Beginning in September 2025 PixelSquid content will be available to customers as part of the Unlimited Subscription plan on Shutterstock. Below are a few answers to questions we anticipate you might have --- if you do not see the answer to the question you have listed here, please reach out to Support via chat.
Will Unlimited subscription download royalty amounts be the same as current SSTK royalties?
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Unlimited will not use the same royalty rates as previously and instead uses a Subscriber Share model, which I will detail below:
"Subscriber Share" is how we divide 50% of the net subscription revenue from the Unlimited downloads subscription among individual Contributors.
The main idea behind Subscriber Share is that a subscriber's money should go to the Contributors who created the content that was downloaded.
With Subscriber Share, your earnings as a Contributor are tied to how much money each subscriber spends and how much they use your content. We look at each subscriber separately and calculate your share of 50% of their Net Revenue based on how important your items were to them.
We use item point weighting to make the revenue share calculation fairer. Item points are the weightings assigned to different types of content that we use to help calculate earnings in our Subscriber Share model.
We appreciate the effort and skill that goes into creating all types of digital assets and have assigned item points based on various factors that help reflect the relative value of different types of content.
How is the Contributor revenue split?
For example, if one subscriber generates $39 in Net Revenue for the month and downloads 20 item points, the amount available to share with Contributors is 50% of $39, which is $19.50.
If your item makes up 3 item points out of the total 20, you earn:
3 /20 x $19.50 = $2.92.
So, from this subscriber, you would earn $2.92 for the month.
What is the effect of Subscriber Share on Contributor Earnings?
The total amount paid out to Contributors for the Unlimited downloads subscription is 50% of Net Revenue. Subscriber Share simply affects how Contributor earnings are allocated among individual Contributors.
We chose Subscriber Share for Unlimited because we believe it's the fairest way to divide earnings.
Collectively, the above incentives have significant implications for how the Unlimited content library will evolve over time and each Contributor is rewarded for creating unique, diverse, and valuable content that attracts and retains subscribers.
Net Revenue
"Net Revenue" is defined as the total income that Shutterstock earns from each Unlimited subscriber’s monthly subscription fee after subtracting certain costs, taxes, and expenses.
For subscriber share calculations of Net Revenue, we deduct a set percentage from the gross subscription revenue to account for refunds, chargebacks, affiliate fees, coupons, and payment processing costs. This percentage is reviewed periodically.
Is there a way to remove my content from this offering?
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If you wish to no longer participate in this syndication you can contact support and request your catalog be removed. Please note however that doing so will mean your PixelSquid assets won’t be available in any marketplace as PixelSquid.com will be closing in late 2025.
Will PixelSquid assets only be available for licensing via Unlimited Subscription?
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Customers will still be able to license the content on Shutterstock as they did prior to Unlimited launching.