iStockphoto is a company that provides stock photography. It is one of the most well-known and trusted companies in this field, but it doesn’t come without its downsides.
For example, sometimes you will upload your photo to iStock and then wait an eternity for their approval process to finish before you can use your photos commercially.
This article will give details about how long does it take to get photos approved in iStock and what other alternatives are available out there?
What is iStockphoto ?
iStock is an agency that provides stock photos. It currently has over 70 million high quality DSLR images to choose from its library of high-quality content, which are all available for purchase through their website or mobile apps.
It’s safe to say that iStock has the largest selection of photos on the market today.
What pricing structure they offer ?
iStock is based on a royalty-free model, which means that once you purchase an image for commercial use, there are no additional fees. Also, their images can be used in unlimited creative projects without any maximum limits on the number of copies or viewers.
They offer a commission to an iStock contributor for your images purchased on their system. Commissions can be in the range of 20% to 35%, depending on the image price.
What is iStock approval time for user uploaded photos ?
Unfortunately there isn’t a definite answer to this question and is most likely different for each user. It is said that iStock’s approval process can take anywhere between a few hours to several days, depending on the time of day you upload your photo and how busy their servers are at that moment.
In general, the images get approved in a day or two for mot users.
What is the iStock approval process ?
After you upload your photo to istock , it will go through a review process. This means that an iStock editor has the chance to take a look at your photos and decide whether or not they are good enough for the platform before officially approving them.
This is to make sure that all of the content on their website is high-quality and adheres to iStock’s strict style guide.
What Are Other Alternatives To iStock?
While there aren’t too many alternatives available out there directly competing with iStock, there are many alternatives that offer similar services for different prices. For example, Shutterstock is one of the biggest competitors in this field and it provides great photos at a fraction of the price compared to iStock (for example $20 for 100 downloads vs $149).
Another alternative is Adobe Stock which offers an integration into Creative Cloud, which means you can search for, edit and purchase (or download) stock photos directly from Photoshop or Illustrator. The Adobe Stock library is smaller than that of iStock but it is growing rapidly every day with over 60 million images in total currently.
Some of the other alternatives are Big Stock Photo, Depositphotos and Dreamstime. However iStock is still one of the most popular stock photo agencies out there and is often chosen over its competitors.
