With the amount of stock image providers in the market today, it has never been easier to source and use stock images for your business. A higher number of providers means more competition, and more competition means better prices for the consumer, right? Well, yes and no. Some stock image providers still charge a high price for access to their services, and with the variety of both images and pricing structures available, it can muddy the waters and make it confusing to know how much you should be paying for a stock image.
While monthly pricing plans still hold value for many customers, annual plans are leading the way in terms of overall savings and balance between flexibility and price. Shutterstock, for example, charge £1188 over the course of a year (12 months at £99 per month). This gives you access to a maximum of 4200 downloads during that same time frame. This is good content, for a fair price. But is this how much you should be paying for stock images? Comparing this price to a few others, we get this table (assuming that download capability is maxed out over the course of the year):
In comparison, Ingimage offer annual plans at just £589 per year, for a maximum of 6000 images during the same time frame. While this is certainly a better deal financially, it’s also important to look at the small print, specifically what type of license the images are being sold under. Read more about different license types and what they mean for you here. In short, royalty-free licenses are often the preferred license type due to their flexibility and zero ongoing payment structure associated with them.
It is also important to remember the image providers have sales just like any other business. The key time to look out for here is Black Friday, or better yet Cyber Monday. To see what offers Ingimage are running at the moment, click here.
So, to answer the question of how much you should be paying for a stock image – we suggest a maximum average of £0.20p per image.
Of course it comes down to what an image is worth to you but for consistent image use on blogs etc. and with the right package, you shouldn’t have to pay more than the above suggestion.
A lot of people would rather have a smaller curated collection at a more affordable price, than to pay more money and spend more time sifting through a larger collection of images just to find the image they want. In short, you can save time by letting smaller, curated and more niche image providers siphon off the best content and deliver it to you.
If you’re looking for a high-quality collection of stock images, see the Ingimage collection here. If you want to know about our latest deals, click here.
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