock images, identical to those available on other image banks, with no custom or exclusive photo shoots involved. Even so, the company repeatedly tried to claim non‑compliance and used this as a basis to push for additional payments.
The overall approach felt like an attempt to pressure the customer into paying more, suggesting that if extra fees were not paid, cancellation would not be allowed and previously licensed content would be considered invalid. Despite the customer transparency about usage and reasonable volumes, the communication is consistently aggressive and aimed at extracting more money rather than resolving the situation fairly.

A experience very negative. Despite having a valid and paid plan, we were subjected to constant pressure and intimidating communication, including references to actions typically used by image‑rights enforcement websites, seemingly to scare us. We were asked to pay additional fees to “keep” images that had already been licensed, even after we clearly requested cancellation of the service.
We were always transparent about how the account was used, never exceeding around 90 images per month, and we immediately adjusted our usage when concerns were raised. Nevertheless, they attempted to impose high retroactive charges and made the cancellation process difficult. Aggressive approach, lack of flexibility, and very poor customer experience.