Adobe Stock review

If you’ve ever worked on a design or video project, you’ve probably gotten tired of alt-tabbing between Illustrator, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, a stock photo or video site in your web browser, and your content folder. I know I have.

Adobe Stock aims to resolve that with its integration into Adobe Creative Cloud suite, Adobe Creative Cloud suite, the number one collection of apps for creatives. While many stock media providers offer integrations of their collections into Adobe CC, none is integrated natively like Adobe Stock is. While this native integration is one of the main selling points of Adobe Stock, it’s an excellent stock resource without it, too.

Overall, Adobe Stock has good licensing terms and the second-largest collection of royalty-free media, and is a good competitor to Shutterstock, iStock, and even Getty Images.

How much does Adobe Stock cost?

Adobe Stock’s pricing can take a minute to wrap your head around, but it’s still simpler than competitors like Shutterstock, where you’d need different subscriptions depending on the media file.

Subscriptions are based on how many assets you want each month, with options for 10, 25, 40, or even as many as 750 monthly downloads. Prices range from $29.99 per month at the lowest tier to $249.99 at the top end. Choosing an annual commitment usually saves you around 20% versus paying month-to-month. The only odd exception is the smallest subscription ($29.99/month), where you pay the same price, but the yearly plan gives you 10 image downloads every month or 1 HD/4K video but just 3 images and no videos with the monthly version.

These prices are about average among Adobe Stock competitors. Shutterstock and iStock charge about the same ($29 a month for 10 images), while Depositphotos is cheaper at $29 a month for 30 images. Unlike Shutterstock, Adobe Stock also allows you to roll over credits for up to a year.

With the two lower-tier plans, you can get a 30-day free trial, during which you can download 10 or 25 photos free of charge (or 1 or 3 videos). The free trial is safe to use—if you cancel before the end date, you keep everything you downloaded and pay nothing.

If you’d rather skip subscriptions altogether, credit packs start at $50 for 5 credits ($10 per credit) and go up to $1,200 for 150 credits ($8 per credit). One credit buys you one regular image, HD videos usually cost around 8 credits, and 4K clips bump up to about 20 credits. Premium assets can get pretty pricey, with up to 50 credits apiece. Credits stay active and ready to use for a year after you buy them, so they’re convenient if you want flexibility without the recurring monthly payment.

Pricing for teams is almost identical to individual plans, but team subscriptions always require an annual commitment. The nice thing is that assets can be freely shared among team members, making collaboration a whole lot smoother. Teams also get larger credit pack options—up to 500 credits for $4,000—but the per-credit price stays consistent. For particularly large organizations or custom needs, you’ll have to reach out to Adobe for an Enterprise plan quote.

Licensing: Good commercial royalty-free license

Adobe Stock’s licensing, while offering various options, is surprisingly straightforward. You have four choices: Standard, Enhanced, Extended, and Editorial. All are royalty-free, granting you indefinite use of downloaded assets worldwide and commercially without recurring fees.

The Standard license is the best option for most online needs, such as blogs and social media. It includes standard asset downloads via subscriptions or credit packs. It permits up to 500,000 copies/prints but excludes use in merchandise. A typical $10,000 indemnity is included.

Premium assets and videos come with the Enhanced license, which is nearly identical to Standard but allows unlimited prints. The Extended license, needed for merchandise or when the asset is the product, usually costs $79.99 or $64 with an active subscription. However, its $10,000 indemnity is less generous than that of competitors like iStock and Shutterstock, which offer up to $250,000.

“Editorial Use Only” files, often featuring recognizable brands or people, can’t be used commercially and have specific license restrictions, although they offer a higher $25,000 indemnity.

User experience & interface

Key takeaway: Good search filters and semi-modern user interface. Everything works as expected.

Adobe Stock offers a wide range of media, from the usual videos and photos to more unusual options like fonts and templates. The interface, while not as modern or flashy as the rest of Adobe’s website, is straightforward to use, with a prominent search bar that accepts keywords and categories like images, videos, and audio. You can also start with a reverse image search by uploading a photo you like, and Adobe Stock will find similar images in its collection.

