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Admin · 2026-10-14 12:09 · edited
Getty Images is preparing to file for bankruptcy. What will happen to iStock, photographers, and the entire stock photography market?
Getty Images, one of the world's largest stock photography companies, has announced plans to file for bankruptcy protection in the United States. The company has more than $2 billion in debt, its share of image sales revenue is declining, and artificial intelligence is increasingly transforming the photography market. What does this mean for photographers who sell their work on the Getty Images and iStock platforms? And are competitors facing similar problems?
On October 12, 2026, Getty Images announced an agreement with its largest creditors and investors that provides for the company’s financial restructuring, using the procedures set forth in Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
It is important to clarify right away that Getty Images does not plan to cease operations. This process allows the company to continue operating while restructuring its debt and ownership structure.
According to the company’s official statement at sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1898496/00012…, the bankruptcy protection petition is expected to be filed in the coming weeks, with the restructuring to be completed by the end of 2026.
How did Getty Images end up in this situation?
Getty Images is one of the best-known names in the professional photography industry. The company was founded in 1995 and has spent decades building a massive photo archive, acquiring other companies, and collaborating with the world’s largest media outlets.
It manages three key brands:
• Getty Images — licensing of professional, editorial, and commercial images.
• iStock — a marketplace for photos, videos, and illustrations accessible to a wider audience.
• Unsplash — an ecosystem of free and paid images.
The company’s platforms offer hundreds of millions of images, and it collaborates with more than 600,000 content creators.
However, a large image library and a globally recognized brand do not guarantee financial stability.
According to Getty Images’ second-quarter 2026 financial report:
• Total debt as of June 30 amounted to approximately $2.07 billion.
• Cash on hand was only $51.6 million.
• Quarterly revenue was $229.1 million, down 2.5% from a year ago.
• The quarterly net loss totaled $85.8 million.
• The number of active annual subscribers had declined by 25.2% over the past 12 months.
Of particular concern is that the company’s costs and debt service are putting significant pressure on it, even though the photography and image licensing business continues to generate substantial revenue.
The Failed Merger with Shutterstock
In early 2025, Getty Images and Shutterstock announced plans for a merger valued at approximately $3.7 billion.
It would have been one of the most significant deals in the history of photo agencies.
The combined company would have had massive image libraries, a large customer base, and significantly greater influence on the photo licensing market.
However, the deal ran into objections from the UK competition regulator. The regulator demanded that Shutterstock’s editorial image business be divested to prevent excessive market concentration.
Getty Images did not accept these conditions, and in July 2026, the merger was called off.
This occurred at a time when the company was already facing significant debt and additional financing costs.
Is artificial intelligence destroying the stock photography business?
It would be an exaggeration to claim that Getty Images’ financial problems were caused solely by artificial intelligence. Debt, interest payments, legal expenses, and the failed merger also played a major role.
However, the competition created by AI is one of the most significant long-term challenges.
Just a few years ago, an advertising agency that needed an image of a businessperson at a computer, a group of people gathered together, or a family in the kitchen often had to purchase a ready-made stock photo or organize a photo shoot.
Now, in many cases, similar visual content can be created in a matter of seconds with the help of generative artificial intelligence.
And this directly competes with one of the traditionally largest categories of stock photography—general commercial images.
At the same time, AI cannot fully replace all areas of professional photography. News photography, sports events, historical archives, documentary photography, and real people or events still require an authentic source.
This is partly confirmed by Getty Images’ own results. While revenue from the commercial content segment fell by 2.6% in the second quarter of 2026, revenue from editorial content rose by 9.2%.
This is an interesting sign: perhaps in the future, greater value will lie not in easily reproducible images, but in content that documents the real world and cannot simply be replaced by AI.
What will happen to iStock?
iStock is one of the brands owned by Getty Images, so the parent company’s financial restructuring also affects this business.
However, no announcement has been made yet regarding the closure or sale of iStock.
In its statement, Getty Images emphasized that there will be no service interruptions for its customers, partners, and content creators, and that payments will continue as usual.
However, the iStock business itself is also facing challenges.
Getty Images’ financial documents show that in the first six months of 2026, iStock’s online sales revenue decreased by $12.1 million, compared to the same period the previous year.
The company attributes this to several factors:
• A lower number of website visitors.
• The discontinuation of the free trial offer.
• Changes in partnerships that brought in customers.
• Changes that temporarily worsened the site’s search engine rankings.
Consequently, not all of the decline in sales can automatically be attributed to competition from AI.
However, iStock is particularly vulnerable to the pressure created by generative AI, as part of its offering consists of relatively standardized commercial images.
Should photographers remove their images from iStock?
