How to Sell Stock Photos on Shutterstock and Adobe Stock (2026 Beginner's Guide)
Short answer: sign up for free as a contributor on Shutterstock and Adobe Stock, upload photos of at least 4 megapixels, give each one an English title and keywords, and submit them for review. Once a photo is accepted, you earn a royalty every time a customer licenses it. This guide walks through each step and how to avoid the most common rejections.
How stock photography works
Stock sites sell licenses to photos, videos and illustrations to buyers around the world: designers, publishers, agencies and businesses. You keep the copyright; buyers pay for permission to use the image. The same photo can be licensed many times to different buyers.
Earnings per download are usually small, so meaningful income comes from a large portfolio that keeps growing. Shutterstock and Adobe Stock are two of the biggest stock sites, and you can sell the same photos on both.
Step 1: Sign up as a contributor
Shutterstock
- Go to the Shutterstock contributor site at submit.shutterstock.com and create an account.
- Enter your details as they appear on your ID and verify your email.
- Add your payment details and tax information in your account. Contributors outside the United States usually complete a W-8BEN form.
Shutterstock also has a Shutterstock Contributor mobile app for uploading and tracking sales.
Adobe Stock
- Go to the Adobe Stock contributor portal at contributor.stock.adobe.com.
- Sign in with your Adobe ID, or create a free one.
- Complete your profile, payment details and tax information.
Get your name and details right from the start: they are used for your payouts.
Step 2: Prepare photos that meet the requirements
- Resolution: both sites ask for JPEG photos of at least 4 megapixels. Photos from a modern phone usually qualify.
- Quality: photos must be sharp, clean and correctly exposed. Check each one at 100% zoom, not just on your phone screen.
- No logos or brands: remove or avoid visible logos, brand names and product packaging.
- Releases: if a person can be recognized, you need a signed model release. Private property and some buildings may need a property release.
- Pick your best: don't upload many near-identical frames. Choose a few of the strongest, most different shots from each session.
Step 3: Upload your photos
On both sites you upload through the contributor portal (or the Shutterstock Contributor app). After uploading, each photo needs a title, keywords and categories before you can submit it for review. On Shutterstock, uploaded files must be submitted within 21 days.
If you have many photos, both sites also accept a CSV file with titles and keywords for all of them at once, so you don't have to type them one by one.
Step 4: Write English titles and keywords
This step decides whether buyers find your photos, and it's a frequent reason for rejections. Most buyers on both sites search in English.
Titles
- Shutterstock asks for an English title of at least five words that describes what is visible, without special characters. A comma-separated list of keywords doesn't count as a title.
- Adobe Stock allows titles of up to 200 characters and recommends about 70.
- Write a natural phrase: subject, action, setting. For example, "Young woman picking tea leaves on a plantation in West Java", not "tea, woman, plantation, green".
- Never leave the file name as the title, such as "IMG_4521".
Keywords
- Shutterstock: at least 7, up to 50 keywords.
- Adobe Stock: up to 49 keywords. The first 10 carry the most weight in search, so put your most important keywords first.
- Every keyword should be relevant to the photo. Irrelevant keywords can get a photo rejected.
- Don't repeat the same word, including singular and plural forms ("dog" and "dogs").
- Don't use brand names, fictional characters or names of famous people.
See the title and keyword limits for each site side by side in our agency requirements comparison.
Step 5: Submit and learn from the review
After you submit, the site's reviewers check each photo. Accepted photos go live and can be licensed right away. Rejected photos come with a reason. Adobe Stock gives only one reason per rejection, even if there are several problems, so check everything below before resubmitting.
The most common rejection reasons
| Reason | Common cause |
|---|---|
| Intellectual property | Logos, brands, product designs, other people's artwork, or brand names in the title and keywords |
| Title or keywords | Title too short or just a keyword list; repeated or irrelevant keywords |
| Similar content | Many near-identical photos from one session |
| Quality | Soft focus, noise, wrong exposure, heavy editing |
| Generative AI | AI images not labeled as AI, or prompts and keywords naming artists whose work is still under copyright |
Each reason is explained in detail in Why Stock Photos Get Rejected on Adobe Stock and Shutterstock.
Tips to sell more
- Upload regularly. A portfolio that keeps growing shows up more often in search.
- Shoot what buyers look for: real people doing things, business, food, culture and places that haven't been photographed to death. Your local culture and everyday life are an advantage.
- Search before you shoot. Type your subject into the site. If there are already thousands of the same shot, find a different angle or story.
- Titles and keywords matter as much as the photo. Buyers can't find a photo with the wrong keywords.
Writing titles and keywords for a whole shoot?
PhotoTager writes titles, descriptions and keywords for all your photos at once, sized to each site's limits and with your most important keywords first, and exports a CSV for Shutterstock and Adobe Stock. You still review every file, but you start from metadata that follows the rules. It costs from $0.04 per photo, with no subscription, and new accounts get $2 of free credits.
Agency rules change, so check the official guidelines before you submit: Shutterstock: rejected for title or keywords; Adobe Stock: common reasons for content refusal.