ViewBug

I have been a Pro+ member for several years now and at first it was reasonably good value but to be honest I now see no benefit from paid for membership and in fact no real benefit at all from the site. The incessant emails are annoying, the contests are pointless, and the so-called benefits of membership offer little that can't be obtained elsewhere, often free of charge.
I shall not be renewing my membership.

I have received messages from VB employees (Kristy/Nicole) asking for my input and/or questions. I only received scripted online form letters - never a human reply. UNACCEPTABLE!

I have been a Pro+ member since 2018. This site is fine to view other photographers' work, but their contests are a joke. My latest contest entry was ranked # 1 out of 12k entries when the contest initially closed. Within a couple of days, the rank changed to # 3. The contest then went 'In Review' for a week or so. The final results came in today. My photo is now # 2,783. WTF? Contests are a joke.

This website used to mean a lot, but now from seeing fake edited photos, to being awarded on quite a few photos, asked to be "printed" and the like, I've never seen any of these things come to fruition. A site that has an app that doesn't keep up with the app, and allow all functions to be done on the app, as is on the website…makes no sense. The new coin rewards program was a good idea…but there are no prizes left, and the ones that are for a few…as a lot of us have been on here a long time, they're not even prizes, just discounts to buy more. This is an art based site, therefore the community wants more than to be taken for money and to pay for "VIEWBUG popularity." We're looking for real people, real contests, real fellow photographers, and real coverage on our art. The emails are just confusing, it's hard to tell if they're asking to use your photos due to you winning (I have "won" and was asked about being printed or having my photos shown) and still have no clue what ever went on. They want you to pay for any little thing you click on, and on top of that it's not all of this that makes people feel that this site doesn't give what it offers and advertises. It's how the site is handled and how you're treated as a human that puts love and creativity into what you do, and yes you want the exposure that you are expecting, and yes you want to be able to talk to real time people and be treated fairly, get real answers, be able to use the site as it's put in front of you. It's just not that way. They've taken a lot of things that used to be just free, for us posting and giving our photos to make your site what it is, you should be doing the same for all of us, no matter what even if it's just the nunber of photos that you accumulate, you're making profit off your members, and I mean paying and non. We're all members of a community, so it's time it should be just that…a community. ViewBug has great potential,, after being asked to be a curator more than once, you should be putting the contests in the hands of some of your top winning photographers…and from every category, and style. Not I just by what they spend.

I have been an inactive member for five years, very active six years ago. But like other reviewers I see no real benefit yet am bombarded with spambot roboreps informing me I was chosen yada yada. Front face it looks cultishly like a scheme. It's the back room I've been wondering about. How do they REALLY make money, increase value for their investors? It MUST be the images. They've built an enormous library they can sell with no ties to me or the other saps whove uploaded cool pics. Just sayin'. Fun to look through nice shots, though.

Been a member since last November, great community, good educational material available to members. Some of the photos you have access to view, are absolutely stunning.
I question their integrity in the rewards program. Rewards for most achievements are more points, which are awarded promptly. There are a few perks along the way, like extra entries into contests, but otherwise, just points! The big one that appealed to me was Ambassador level, which came with a "Swag Bag". I can find nothing about it on their site anymore, so maybe it is gone. To achieve this, you needed 500k points. When I finally achieved it, nothing! No congratulatory email, I mean nothing! After 3 months of correspondence with them, they finally slammed the door on me. So what did I finally get for my "bag"? A "mini pixie" tripod, available on line at $15-30! And one year additional membership for the inconvenience.
As I read through the emails, the wording is quite clear, until the latter end, when they added a "what we meant was" qualifier!
If you have issues, my experience is that it will go in their favor right or wrong! They have only email correspondence with the Help team, and based on my experience, it's more to deflect, than help.
This brings into question so much more! Do contest winners ever receive their awards, looms large.
If you want a good hangout, where you can have your ego stroked, and learn a bit about improving your skills, this will work well. If you want integrity and an honest bonus system, not so much!

Haven't used Viewbug in maybe four years, still doesn't stop them sending emails being like "AWARD winning PHOTO!" and other $#*!e nye on weekly. They just trick people into thinking their photos are amazing to lure them into buying premium etc.

