Starting from September 25, 2023, all Pond5 authors collaborating with the microstock platform on an exclusive basis will have the opportunity to sell their content on the Shutterstock microstock website as well. This will somewhat expand the market for authors while retaining all the benefits of participating in the Pond5 program.
The terms of the program
- Participation in the extended program is optional. If you are an exclusive author on Pond5 and wish to sell your work on Shutterstock, you must register there as an author and upload your exclusive content independently of Pond5. In other words, accounts on these two sites are not synchronized.
- If you have not signed an exclusivity agreement with Pond5 and your portfolio is only available on Shutterstock and Pond5, you can sign an exclusivity agreement with Pond5 and take advantage of all the benefits of the program.
- If your portfolio is available on different microstock platforms, you can also sign an exclusivity agreement, but during a two-week buffer period, you will need to remove all works from other sites (except Shutterstock and Pond5).
- Exclusive authors still have full control over pricing on the Pond5 microstock website.
- Shutterstock microstock, on the other hand, does not have exclusive program mechanisms. As a result, authors who upload content to Shutterstock will receive royalties according to the standard terms set for all authors.