iStock is an online royalty-free, international micro-stock photography provider based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The firm offers millions of photos, illustrations, clip art, videos, and audio tracks. Artists, designers, and photographers worldwide contribute their work to iStock collections in return for royalties. Nearly half a million new photos, illustrations, videos, and audio files, are added each month. The company was founded by Bruce Livingstone in May 2000, as iStock Photo, a free stock imagery website supported by Livingstone’s web development firm, Evolve Media. iStock pioneered the crowd-sourced stock industry and became the original source for user-generated stock photos, vectors and illustrations, and video clips. It began charging money in 2001 and quickly became profitable. On February 9, 2006, the firm was acquired by Getty Images for $50 million USD. Livingstone promised that the site would continue “functioning independently with the benefits of Getty Images, yet, very important for them and us, autonomy.” On September 18, 2006, the site experienced the first benefits of the new ownership: a Controlled vocabulary keyword taxonomy borrowed from Getty Images. As of March 31, 2007, iStockpro closed. iStockpro was a more expensive version of iStock Photo that was never as popular as iStock Photo and became redundant after the acquisition by Getty Images. On April 1, 2008, Getty Images disclosed, as part of its agreement to be sold to a private equity firm, that iStock Photo’s revenue in 2007 was $71.9 million USD of which $20.9 million (29%) was paid to contributors. Founder and CEO Livingstone left iStockphoto in 2009. He went on to co-found competitor Stocksy United in 2013. In 2013, iStock Photo was rebranded as iStock by Getty Images, removing the word ‘photo’ to convey that the company offers stock media other than just photography, such as vector illustrations, audio, and video. In 2020, iStock began offering weekly complimentary stock photos from its exclusive Signature collection, as well as monthly free illustrations and video clips.
iStock is one of the top stock photo agencies in the industry and the pioneer in the microstock model selling royalty-free photos online at low prices with minimum payment requirements. They’re backed by Getty Images, and they’re well-known for their high curation level and extensive catalog that includes a huge collection of exclusive images. You can buy these photos on demand using credits, paying between $8 and $33 per image depending on the collection you choose and the credit pack you use. The lowest prices come with subscriptions: you have various plans to raise per month or per year, for access to the whole library or to budget images only, and they let you get awesome high-quality photos for as little as $0.22 to $0.49 each. iStock is one agency definitely worth knowing and using if you like quality, variety, and affordability.
iStock was the first microstock agency, inaugurating the business model where companies offered stock photos on an online searchable library, under a Royalty-Free license, and with a micropayment (a minimum payment) requirement. They were soon followed by several other companies, and today they have many competitors selling stock media online. But iStock found a way to remain distinctive: adding value to its offer via its unique image curation. Today, this agency offers a massive catalog with millions and millions of photos, vectors, and illustrations (and other stock content types such as video, too), divided into two main collections: Essentials, which hosts a huge selection of high-quality images for everyday design needs, covering the most popular themes and topics, and at a very affordable price. Signature, which includes a large volume of images with higher production value and artistic worth, that are exclusive to iStock, which also makes them more unique and less widely used. Signature images come at a higher price point but are still very reasonable.
As for subscriptions, iStock offers a lot of variety for all kinds of budgets. All plans come with monthly download limits, but you can raise them monthly or annually. Plus, they have two alternatives: Basic subscriptions for Essentials downloads only, which are cheaper, or Premium plans that give you access to both Signature and Essentials images. Monthly plans have four different volume options, starting at just 10 and up to 750 images a month, prices ranging between $40 and $199 for Basic plans, and from $99 to $399 for Premium. Annual plans give you an even better price: Basic falls between $29 and $166, and Premium is from $70 to $333. This means up to hundreds of photos every month, costing as little as $0.22 each. iStock also offers a free trial which gives you the first month of a basic, annual Essentials plan for free including 10 free stock image downloads. The free trial is only available for some countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