I remember that when I first found this site, I was enthralled. There was so much to do and try out for a photographer! Since then, however, it really hasn't improved. I would actually argue the site has declined.
The biggest pull of the websites is its photo contests. This is where you are made to believe you can receive big prizes for good photography. However, this has turned into another cash grab for them. Most contests are reserved for their memberships. Finding a contest that you like and can do for free is a chore. There used to be a way to sort out the free contests from the elite ones, but now there is no way to do that. Viewbug makes you go through all of the elite contests to find a free contest, which creates a feeling of fulfillment with your free membership: a ploy to make you buy pro.
If you want to showcase your photography in any way, this is not the best site for you. The only thing you will get is a lot of spam and no prizes.

Hard to navigate, constantly googling how to do things on you ViewBug. There's no useful FAQ. Alot of things are not explained on how to get setup and get started. You are on your own. Tech support is nonexistent.

I have been using the website for 3 years, it's funny but of really no much use to improve with photography. I decided to not renew the premium membership and unticked automatic renewal box on my account. I didn't realize it had to be deactivated also from Paypal (why?) so today I got an unwanted payment. I'm trying since hours to talk about the issue to get my money (which I badly need!) back, I have a Case open but have no idea if and when someone will answer. It's ridiculous they have nothing like a real time chat for urgent matters at least.

I have been on this site for several years now, thinking I will give it a chance! Well, I've wasted too much time already! If you choose to stay here for free and never upgrade to any of the paid memberships ( there is a very aggressive sales pitch for you to upgrade), you will get no exposure at all! I'm no fool! I have some pretty decent photos, and hardly anyone looked at them! I'm told that there are a large number of photographers on this site, yet when I enter any of the challenges or competitions in order to gain exposure, I noticed that in the end a very small number of people had a chance to view my photos (50 the most if I'm lucky)! I realized that half the time, my photos are not even shown! Another thing that bothers me are the winning photos! I have seen some amazing inspiring photos on this site, and yet, half the time the winning photos are a joke! I'm through! Time to move on. Out with the old, in with the new!

When joining ads start to get discount to join. Then reduces the discount to increase pressure. I am not going to join a site I am not familiar with until after I experience it. The pressure to get them join right away and take away any discount is turn off. They should wait to offer discount. I will not join and pay more than others just because I wanted to try it out first.
Second... my supporters voted in challenge and my photo was NOT IN IT! So no guarantee you join a challenge you get fair chance for voting! Seems scammy to me. NOPE. After my photo did not get chance to be voted on I will NEVER give them my money or personal bank info. LOTS of good artists on there though.

I have been on for almost a year, have about 187,00o points from all the "badges" you earn, I maintained top 10% of all the photographers for the year. My biggest complaint is the winners of the contests, whoever reviews the work is asleep at the wheel. I have been a commercial photographer for 40+ years and made a great living at it so I know good images when I see them and they seem to always pick the images that are over processed or soft and out of focus. I will be leaving soon.

While I appreciate Viewbugs enthusiasm, which is wonderful and is an enjoyable photo exposure platform, However, something about is not transparent, and doesn't add up. After entering a competition, It doesn't show number of views but reveals rank after a while. I clicked on 'where my photo ranked', each seperate time the numbers of each image were distinctly different by thousands to the first click. The ranking and awards don't make sense. Am I really in the top 18,000 submissions and then it may change to 12,000, on clicking the same photo again. I would like to know how? As I am busy I don't enter enough but suddenly am notified I am a curator or am now silver level, and people send messages saying the same thing. I don't know how I got to silver level or what it means. I am quite new. I bought the pro but can't find how it all works, also who to ask about building a website from their platform.

When I first joined the site, I was surprised and encouraged by the attention my material was receiving. In fact, I almost purchased a monthly membership based on that. Then, I received a "very special" invitation to be a "curator" and "welcome new members" (only offered to 15%!) by liking and awarding their uploads! This site clearly feeds and financially exploits creative insecurity and social media's dopamine effect and has probably lured countless memberships from people who turned out to be highly disappointed once the little welcoming committee has moved on to fresher meat.

