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Shutterstock Statistics 2022 – A Stock Agency in Numbers

Ivanna Attié

May 13, 2022

Shutterstock is a leading stock photography agency that sells Royalty-Free stock images (photos + vector illustrations), videos, and music online. It's one of the titans in the industry and the go-to agency for many buyers.

There is no better way of understanding a company's actual size and relevance than through its stats. So today, we bring you a complete report with all the relevant Shutterstock statistics you need to know.

All the information in this post is as updated as possible and comes from Shutterstock themselves, trusted sources (which are quoted and linked), and our insider knowledge –we work closely with the company, and we have since over a decade–. However, we do not offer any guarantees about the specific numbers shared or their accuracy.

Let's begin! Firstly, here are the critical stats for knowing what Shutterstock is, where they are based, and what they do:

This is a brief resume of the company in numbers. If you wish to learn more about their offer, check our full Shutterstock review. Plus:

• Understand their prices with our Shutterstock pricing breakdown
• Learn all about their licensing in our Shutterstock License analysis
• Try the service for free with the fantastic Shutterstock free trial
• Save on your purchases with our exclusive Shutterstock coupon code

Shutterstock Statistics: Revenue 

Let’s look at how much money Shutterstock made last year and how those incomes break down.

This quick overview shows us that Shutterstock made an enviable sum of money in the last year and has increased its revenue by 16% compared to the $666.7 million they bagged in 2020. After taxes, their net income was $91.9 million, which is up 28% from their net for the previous year.

Interesting for people out there looking to buy or sell images at Shutterstock: Sales to subscribers were the most significant revenue stream, up 20% from the same segment in 2020 and representing 41.05% of their total revenue. And while paid downloads remained flat at $180 million, the revenue per download did go up 13% in comparison.

Stock Exchange/Shares

For those of you who find the stock market interesting, here is a quick look at Shutterstock's stock exchange performance in the past four years – data provided by Macrotrends.net.

Shutterstock's Market Share

Wonder how Shutterstock fares in the industry regarding its competitors? Here are some statistics on Shutterstock’s market share, courtesy of Datanyze.com.

This is very relevant data, in our opinion: Shutterstock has a huge advantage over other sites offering similar services. It has a whopping 45% more market share than the nearest competitor, iStock (formerly iStockphoto).

For more insight, check out our Stock Photo Market Report.

Library Size of Shutterstock

Shutterstock was born as and still is a stock photos agency. But it has long ago expanded to include vectors (illustrations and graphics), design templates, stock footage, and stock music. These numbers give you an idea of how rich their offer is.

Shutterstock has one of the largest stock media catalogs on the web, and its number of files shows it, but they built this library over time. When it launched in 2003, the site only had 30,000 images –all shot and owned by founder Jon Oringer himself–, but soon added content from contributors. The offer has been growing exponentially ever since. Have a look:

As you can see, the company is strongly committed to growing its visual offer constantly. They curate all the content they receive –well over 100,000 files per day!– against very high-quality standards. On this day, they are adding hundreds of thousands of new images to the site every week.

Shutterstock – Customers, Active Users, and Subscribers 

We saw earlier that Shutterstock's subscribers brought in $317.5 million last year. But they're a segment of the agency's customer base.

Shutterstock considers customers as every user on their platform that has bought at least one product during the year. 

On the other hand, subscribers are those who have bought one or more monthly subscriptions (long-term commitment) during the year. 

As it stands, subscribers represent 16.33% of Shutterstock's total customer base.

Websites Using Shutterstock

A good way of gaining insight into Shutterstock's customer base is to check the number of websites using their service. Here we have some metrics on this, from the team at Built With.

Now let's break that down to see the top five countries with more Shutterstock users:

It might not be a shock that Shutterstock's market is mostly concentrated in the US, and in English-speaking countries –from the top five, only one of them doesn't have English as the official and main spoken language–. But it is interesting that the US alone makes up for 41.17% of the total active user websites. In comparison, the other four countries together only represent 17.11% of the total website user base.

E-commerce vs. Enterprise 

Another interesting metric is how Shutterstock's earnings split in terms of the type of customer. They consider the main distinction between e-commerce revenue (licenses sold through their websites directly) and enterprise revenue (resulting from larger customers with specific needs in terms of content and workflow solutions).

As you can see, e-commerce buyers continue to be the most significant revenue stream for the agency, and this is also the segment with the highest growth percentage of the two. Small and medium-sized companies that buy from the site directly are still at the core of Shutterstock's business.

Acquisitions by Shutterstock

So far in 2022, Shutterstock has acquired one large company, Pond5. But in its entire history, they have acquired nine companies, investing at least $509 million – this figure does not account for three acquisitions whose cost was not made public. 

Shutterstock Subsidiaries

Shutterstock has its online platform but also operates a few daughter companies. 

Except for Bigstock -a competitor they bought back in 2009–, these subsidiaries focus on expanding the offer for image buyers and creatives of all avenues looking for stock media content by providing premium collections, different licensing conditions, additional media content, and workflow tools.

It's worth noting here that Shutterstock, like many companies operating worldwide, also has regional/local subsidiaries to their main website and service. So while the total number of Shutterstock subsidiaries is 13, the above-listed are the ones that truly represent a daughter company offering a specific service.

Investments Done by Shutterstock

Last year, Shutterstock invested an undisclosed amount in the VidMob company. They’ve also made a lead investment in ZCool, back in 2018. 

This agency isn't one for investing in other businesses, it seems. But keeping in mind how many acquisitions they've completed in 19 years of operations and how much they've spent on them, it's clear that's where their investing efforts are focused.

Shutterstock's Fundings

Shutterstock received funding from investor Insight Partners back in 2013 as part of their venture investment round. Any of the companies did not disclose the amount.

This company was initially bootstrapped by founder Jon Oringer and has grown without a lot of external funding ever since. It's worth mentioning here that it's been a publicly-traded company for ten years –it was introduced on the New York Stock Exchange at the end of 2012–.

Shutterstock Projections

To end this Shutterstock statistics overview, we'll leave some predictions about the main numbers at the end of this year and in the coming years.

And there you have it, that is Shutterstock in numbers. Were you aware they were such a huge company?