Shutterstock

As long as nothing goes wrong the site is fine and the image selection is adequate. Unfortunately, the customer service folks are unhelpful or ill-equipped and the account reps are just awful people or are directed to be awful. Just had a customized contract expire 2 days ago. We realized we had about $3000 of unused images that we mistakenly didn't take advantage of in time. In stead of being cool and understanding, or at least enterprising / compromising. They essentially said "too bad". So, they keep $3k and I get nothing, on a technicality. I get it... blah blah, I should have realized, you snooze, you lose... But, the ethical thing to do would be to offer a short extension or to at least offer a compromise; let's say access to half of the images, or perhaps a credit towards a new contract.

I accidentally purchased an image on the website because it had a button that said "licenses" instead of "license". (On portuguese, makes more sense, on english is not that different. The brazilian version of the website has a substantive "licenses" on it, and the verb is different, so it does not give you the ideia of making a purchase). Anyway, I asked immediately to cancel, and they said they could't. Clearly the button is that way on purpose.

I just wanted to update everyone about my on going issues with the worst company in the world that is New York based Shutterstock. Despite continuing complaining received a telephone call from a person called 'Henderson' who has to be one of the bonkers person I have ever spoken to. He promised the world but as usual lied through his teeth. It's clear that this idiotic organisation persists in telling even more lies to suit the owner of this shambolic business. I even sent the owner Jon Oringer a letter on the 3rd September and I'm still awaiting for a reply. So its simple lie, lie and lie again and when you report the staff of being idiots the billionaire owner could careless about the complaint as all be wants is your hard earned cash. What a sham!

As with many other reviewers on here I signed up for their 10 free images trial and thought I was getting ripped off when they charged me 29 USD a few days before the first month was over (I just wanted the 10 free images and didn't read the fine print). However, when I called Shutterstock and spoke with a representative she politely cancelled my plan and refunded the money to my credit card. So overall I had a good experience with them.

I have great photos. These are sharp, clearly focused photos that were very clearly marketable. But oh, the sign on a store that is out of focus? Brand name. The grass that cat is sitting on? Takes away focus from the subject. Honestly? This site is so fXcking dumb in their "review" process, it's amazing they have anything on their site at all!

Honestly, the images available at shutterstock are great, and they have helped me host legit sites. However, their billing process is as scammy as they come. I've seen MLMers that are less trashy than this. Free trial? That's cool until you get an email saying your credit card has been charged multiple days before the free trial ends. If you get an image pack of, say, 5 images, guess whose getting charged again after your 5th download. What kind of idiots run this company? If you go on Amazon and buy 5 t-shirts, you don't get charged for 10 t-shirts just in case you decide you want 5 more in the future. Trashy service.

I have only written one other bad review before, so I'm careful in doing it with this company, but honestly, i must. Their customer service is just terrible. There is an "auto-renewal" notification feature with the photo services of this company and so a customer has to know this to be able to go into their account and turn OFF the notification and avoid the $29.99 annual fee. I did not know this and after making sure I had not used the service in that 12 mo window, I did a "live chat" with a customer service person who said she could not help me. Then I called the customer service number and she said they do not give reimbursements even though they recognize that auto-renewal feature is defaulted ON. I think it's a pity for customers as well as these customer service people that this is the case. Our company is switching services as a result. :(

I contacted them multiple times in order to cancel the membership with them. I acknowledged that I may have misunderstood the membership information and was (originally) willing to pay a cancellation fee. But after one reply from their customer support, requesting information, which I sent, the response was crickets. And their vagueness about the cancellation fee is disturbing.

After more attempts that included warning them that I was going to cancel the card in order to avoid unwanted charges, I cancelled the credit card and removed my name and address from the system.

The sad thing is? I found the images I actually wanted elsewhere and for less money.

This company has been charging me for four months even after I cancelled my trial membership. Whatever you do, do not sign up for shutterstock. Scammy, pathetic company who offered no help on the phone. Shutterstock's entire business model is built on running up people's cards past trial memberships whether they have cancelled or not because most people don't even realize they are being charged. You know a company is worthless when their entire business model is built on scamming people instead of providing a valuable service. As I explained to them on the phone, I only signed up for the trial membership which I cancelled soon after. Since then, I haven't even logged on to their site in the past four months. That didn't stop them from stealing my money or refusing do give it back. I urge all consumers to protect themselves from this despicable company.

There should be a legislation banning companies from unfair cancelation fees.

Why Shutterstock doesn't offer a yearly subscription where they ask for the 12 months upfront? NO, they offer you monthly subscriptions, where there's no where you can see they cancelation fee. Not to mention that you are automatically enrolled in a renewal.
This should be illegal!

Be ready to pay for a full year - even if you just want to use their monthly subscription for three months.

This company is awful and would get 0 stars if it was an option. They had me on a year plan when I signed up for a month-to-month plan and it costed me $80.00 to cancel because of it. The person I spoke needs to learn a thing or two about customer service, they were extremely unhelpful and did not care when I said I didn't sign up for a year subscription. I will NEVER recommend Shutterstock to anyone. I would LOVE TO speak with someone higher up about this, this is incredibly wrong.

Shutterstock is the company with the worst customer service ever! Shutterstock would never help you but only take money from you. I canceled my subscription after I realised about autorenewal scam and images not rolling over to the next month. I wrote to Shutterstock "Customer Care" that I was misinformed and kindly asked for 1 more day to download the images as they expired which I didn't know about. Shutterstock would never help me. They kept saying:
"in this case an extension could not be granted". 1 day! 6 images. For a company that has 145 million images. For 6 images they lost me as a customer and hopefully all those who read these reviews. Please, stay away from this company and never give them your card data. Shutterstock should be taken down by organizations that protect consumers.

I went in to buy photos one time and I paid about $49 to get "so many" photos, I don't remember how many I could get for that package price. A year goes by and I look at my bank account and see that Shutterstock recently took another $49. I thought someone hacked my account and was stealing my money, but what actually happened is, unbeknownst to me, Shutterstock set me up for a subscription and I am very careful not to get sucked into those, but there was nothing that told me I was signing up for it. Then I go in and try to fight it... The fee was just days ago, but I was told I passed the grace period where I was allowed to contest the fee and was asked if I want a case opened where they will decide if I can get my money back. So I'm going to fight it through my bank and Paypal as well. :(

Don't be trapped into signing up for a free trial. If you forget to cancel, they charge for the month and then charge you $20 to cancel after the trial period has ended... scam.
There was nothing useful for me in the website to begin with.