Ok I just joined this week and started entering contest and challenges. Then I started voting. WOW this is big time amateur hour! I swear if I have to sit and look at another person poorly taken shot of their kid or their pet or vacation I'm going to poke myself in the eye with a fork! Look I'm not being too picky and I know there was a point 30 years ago that my images looked no better, but back then we had the common sense to know what was good and what wasn't and would have never thought of entering it in a contest. Now days everyone thinks they are good just because someone told them so. I know I am not the best photographer out there. There is always someone better but I sell my work regularly at art shows and festivals and make pretty good money doing it. With all the amateurs on viewbug I'm really curious if my work will be noticed or just passed over in the millions of poorly taken photographs.

This site was recommended to me by a new acquaintance. At first glance the site can get a person excited and motivated about photography. The idea of contests, pier awards and critiques was very attractive. So, I joined and started posting. Initially, the pier awards that I received made me feel good about my work and motivated me to get better. This site is good for that. Also, there are some great photos on here that you can learn from, gain ideas and stay motivated. However, after a couple of days and deeper analysis of the site, I am starting to question the credibility of this site. Don't get me wrong, there are some good people who are willing to interact with you, but I also believe that there are many ghosts on this site. After uploading my first few pictures, I noticed that I had been given awards. I went to look at what I had been awarded and from who. The first thing that I noticed was that I had received awards a week before I even joined the website. Second, one day I uploaded four photos. Before I could even get to my profile to make sure they loaded properly, three of the four photos had already received several awards. One of them had received four awards in less than a second. How is that even possible? This leads me to believe that pier awards are nothing more than computer generated awards. No photo can properly be critiqued that fast. That said, pier awards and badges hold no real value. Third, I received this email from them:

"You probably don't realize it, but you've awarded, liked, or commented on hundreds of images! Your support means a lot to your fellow ViewBug members, and it makes ViewBug the amazing place that it is. Thanks for doing what you do!

Since you're such a positive force in our community, we hope you'll accept our special invitation to become a ViewBug Curator. (Less than 5% of ViewBug members are invited to become Curators, so it's kind of a big deal.) What is a ViewBug Curator? It's an invite-only team of ViewBug members who help us keep the community vibrant and friendly."

The problem with this is that to date I only critiqued one photo, awarded zero, and like zero. I am not sure what the motivation for this email was. Probably another computer generated push. They are losing credibility with me almost daily.

Fourth, there needs to be more segregation on this site. They need to start comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges. This site seems to be geared more towards people who have mastered the art of editing, not taking photos.

Finally, if you look at several other folks profile page, you will notice that they have several hundred or even a thousand likes, awards, ect... but only have 10-25 photos posted. I am not sure how that is possible either.

My recommendation for people using this site is to be cautious, and question everything. The only value I can truly see for this site is to look at others photos and learn from them. Try and find real people to talk with and exchange messages. However, there are so many over processed and HDR photos, finding a true photographer, who is more purist, may be a challenge.

I was a member of Viewbug for some time and it's a great place to see some awesome photos. The prizes for competitions are very good as well and I can see how people are enticed to enter. But if you view the entries, 99% of them are ultra-professional - staged, magazine-like entries from stock catalogues etc which are unlikely to be beaten by a photo that an average member would post. It has put me and many friends off entering as these photos always win.
The judging is also flawed, same winners and same type of photos. Very false and not a true reflection of the average audience who enter photo competitions. Good if you want to look at nice photos from a stock website/catalogue though!

Not the best of the photo competition sites, but not the worst either. Nice that it has competitions with prizes, but far too many clickbait emails and persistent notifications trying to get you to upgrade ($) to see your stats, enter off-limits competitions and gain other pointless social media-type benefits (ie, ones where you do the work and pay for the privilege). It has a ridiculous 'curator' system that encourages you to send pre-formed messages to complete strangers in order to get them to be more active. The UI is a bit bonkers, and makes it hard or impossible to see precisely how well you are doing or have done in challenges, how many votes you got, etc. Makes one wonder if there is deliberate obfuscation going on for some hidden purpose. Maybe the levels of user activity aren't as great as they like to imply.

