Shutterstock Group Buy vs Official Pricing: Which One Is Better?

Shutterstock Group/Public Pricing: Which is Better?

High-quality images are essential for websites, presentations, and marketing campaigns. To obtain images, graphics, and videos, many use Shutterstock because they are one of the top providers. To access this massive library, in addition to the costs of uploading images and videos, many content creators are struggling to afford this.

Due to the increasing costs, customers are generating alternative purchasing methods called, group buyer, to keep the costs low and still afford the service. Group Plans vs. Offical Plans are a trade of prices, a trade of costs, and a trade of business relations. This Mini-Guide breaks these two types of group buyer systems in order for you to decide on the best method for your creative trade.

Official Pricing for Plans on Shutterstock

Shutterstock has tiered pricing based on the needs of each user’s tier. Each group trade offered has the group trade’s contract for each image.

Offered Packs

If a user needs infrequent images (1-5) a group buyer plan is best for them. The trade is a set amount of images per year, and the images are a yearly credit which can be redeemed at the users discretion. The trade is the most costly image.

Each user gets a group buyer plan based on their usage. This can be a monthly or yearly plan, and the group trade is for purchasing specified images (some for free), to a max of many, many, hundred per year.

What exactly is a Group Buy on Shutterstock?

Multiple people sharing the cost of a higher tier subscription constitutes a group buy. Usually, a third party oversees this arrangement, sharing login info or providing a proxy downloader to the group payers.

How They Operate

The group buy participants pay a fraction of the subscription cost to the proxy. In exchange, the proxy shares an account with a high tier subscription plan with a high monthly download limit. The group buy members split the daily or monthly download limit.

Why They’re Worth the Risk

The group buy offerings target low-budget groups, so the low group buy proxy subscription price is attractive to freelancers, students, etc. They view the group buy offerings as premium website access, so opening their wallets isn’t a huge burden.

Price, Legality, and Reliability

Considering the pricing, legally, and reliability of the sharing plan, this is how they are ranked.

Pricing and Instantly Buy

Group buy offerings are guaranteed the most attractive choice because you only need a couple dollars to gain premium access to thousands of images. To gain those subscription plans with a high download limit it requires a higher payment.

Group Buy Legality and Copyright Risk

Group buy offerings are more attractive to users, but when the group buy offerings are put to the test they fall apart. The sharing plan’s rules specifically state you aren’t allowed to share your account info and you can’t make a group buy subscription to gain the premium resource plans. When you make a group buy, then you’re violating the rules.

More importantly, the image license is tied to the account owner legally. That is, the group buy organizer. This means that, should a picture get claimed, you have no legal protection if that picture is from your website to a client’s website. Guarantees of official pricing ensure you have a valid license for every downloaded asset. Protect your huge and costly lawsuits for you and your clients.

Account Security/Reliability

You can rely on an official account to get your work done with no problems. Group buy accounts get constantly flagged and banned by Shutterstock’s security policies. This is a direct result of suspicious and multiple-IPs activities. You can pay a group buy account owner for a month only to find the account password has changed the very next day.

Protecting Your Creative Business

Shared accounts are cheap (that’s how they get you). The loss of an account mid-project is costly. The lawsuits from a copyright infringement can bankrupt small businesses.

Purchasing directly from Shutterstock is the right way to go. It’s the simple and safest option that provides you with the best reliable access and legal protection. Using the official pricing plans is truly a selfless act. You can safeguard your client projects, maintain your good rapport in the community, and support the talented creators and photographers of the media.