The Adobe Stock interface is primarily focused on the media available, offering quick links to curated content. You can browse through images (both standard and premium), videos, vectors and illustrations, templates, music or sound effects, fonts, plugins, and 3D files. A menu bar at the top of the page helps you look through just one of these categories at a time, or you can click on the icon to the left of the large search field to do the same.

Once you’ve typed in a few keywords, Adobe Stock presents you with large thumbnails to choose from. You then have the option to reveal a panel to the left, which offers filters to narrow down your search. These filters vary depending on the type of media you’re searching and include options like shot size, angle, depth of field, people in/out, commercial vs. editorial use, resolution range, excluding AI images, and undiscovered content showing un-downloaded assets.

Adobe Stock’s ‘Find Similar’ feature, similar to what’s offered by competing services like Getty Images, allows you to upload some media you’re interested in looking at, and Adobe Stock will locate similar-looking ones from its library. The results are excellent as long as the original image’s content is clear. With AI-generated content becoming more prevalent, Adobe Stock accepts submissions created in this way, but you can choose to remove them from your search results if you prefer not to use them in your own work. Conversely, you can also opt to only see AI-generated content if that’s what you’re looking for.

Selecting some media gives you additional information straight from the search page, making it easy to continue browsing. Clicking on a thumbnail reveals more details without opening a new page, which makes scrolling easier but can shift the layout and be slow to open. From the expanded thumbnail view, you can download a watermarked preview, save the media to your library, and see the resolution, file type, and license types. You’ll also see buying options like subscriptions or Extended Licenses.

If you find good images you can’t use yet, you can save them to your workspace called ‘My Library’. This is where you can bookmark future assets, view past selections, and manage licenses. You can also re-download past downloads here if you lose the original.

Acquiring a license for a chosen file is remarkably easy, whichever method of payment you choose. When it comes to licensing your chosen media, you’re given the choice of using any existing credit you might have or purchasing it with your local currency. As you’d expect, the higher the quality, the more expensive it’ll get, and some media isn’t covered by credits, meaning an actual purchase is the only way to go. For instance, you may be able to get an HD video using your credits, but a 4K one has to be purchased. The same is true for standard photos versus premium ones.

A collection of 1 million free files

Running out of downloads in the middle of a project is a nightmare for every creator. Although Adobe Stock lets you buy more through credit packs or upgrading subscriptions, it’s not a viable solution when you’re already over budget. Luckily, Adobe Stock has a collection of over 1 million images, videos, templates, and 3D; you’d never think of Adobe Stock when you hear about free stock image sites, right?

But these free downloads are even better than the ones you get at Unsplash or Pexels because they’re licensed under Adobe’s royalty-free license instead of a Creative Commons license. The main difference is that Adobe’s free assets also provide $10,000 in legal insurance, so they may even be fit for your client’s projects.

You can find the free media via the “Free” menu at the top of the page or through the search field’s drop-down menu. Type in what you’re trying to find, use all the filters that are available with paid assets, and instantly download anything you like by clicking “License for Free.” It’s one of the best ways to download Adobe Stock images without a watermark for free.

Not only that, but it’s a great way to get what you need without leaving the Adobe workspace—after all, you can browse media through the integration all the same. You can also use the free trial discussed earlier to download between 10 and 40 standard assets or up to 6 HD videos.

Creative Cloud integration

Key takeaway: Adobe Stock’s collection is natively integrated into Adobe Creative Cloud, enabling a smoother workflow.

What exactly does Adobe Stock’s integration into Creative Cloud mean? Creative Cloud is Adobe’s suite of apps. You can download and install it on your device, and use it as a central hub from which you can manage your apps, subscriptions, and saved projects. And Adobe Stock is part of that.

In practice, this means you can browse the Adobe Stock library from within Creative Cloud applications, including Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Adobe Premiere Pro.

This feature helps you find the best asset (image, video, 3D, template, etc.) without going through the tedious process of downloading it to your device and then uploading it to your application. It helps you save a lot of money because you can import as many watermarked assets as you want without paying a dime; once you complete the project, you only pay for the ones you use in the final cut and the watermark will be removed.

