The story
Founded by Jon Oringer in 2003.1
Founding and early years (2003–2011)
Shutterstock was founded in 2003 by American entrepreneur and computer programmer Jon Oringer. Creating his own online marketplace, Oringer initially uploaded 30,000 of his own stock photos and made them available via subscription, with unlimited downloads and a monthly starting fee of US$49. When demand exceeded his photo supply, he began hiring additional contributors. In 2006, the firm claimed that it was the "largest subscription-based stock photo agency in the world" with 570,000 images in its collection. The firm branched into film in 2006 with the launch of Shutterstock Footage. By 2007, the company had 1.8 million photos. Insight Venture Partners invested in the company that year. Shutterstock expanded beyond subscriptions into à la carte pricing in August 2008, with its "On Demand" service removing daily download limits.
On September 23, 2009, Shutterstock announced that it had purchased Bigstock, a rival credit-based microstock photography agency. Fast Company argued the deal put "Shutterstock on a competitive playing field with Getty, whose iStock Photo is also credit-based." Shutterstock had 11 million royalty-free stock images by early 2010. In February 2011, it announced a two-year partnership with the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA).
Acquisitions and IPO (2012–2013)
By April 2012 the company had 18 million royalty-free stock images. The firm announced the Shutterstock Instant tool in May 2012, which displayed images in an interlocking mosaic to increase viewing speed. The product was launched by the newly formed Shutterstock Labs, which develops tools and interfaces for Shutterstock, among other projects. In May 2012, Shutterstock filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, which it completed on October 17, 2012, under the ticker SSTK.
Shutterstock, Inc. announced Spectrum, a new "image discovery tool," in March 2013. At the time, the firm had 24 million licensable photos, vectors and illustrations in its portfolio. In August 2013, Shutterstock and Facebook announced a partnership to integrate Shutterstock's library within Facebook's Ad Creator, allowing advertisers to select from Shutterstock's images when creating ads. At the time, Shutterstock was available in 20 languages including Thai, Korean, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese.
Offset and new partnerships (2013–2014)
In September 2013, Shutterstock launched Offset, a marketplace prioritizing high end curated photos from established artists. In October 2013, the firm stated it served 750,000 customers, with 30 percent of those customers in Europe. Shutterstock's shares had reached a $2.5 billion market value by the fall of 2013, while revenue for 2013 was US$235 million.
In March 2014, Shutterstock acquired Webdam, a provider of online digital asset management software. In May 2014, the firm partnered with Salesforce to integrate Shutterstock's image library into Salesforce's Social Studio. Shutterstock debuted its Palette tool in July 2014, a "multi-color image discovery tool." The firm announced it had surpassed 2 million video clips on September 2, 2014. Shortly afterwards it revealed a new app meant to help contributors with uploading and categorizing photos. Shutterstock's revenue was $328 million in 2014, an increase of 39 percent from 2013. In 2014, Shutterstock paid "over $83 million to its roughly 80,000 contributors."
Recent developments (2015–present)
In January 2015, Shutterstock acquired both Rex Features, Europe's largest independent photo press agency for $33 million, and PremiumBeat, a stock music and sound effects service, for $32 million. Penske Media Corporation formed a partnership with Shutterstock in June 2015 to create and license entertainment and fashion images. According to the terms of the deal, by 2016 Shutterstock would have an exclusive right and license to PMC's archive, which included magazines such as Variety, Women's Wear Daily, and Deadline. Crain's wrote that with the partnership, "Shutterstock, a provider of stock imagery and music tracks, is stepping into the world of red carpets and fashion runways—and taking a key provider of fashion and entertainment photos and video away from archrival Getty Images.".
By March 2016, the company had "over 100,000 contributors," with around 70 million images and 4 million video clips available for licensing and sale. That month Shutterstock announced it would be distributing material from the Associated Press in the United States, with the deal to last 3 years and cover 30 million photos and around 2 million videos. The photos were expected to go live in April. According to Entrepreneur, Shutterstock also had an "active customer base of 1.4 million people in 150 countries."
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In July 2016, Shutterstock revealed a partnership with Google advertising products including AdSense, AdWords, and AdMob. The integration allows marketers creating Google ads to directly access Shutterstock images and track ad performance via the Shutterstock API. In October 2016, the firm announced a distribution deal with the European Pressphoto Agency.
In February 2018, Shutterstock invested $15 million into China based ZCool, building on the operational relationship the two firms have had since 2014 when ZCool first became the exclusive distributor of Shutterstock creative content in China. Webdam, which Shutterstock itself acquired back in 2014, was sold to Amsterdam-based Bynder for $49.1 million to move Shutterstock's strategy away from digital asset management. Shutterstock later entered into a partnership with Tencent Social Ads, the online advertising subsidiary of Tencent.
In May 2018, IBM's Watson Content Hub, a content management system (CMS) for marketers to create content using the IBM Watson AI search tool, announced its partnership with Shutterstock, beginning July 2018.
In May 2020, the company announced that it updated its contributor earnings structure as of June 1, from a minimum flat-rate to a percentage-based model. Contributor income may be reduced from the previous minimum payment per downloaded image of 25 cents to 10 cents, or 15 percent of sales, at the entry level, with author ratings reset to zero at the beginning of each year. Many photographers voiced their opposition to the new changes.
In June 2021, Shutterstock announced a partnership with the American media conglomerate People, Inc. (then Meredith Corporation) for the exclusive rights to over 800,000 historical photographs from the LIFE Picture Collection, the archival photo collection of Life Magazine. Shutterstock currently sells commercial licenses these images through its Shutterstock Editorial brand, including many which were previously in the public domain.
In May 2022, the company acquired Pond5, an online marketplace for royalty-free and editorial video, consisting of over 30 million video clips, 1.6 million music tracks, and 1.7 million sound effect assets at the time for $210M. Also in May 2022, the company acquired Splash News, an entertainment news network for newsrooms and media companies.
Shutterstock announced it would buy Giphy from Meta Platforms for $53 million in cash in May 2023, after Meta was ordered by UK's Competition and Markets Authority to divest it.
In July 2023, Shutterstock announced a six-year partnership with OpenAI in which it would provide access to its audio, video and image libraries as training data for DALL-E. In turn, OpenAI would provide generative AI capabilities to Shutterstock's mobile users through Giphy database.
Shutterstock announced it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Envato for $245 million in cash in May 2024, thus adding 650,000 Envato subscribers to its subscriber base and increasing its library of creative assets. The acquisition was formally finalized at the end of July 2024.
In January 2025, it was announced that the company would be merging with Getty Images. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation into the proposed merger in August 2025.
In February 2026, the United States Department of Justice granted unconditional antitrust clearance for the Getty Images merger. Shutterstock reported record full-year 2025 revenue of $989.9 million, up 6% year-over-year, with record adjusted EBITDA of $271.8 million.
From Wikipedia’s article on Shutterstock, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6