Alamy Reviews 

We're a small independent estate agency. We bought an image through Alamy's own checkout, on our own account, for a page on our website. The buy page asks whether you need an "Individual (Single user)" or "Team (More than one user)" licence. One person here used the image, so Individual seemed right.

Months later, Alamy's enforcement team told us Individual actually means something different — it turns on whether you're part of an organisation, "regardless of how many people are involved" — and that we had therefore infringed. The correct licence costs £80. They demanded five times that.

We accepted the error immediately, offered to pay the proper rate the same day, and pointed out that the wording on the buy page doesn't match the definition being enforced. The answer was that the multiplier is in the terms. When we offered double the licence fee as a compromise, we were asked to send our profit and loss statement to prove we couldn't afford it.

If you're buying for a business of any size, read the licence definitions in the terms rather than trusting the labels on the checkout page — they are not the same thing. Alamy recovered about £350 from us and lost a customer permanently. We won't be buying here again.

I'm not the only photographer/contributor to be appalled by Alamy's extortionate cut of 80%, that offers zero incentive to contribute further. They've just sold one of my photos for $42.31, of which they took a mind-numbing $33.85, leaving just $8.46 for me. Astonishing.

Do not waste your time uploading your work to Alamy. They claim to support independent photographers, but their payout model is designed to exploit creators and strip away their hard-earned money.
I marked my photos as 100% Exclusive to Alamy, meaning I gave up the right to monetise my images anywhere else on the web. In return for total exclusivity, Alamy takes a staggering 80% commission, leaving me with an insulting 20% slice of my own work.
To make matters worse, they quietly hid higher payout tiers behind absurd annual revenue thresholds (£2,500+/ $3,000+ just to get a standard 40% cut). Exclusivity means absolutely nothing to them unless you're already pulling in corporate-level sales, effectively trapping smaller and growing creators in an endless 80% money-grab.
I am doing the work, buying the equipment, taking the shots, and giving them full platform exclusivity, whilst they sit back and take 80% for literally hosting a file.
Save yourself the frustration. Remove your exclusivity, host your images elsewhere, and do not fall for their promises. Absolute corporate greed at its finest.

Awful trying to charge me for a free image I use I had from 10 years ago . So of course there is no chance I can find proof of this from 10 years ago. An email out the blue saying the discount would only last till midnight.

I am dealign with the grief from my mother's death and I can do without out all this hassle.

The Alamy staff are always helpful, and their pricing is very reasonable. Highly recommended.

A very disgruntled ex-customer.

Several months after purchasing an image in good faith, I began receiving multiple emails per week alleging copyright infringement due to an invalid license. When I provided the original invoice and correspondence, I was told that because I'm part of a small business ( less than 10 people ), a single use on a website blog post required a "teams" license — something that is not made clear at the point of sale ( unless you read the small print!).

What followed was an incessant demand to pay a fine five times the value of the extended license. Asking me to pay the difference would have been fair. Five times the license value is not a reasonable response to a genuine customer who acted in good faith.

I have paid the demand, because I believe I did nothing intentionally wrong — it's a shame Alamy didn't extend me the same good faith in return.

My advice: if you are considering using Alamy, read their terms and conditions extremely carefully before purchasing anything. I will be taking my business elsewhere and would STRONGLY advise others to do the same.

Did not respond to my email query about the extremely expensive price I was quoted after it was sent to me. The person who helped me did seem to know what she was doing. I asked that my request to be sent to a supervisor, but I never heard back. Don't know how to proceed so I guess I will have to take my business elsewhere

Alamy's hypecrites, tightwads and cheapskates make you come up with 50 tags for each photo, which takes a lot of time. They listed my photos for $39 each, but when a sale was made they recorded it as a $10 sale, and they kept 61 % -- $6.10; I got 39 %, or $3.90. I should say I was supposed to get $3.90. But here's the catch: you have to get 11 sales to get your money, So in effect they take 100 %. The $3.90 has significance, too, because 10 sales puts you only at $39, $1 short of the threshhold of getting any money at all. I'd give them a half-star if that rating was possible to do. They claim to hold super high standards, but these hypecrites cheat the photographers.

I purchased a licence for a photograph from this company in 2022. Despite providing them with details of that licence, I have continued to receive demands alleging that I owe £460 for copyright infringement.

I have responded with the licence information and explained why I believe their claim is incorrect. Rather than addressing the evidence I supplied, the company has continued to pursue the matter.

Most concerningly, they have now contacted someone I work with about this dispute, and today they sent an email to someone who is not me alleging copyright infringement. I found this extremely distressing and, in my experience, their approach has become unnecessarily aggressive and intrusive.

I fail to see why anyone other than me should receive allegations about an unresolved copyright claim, and it raises serious questions about privacy and how personal information is being handled at this company, and the underhand tactics being deployed to generate revenue.

To Alarmy i hope i can get my Refund Back

Absolutely horrendous - avoid.

I've purchased a lot of photos from Alamy in the past - all okay. Years later they are now accusing me purchasing the wrong licence and fining me.

If there is a photo on Alamy you'd like to purchase, don't do it - use Envato, Istock, Shutterstock, or just use AI to generate one. This company is terrible and should be avoided at all costs.

Should be avoided at all costs.

I had never even heard of this company (and needless to say, not used their images) until I received a spam email from Copyright Agents UK Limited. This email is carefully worded to sound scary without actually accusing you of copyright infringement. They obviously just prey on people who either are not sure if they made a mistake, or simply think it's worth paying for the non-existent problem to go away. I have no intention of answering the email, but this company Alamy clearly allows its name to be used by spammers so I would never do business with them.

EDIT: Alamy sent a copy/paste reply here, asking me to contact their Customer Support. No, I am absolutely not going to waste my time dealing with a problem they created. I just wanted to warn the public not to deal with this company.

The site is difficult to navigate. They rope you in with a reasonable price and then stick you with a higher price. It is really upsetting.

I actually paid for the use of two photos. First they accuse me of using the images without a license. Now I'm being billed for quadruple the price because they say my use was as a "team". They are billing me for $450 -- pay now or else experience litigation. All for 2 photos of Martin Luther King, Jr. which I paid for and used on a flyer!

I love Alamy so much.
Great collection of Hollywood pictures & videos.
Perfect company for cooperation, many discounts, friendly support.

Paying money for photos of that quality? They charge $22 for even the most common (stupid) images. And, you'll find most images for free if you perform an advanced search online under the Common Creative License. I understand if you're paying for exclusive images or if you want to use someone's professional work in your business, paying for Alamy? Never... it's garbage.

They are a fraud. after spending over $400 for pictures they are saying I can't use them for personal use. and they won't issue a refund either. Please stay away from this company

One star is too many!
Alamy must be the most hated image library in the UK – and their rating on here proves it. Their copyright agents constantly harass my clients about images that they are using, all of which have the correct licence but we all have to waste time going back through our Alamy accounts – which are in their server – to prove it. All my clients have now asked me to never use Alamy for images and I wouldn't anyway. I don't get this from any other image library. Their images were all considerably more expensive than other libraries when we licensed the images – most of which are now available at a fraction of the price. Call off the dogs Alamy! Is it really worth destroying your business and reputation for the few infringements you manage to get?