To clarify, in this review, I am looking at a stock photo and video marketplace called Stockphotos.com and not providing my opinion on stock imagery in general. You can read about stock photos in this guide.
Stockphotos.com is the newer version of the Stock Photo Secrets marketplace, but with a slightly better license and a satisfactory UX.
Cost & licenses: Affordable and good royalty-free licenses (but don’t let that fool you)
Right off the bat, the Stockphotos pricing is anything but intuitive. On the pricing page, you can see three different memberships (subscriptions), but there are actually six different ones. And the details on their page reference subscriptions that do not exist.
For clarity, here are all the plans and what you get with them:
| Subscriptions | Cost | You get |
|---|---|---|
| Club | $99 per year | 200 downloads per year 10 Upscales, 10 video downloads, 10 Magic edits |
| Club Plus | $199 per year | 525 images per year, 30 videos, 10 upscales, 50 Magic edits |
| Club Ultimate | $299 per year | 1050 images per year, 20 videos, 10 upscales, 25 Magic edits |
| Club Start | $9.90 per month | 20 dowloads per month,10 upscales, 3 Magic edits |
| Club Unlimited Monthly | $19.90 per month | 500 images per month (max. 2000 per year), 5 videos, 10 upscales, 5 Magic edits |
| Club Unlimited | $99 per year | 500 images per month (max. 2000 per year), 20 videos, 10 upscales, 20 Magic edits |
It took me some time to fully understand this pricing system. Here’s my opinion: the Memberships are affordable and priced lower than most competitors. However, the terms are actually worse than they look at first glance. You can compare these memberships to other stock image subscriptions.
Their unlimited plans come with a caveat: you can download a maximum of 500 images per month or 2000 per year. This actually works out to 166 downloads per month, on average, which is plenty, but not unlimited. (I was also unable to select the Club Unlimited plan, no matter how hard I tried.)
You can buy images on demand with image packs as well, costing $6 for a single image and up to $195 for 100 images, which is affordable compared to Shutterstock or Adobe Stock, but the same as Depositphotos, which is overall much better. You can learn more about how much stock photos cost here.
Every image you download through memberships or on-demand comes with a standard license: royalty-free, commercial projects, 500,000 reproduction limit, $10K legal protection, but no items for resale—very standard across all stock image subscriptions.
If you want to remove these limitations, you should get the extended licenses, which allow unlimited reproduction and use for resale (but legal protection is still just $10K, unlike Shutterstock or iStock, which give you $250K). You can get the extended licenses 1 for $69 or up to 50 for $1,899—which is no cheaper than at much better stock image sites.
To get more videos than are included in your membership, you can buy video packs, starting at $19 for 1 video and up to $199 for 25 videos. That’s quite affordable for HD videos (you unfortunately can’t get mroe than 1080p), compared to Shutterstock where 25 HD clips cost $1,579. With an active membership, you get additional 50% off you extended license and video packs.
Like many image marketplaces, Stockphotos.com also offers some form of AI. According to promises, their Magic AI Edits (by Bria) work similarly to Adobe Photoshop’s Generative AI; however, even their promotional picture looks questionable at best.
You get a few Magic AI Edits credits with some memberships. You can buy more with packages, costing $9.90 for 50 and up to $79 for 500. Each plan also includes unlimited background removals.
