iStockPhoto reviews

Istock subscription sucks. If you don't use your credits, you'll lose 'em! Their subscription policies are the worst ever. A true corporate piece of **** company that doesn't give a **** about their customers. I hope enough people realize just how crappy they are. The unfortunately part is Getty Images has a damn monopoly on the stock photo industry and there are few alternatives. Istockphoto sucks.

They sign you up to pay $100 a month for ten downloads a month. Like a logical person, when I saw that I had 23 downloads built up that i hadn't used, I cancelled my subscription so I could catch up. It made no sense to keep paying them $100 a month for something I wasn't using enough. When I pulled up their site, all those downloads I had paid for were gone. F*CK YOU iStock! I NEVER would have signed up for a subscription service if I had known these were the terms. Maybe they bury this fact in their legal, but an ugly deceitful business practice and they should end it immediately.

An overpriced service, $11 a credit is a bit too much for materials that cant be properly previewed in action, and then cant be returned. Still has some good templates.

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As a long time customer, I have tried all of your various subscription models either personally or for creative departments I have managed.

I thought the most arbitrary and absurd model was the 700 credits a month subscription leaving hundreds of unused credits on the table every month. You then switched almost every decent image to "Signature" making it even more difficult to spend the non-premium credits you convinced me to buy.

Most disappointing, to me, is your rollover subscription model reminiscent of the old Cingular Wireless rollover campaign designed to benefit the provider not the subscriber.

What needs to be more clear is the "USE IT OR LOSE IT" part of your rollover model. No posting a push URL to your FAQs page is not what I mean by being more clear.

In both of the aforementioned subscriptions, I have been left with unused credits at the end of every month. In the first model, I lose hundreds of credits that don't rollover. In the second model, I lose the unused rollover credits the day I don't renew.

So since I lose images when I subscribe to you, you lose a long time subscriber to Adobe Stock.

I've been using them for many years and have been suckered into buying their annual subscription. But since then the quality of their photos has seriously gone down hill. Before I could I could find nice newsletters to use for our n ewsleters quickly, but now the pickings are paltry and totally AMATEUR.

If someone has a better site they know about , please share.

Customer service sucks. Beware!

I'm in Australia, and by Australian law pricing must not be misleading or deceptive, it must show all included taxes and charges.

iStock advertised that a particular subscription would cost $230 AUD. I spent 3 weeks choosing images. When I went to buy the subscription they charged an additional $23 in tax, and then I also found on my credit card over $5 in foreign exchange conversion fees. Unfortunately I needed to continue with the purchase as I had already committed time to finding the images I needed.

I have written to iStock twice to get them to refund the additional money, I have also spoken to them several times and they are not interested.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission agree that iStock is in breach of Australian law and I am currently taking up the matter with the Office of Fair Trading.

I suggest you don't deal with iStock as there are plenty of honest businesses out there you can work with.

Poor services for contributors have dwindled to non existent over the years as they find new ways to chip away at the time spend actually addressing contributor concerns. They do not value contributors and it shows in the customer service. Its bad enough that they only give you Approx 30% of the small amount they sell your work. IstockPhoto are parasites not in any way designed to empower or help artists.

First, I've never written an online review of a company before, but I have had such a horrible experience with iStock recently that I had to warn people. Hopefully I can save someone from the painful, stressful experience I just had. I signed up in June 2015 for the monthly subscription. At the time it was $199 to download up to 200 images. It's now only $166 for 750 images, which seems like a great deal, right? Well, it's NOT! Don't do it! It's a trap. Here's how it worked for me... Many of the images I wanted were "signature" images. So, I had to upgrade to the "premium subscription" and pay another $150 to access the images I wanted. I downloaded approximately 40 of my 200 images. A few weeks later, a very "nice" rep by the name of Eric Niederer called me, offering to help me and give me some great offers/specials after he better understood my graphic needs. A few minutes later after I explained what two projects I was using the images for (a corporate brochure and refreshing our corporate website), he turned from "nice" to evil, telling me I was out of compliance, and had voided the terms and conditions of the agreement because I had allowed our website developer to upload a few of the images to our development site. He said that I was the only one under that program who could touch the images in any shape or form. By letting anyone else touch the image, even if only to upload it, I wash in breach of the agreement. He then went on to tell me that unless I paid their company $3,600 I was going to regret the legal problems I was going to have. Meanwhile, I hadn't even used or published any of the images and had only downloaded 40 of the 200. He also explained that I could only use the images for a period of 30 days (only while the subscription was in effect). Any image not used in "final" content within the timeframe that my subscription was live (for 30 days) needed to be destroyed and could never be used. I was in complete shock. I explained that I hadn't read the terms and conditions, but that a reasonable, rational person would think you could use the images in corporate materials because they had been purchased. I told him I was shocked and confused and had to think about what he had said and talk to my boss. That was on a Thursday. They next morning (this past Friday) he emailed asking what my decision was. I said I hadn't spoken to my boss yet (which I hadn't as it had been less than 24 hours and I only meet with my boss weekly). He said that was fine "if that was my answer", but he was going to send over a second "out of compliance issue" and that I only had five days to make my final decision. That was last week. Today he called almost hourly (I didn't answer because I recognized the number). I have never been treated so poorly by a company and literally felt violated, harassed, and entrapped. He even admitted he knew I hadn't done anything malicious, and that he doesn't usually read the fine print in the terms and conditions either, but regardless I can either pay them $3,600 dollars or "take my chances". Wow. Not the kind of company I will ever do business with again. Completely misleading advertising and really unethical business practices if you ask me. I am not going to use any of the 40 images I downloaded. They basically got $350 from me, and then threatened to sue me for an honest mistake. Let me add that Ghetty images recently bought iStock. I have been told by several others that Ghetty has been doing this sort of thing for years (calling people and threatening to sue them unless they pay thousands of dollars). For your protection and peace of mind, please do yourself and your company a favor and use another image provider other than iStock or Ghetty. I am still in complete disbelief that businesses think they can operate like this in 2015. Misleading marketing, awful customer service, very poor long term strategic planning. iStock did the complete opposite of what you want to do to retain and wow customers. They wowed me for all the wrong reasons. Hope this review helps someone...

