Top Stock Agencies for photographers in 2026
After 18 years in the business of stock photography (yes, I started this journey way back in 2008!) I’ve amassed a spreadsheet with so much data in it that I’m afraid to make many changes. And then I realized that with just a little effort, I could create charts to give me an annual snapshot of the top agencies year by year.
The shift over the years is fascinating to see. I’ll start with 2020 which, although we were under various lockdowns, was a great year for me in terms of generating images that illustrated the pandemic. This image was one of the early winners with earnings of $1066 from 1430 downloads.
Although its lifetime was very short in stock photo terms:
What is particularly interesting in this spread of earnings is how Shutterstock is really dominating the scene. That made me think about what the spread of earnings across all the main agencies was in that year and with this new sheet in my spreadsheet I can now see that!
Leading Stock Photo Agencies in 2020
Back in those days, the average number of assets (mainly photos) in the agency databases was around 14,000. Clearly Shutterstock is the major player with $9580 in earnings, but Adobe Stock is already in its growth phase but is some way behind with $6750. iStock was not far behind with $5475. But what I think is interesting is that there were a range of agencies that together gave me about 30% of my earnings in that year. Canva was a powerful earner but even 123RF generated $811 in earnings.
Leading Stock Photo Agencies in 2025
Fast forward to 2025 and we can see some pretty big changes.
Adobe Stock has almost doubled in earnings over those 5 years to $11458 in 2025. And iStockPhoto has not really fallen behind very much – down to $4851 from $5475. Of course, I should say here that I haven’t been sitting idly by waiting for this passive income. I would say my average portfolio now is closer to 18000 images and 550 videos. With the agencies that accept pretty much everything I submit (DepositPhotos for instance) I have over 23,000 assets.
The once mighty Shutterstock has dropped well down into third place with just $4440 and that collection of agencies that were not massive earners in their own right but still contributed a significant amount to the total have dropped down to about 20% now. 123RF was a very poor $88! That is so disappointing as it makes us so much more dependent on how the few remaining majors perform in the years to come. I’m sure there are some agencies that I should have tried harder to join and support (Motion Array is one that comes to mind), but we have fewer opportunities these days to spread the risk.
Alamy/Getty is one of the few smaller players that has grown. Why do I talk about Alamy/Getty here when they are clearly two different companies. About 12 years ago, I managed to get some of my images grandfathered into a Getty portfolio after using a small UK agency as my agents. I still earn around $80 a month via that arrangement.
Canva, as I reported in my February earnings report seems to be on a steady decline to zero. Month by month it drops steadily and Google Gemini predicted, based on my earnings, that it would reach zero in January 2027!
Does Fine Art Print Sales make a difference to these earnings charts?
What about those earnings from the sale and leasing of my images as prints. I really started to focus on this source of income in 2021 or so and so it didn’t make a great deal of difference to the 2020 graph above. But for 2025, there is a massive difference:
Now, my collection of outlets for my Fine Art print work, Pictorem, Fine Art America, Etsy and others has moved squarely into first place with $11791, but Adobe Stock is equally important to me. Interesting to see how these things have developed in just five years! I wrote about my year in Fine Art in this article last December.
Best Stock Photo Agencies in 2026?
I guess I led with this heading and so I should look at how 2026 is shaping up so far. I have only two months in my spreadsheet in 2026 but here is that same graph:
Adobe Stock is now almost four times the earnings from Shutterstock. I doubt it can maintain that through the year, but these are interesting times indeed. More at the end of the month when I look at the March earnings.