Having been on this and other photo contest sites for several years, I think the biggest problem is that its peer image voting system (showing four photos of different sizes on a screen you have to scroll FCOL) simply doesn't work. Far too often the peer voted 'winner' in a challenge just isn't that good. This isn't sour grapes - it is an objective opinion that the site throws up poor images as winners far more often than other sites. This, again, suggests that the volume of voting isn't high enough for the magic 'algorithm' to work.

At first I really liked the page its an amazing place to get inspiration and see photos from all around the globe. So many talented photographers to learn from and get in contact with there. I used to be a paying pro member but one thing bugged me to the point where I just had enough and stopped enjoying it. When i discovered that multiple times photos kept showing up over and over under one contest so you could vote for the same photo over and over under the voting time and when I reached out to view bug about it they said NO thats not possible the system makes it that the photo will only show up one time, so i made shore to check the photos and ad the likes to them to see if i was wrong and NO it was the same photo taken by the same photographer and the same profile it hapend so many times that I just saied nope if viewbug dont even want to check in to the fact that there system have a problem or even say hey that should not happen lets see what glitch we might have and fix it instead of nope thats not possible then why should I pay for a membership so I closed my account and have not been back even do I miss looking at all the photos it was a fun site I just refuse to be a part of something that just want to take your money and not correct something that is clearly wrong. Would I recommend the site maby to get inspiration thats it BUT NEVER becoming a paying member dont waste you money

So I'm a pro+ and first I thought that the site was fun, and enjoyed participating in contests and challenges... Then I started noticing how most of the contests where just full of pictures that did not fit the contest description, and how you could have fantastic pictures, spot on at the description be lower than someones shaky phonepics that barely fit in the description. So maybe the winner was handpicked but everything else is just random.

I tried to make my own challenge, and thought that that would be nice boost for getting noticed... well the issue is, you can't find the non-sponsored challenges anywhere! So even after marketing it on the forum (I'll get back to that soon) I just had 10 pictures submitted. So, even though I'm paying a silly high amount of money for "exposure and extras" I get nothing for it. Except for a "logo" that pretty much was my name in a circle... That's quite a expensive logo.

Then the forum, starting off, the forum was full of ideas, help and shoutouts about new challenges, and it was fun. Then the tones started changing, more and more negative comments about viewbug, and how people aren't getting what they've paid for, how customer service is non-existent and how unorganized the site has become. VB responded to these with shutting down the forum without notice, so now you have no possibility to actually connect with everyone else. So now we don't have the forum to connect, the challenges are impossible to get upped, contests winners/placements are randomized but mostly I feel discouraged by having the feeling that they made enough money to just let the site die. Even here you can see that they still tried to answer peoples comments, but not anymore. I recommend that if you are searcing for a photography contest site, go somewhere else, this site is taking its last breaths.

Its okay, not particularly cheap for what it does which essentially is a place to load photos youve taken (sure theres the inspiration element but if thats it - its expensive). Youll get people following you and you do the same but this Eventually feels like a number for vanitys sake - you get the occasional comment, like and award but so what. I honestly never felt it was anything more than just people looking for a return like... The competitions are fun but theres something odd with the results - difficult to put your finger on but something doesnt always add up. I had fun for a year but at £80 its not something I would bother with again. Im sure most people will have fun with this but the appeal is really limited however I really wish Id of thought of it because it must be generating significant revenue for somebody. Good luck - have fun with it but I reckon youll feel the same way after a few months. All in all it a bit meh.

Basically I think it's a scam. It's set up to make you feel good that you are getting awards etc. but the awards are meaningless because people get rewarded for liking photos and giving awards. The set up is all geared toward paying a monthly fee and ultimately the only one that benefits are the people that are getting that money. I'd like to see if they actually give out the prizes and who they go to. I posted photos and they don't show up in the new photos section so not sure how long it takes to propagate but there is something not quite right. I haven't paid yet. I did get a lot of "awards" but I'm not sure where they saw the photos because I don't see them in the general photo section.