iStockPhoto has the worst customer service I've ever experienced anywhere. I was locked out of my company account - exactly one day after purchasing their most expensive subscription - and when i called to unlock it, they refused to do so and instead kept asking me questions as if i was a thief violating their copyright laws. they told me that if i download an image and email it to my coworker, i am in violation of their copyright laws. really? i purchased this photograph and I can't even share it with someone who is on the same work project that I am on? eventually after hours of talking to them, we tried to cancel because i'd rather pull all my teeth out then have them talk to me the way they do. and they said we were stuck with them for a year because we had already downloaded 32 photographs. They would not let us pay for the photographs we downloaded and cancel our subscription. so we're stuck.. with terrible service and nasty operators. run away from this company! all they want is your money and they don't care about helping anyone.

You find good information and more beautiful photo .

I like good photos and have nothing against this site. Photographer also need earn money and good photos are not free. And I said is like a professional photographer. When I was a beginner I was looking for good site with helpful tips for making good photos and I try this https://keepsnap.com/. You are welcome=)

As a long time customer, I have seen the steady decline of this provider over the years. Now the only thing they care about is $$. There are much better photography providers available. Choose them instead.

iStockPhoto has been nothing but trouble for us. Their site never works, they are constantly changing their rules, the customer support team is NASTY, and they don't have as many unique images as they seem to think they do. Do yourself a favor and RESEARCH your options before just going with a known name like iStock. I can't rate them poorly enough.

Istock/Getty has been treating its customers like a number and treats the overall Graphic Arts Community poorly. They took low cost access to quality images and increased prices dramatically. I continually read how Getty extorts websites that cannot prove they purchased an Istock image for hundreds or thousands of dollars, when the original image may have cost $10-$30. If you've been in graphic arts for any amount of time there is no doubt you don't have every receipt for every last image, graphic, software or digital material you have purchased. While they may collect on a few cases here and they Getty has alienated more buyers and sent them to other resources.

I would not use this site again even if it was free. So many things wrong. Features are so limited its incredible they are a real business.

thanks

Don't ever sign up to iStockphoto.com


JUST DON'T <--- So many reasons why

I have been using Istock for years and I have to say this is the FIRST REVIEW I have ever written. I am not sure if it is be cause I am so irritated about how they changed the pricing procedure but it was a good deal for us at one point. Our company invested a lot of money into Istock but now it seems very over priced. We don't want a subscription because we operate one project at a time. Some months we will need 12 photos and others, none. As far as I am concerned we will get our stock images elsewhere. Nice work, you ruined our opinion of you.

I feel that istock has ripped me off for $200 by their lack of clear disclosure on what the subscription included. I then tried to contact them by telephone and could not reach anyone. After three attempts I wrote and emailed....still nothing. I finally reached them a week and many calls later only to be told the refund policy precluded anything after ten days....I was then told "I'm sorry you are confused". Who would say that to a customer? istock does not deserve anyone's business. Find another vendor....we are!

Echoing other recent reviews: been a member and contributor since'02. Not a huge contributor or user, but Always made enough in credits to support(convert) my modest image needs. Today I login to start another light box and only see a $3 balance.WTF???. Dig around and see ALL my credits and purchases have expired!!!! Even though they display a "credits never expire" statement on the pricing page.They've been receiving income from MY work and continue too without compensating me! Hello state attorney general & FTC, have I got something for you! Maybe John Stossel too.

And the pricing is increased too. Dang Getty corporate crap.It used to be a community of artists, now its the Suits running the loony bin.. Somebody needs to start another Stock site modeled after the original iStockphoto.com. Artists helping artists.

ISTOCKPHOTO IS A SCAM!!! Their customer service is sickeningly twisted. For the love of god stay away from this place and never NEVER sign up for their plans.