The integration won’t only let you browse and license new assets; you can also immediately access all assets you licensed previously. They will be organized in your collections called “Libraries,” which are the functions I covered earlier. These let you organize assets based on your projects to keep your collection tidy. Here’s how you can use it:

1. Log in to your Creative Cloud.
2. Open your design apps, such as Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.
3. Go to the Library panel and click “Explore libraries“.
4. Select an image.
5. Edit it as much as you want.
6. When done, click on the image to buy it.

Customer support

Key takeaway: Probably the worst customer support I have experienced—unknowledgeable outsourced agents.

When it comes to customer support, large stock media sites have a poor reputation—Getty Images never responds, Shutterstock’s support has declined recently, and Adobe Stock’s agents lack knowledge.

Of all its aspects, customer support is Adobe Stock’s greatest weakness. The platform does provide some assistance options, including a FAQ page covering licensing and usage, community forums where users post questions, and live chat. The FAQ answers common questions but lacks key licensing details needed by first-time buyers. The forums provide user advice, but replies are slow if you get any at all.

However, live chat has major limitations. First, you have to deal with the Adobe Virtual Assistant chatbot, which tries answering with AI but takes minutes before connecting you to a real person. Even then, live chat support quality is inconsistent at best.

Agents can answer basic topics like subscription vs. credit pack differences by reading the pricing page. But ask for anything more detailed, and you’re out of luck. Often, when stumped, agents transfer you to an Adobe rep who supposedly knows more. In over ten transfers, only one could accurately answer my complex question.

Worse of all, agents try to answer questions even if they don’t know, leading to conflicting information. I once got four different answers from five agents!

Content quality

Key takeaway: Above average image, video, and audio quality. Sufficient variety of content.

You will find that Adobe Stock has one of the most diverse stock media collections, comparable to Envato Elements but at a higher level. In essence, it provides everything you could need for any Adobe application: photos, vectors, illustrations, videos, audio (both music and sound effects), templates, fonts, plugins, and 3D models.

For this reason, the assets also tend to be of very high quality, since Adobe Stock contributors primarily use Adobe software themselves; they are serious about their craft.

With over 390 million total assets, Adobe Stock has the second largest stock content library after only Shutterstock. Images make up the bulk of the collection at 370 million, comprising photos, vectors, and illustrations available in AI/EPS, JPEG, and PNG formats depending on the asset type. Around 40 million of these are AI-generated images that you can filter out if desired.

Video footage makes up the second-most abundant resource, with 29.5 million clips available. While professionally shot, I do wish Adobe Stock offered more high-resolution options beyond 4K, which is why I turn to providers like Artlist or Pond5 when I need 8K footage.

Until recently, Adobe Stock had a rather lackluster audio selection. However, through a new partnership with Epidemic Sound, they have increased the size of their audio collection by almost 50%, a major improvement. In addition to the strengthened audio offering, Adobe Stock also provides over 136,000 templates, 20,000 fonts, and 17,000 3D models.

Is Adobe Stock worth it? Is it legit?

Adobe Stock has faced many criticisms over the years, the most important of which is that it is too difficult to cancel plans. I’ve independently tested this claim by subscribing to and canceling numerous plans over the past few years, and I’ve never had any real problems with the process. Yes, there are a few steps involved in canceling an Adobe plan, but it didn’t take me more than 20 seconds.

In my experience, Adobe Stock is legitimate. Their payment methods are safe and the cancellation and refund policies are clearly specified. The free trial is safe to use and if you cancel before it ends, you won’t get charged.

Summing up everything I’ve covered thus far, I think Adobe Stock is a good value for its price and worth using—especially if you won’t have to use customer support. I recommend starting with a free trial.

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Matic Broz

Matic Broz is a stock media licensing expert with over 10 years of experience using and testing creative platforms for his own creative work. He has personally licensed over 5,000 stock assets and helped 20,000+ creators choose the right subscription services through his work at Photutorial.

Tags

• Images
• Video & audio

Mentioned apps

• Adobe Stock