For now, there is no obvious reason to take such a step.
Getty Images has reached a restructuring agreement with its main creditor groups. The Getty family and Koch Equity Development have committed to providing up to $533 million in capital to help the company stabilize its financial situation.
The restructuring plan calls for reducing the financial burden, extending the repayment terms for some debts, and, upon completion of the process, returning Getty Images to private ownership.
Under the plan, current holders of publicly traded shares would lose their existing ownership rights.
For photographers, however, this does not mean an automatic loss of copyright or the termination of image licensing.
Nevertheless, those who regularly receive income from Getty Images or iStock should:
• Keep copies of their sales and royalty statements.
• Review their expense reports and payment history.
• Review the terms of their contracts, particularly regarding exclusivity and content usage rights.
• Keep an eye out for potential changes in how royalties are calculated.
• Consider diversifying your income by not relying solely on a single photo agency.
Currently, the company promises to continue payments as usual, but the restructuring is not yet complete, and this promise is not an absolute guarantee.
What’s happening with the five biggest competitors to Getty Images and iStock?
Getty Images’ problems raise a broader question: Is the entire stock photography agency industry facing difficulties?
We looked at five major competitors and their latest publicly available financial results. This is not an exact ranking of the world’s largest agencies by revenue, as not all companies publish separate financial data for their stock photography business.
1. Shutterstock — Revenue Is Plummeting, and Its Competitor Is Also Facing Serious Problems
Shutterstock shutterstock.com is one of Getty Images’ biggest direct competitors.
Following a failed merger, the company continues to operate independently, but its financial results are also disappointing.
In the second quarter of 2026, Shutterstock:
• Revenue was $221.8 million, down 17% from a year earlier.
• The company reported a net loss of $155.9 million.
• The number of paid downloads decreased from 112.6 million to 98.7 million.
• The number of subscribers decreased from 1.073 million to 951,000.
It should be noted that the net loss was significantly impacted by a one-time non-cash accounting write-down related to an impairment of the company’s value.
The company is cutting costs and increasingly focusing on AI data licensing, enterprise services, and new content monetization opportunities.
Conclusion: Shutterstock is not currently in bankruptcy proceedings, but its traditional image licensing business is under significant pressure.
Source: Shutterstock’s Q2 2026 financial results investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/n….
2. Adobe Stock — a strong parent company, but AI is changing the market here as well
Adobe Stock stock.adobe.com is one of the most significant players in the stock photography market, as its content is integrated into Photoshop, Illustrator, and other Adobe products.
Unlike Getty Images and Shutterstock, Adobe’s business model does not rely solely on image licensing.
In the third fiscal quarter of 2026, Adobe’s total revenue reached $6.76 billion, which is 13% more than the previous year.
However, these figures represent the entire Adobe company, not just Adobe Stock. Adobe Stock’s standalone revenue trends are not published in sufficient detail to reliably determine how successfully this platform is currently performing.
Adobe is actively investing in Firefly generative AI solutions and integrating AI tools into its software.
Adobe Stock still offers photographers the opportunity to sell their work, receiving a standard 33% royalty for image licensing.
However, there is a risk that some customers who previously purchased ready-made stock images will now generate them themselves using Adobe software.
Conclusion: As a company, Adobe is financially much stronger and more diversified than traditional photo agencies. However, this does not guarantee that Adobe Stock photographers’ earnings will increase.
Sources: Adobe financial results adobe.com/cc-shared/assets/investor-relat…, Adobe Stock Royalties contributor.stock.adobe.com/royalties.
3. Freepik / Magnific — From Stock Images to a Full-Fledged AI Platform
One of the most interesting examples is Freepik freepik.com.
The company was long known as a platform for photos, illustrations, vector graphics, and design assets. However, in April 2026, it announced its transition to a new brand—Magnific.
The company’s strategy clearly demonstrates how the visual content market is changing.
Instead of focusing solely on selling ready-made images, Magnific offers AI-powered image and video generation, editing, upscaling, and other creative tools.
According to data published by the company itself at the time of the rebranding:
• It had more than one million paid subscribers.
• The platform was generating approximately 100 million visits per month.
• Annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached approximately $230 million.
• The content library contained more than 250 million stock assets.
These metrics apply to a broader creative services ecosystem, not just the sale of photographs.
Conclusion: Freepik/Magnific is an example of a company that, rather than fighting against AI competition, is striving to make AI the foundation of its business. For photographers, this simultaneously creates both new distribution channels and greater competition from generated content.
Source: Freepik’s transformation into Magnific magnific.com/blog/freepik-is-now-magnific.
4. Alamy — continues to operate but reduces photographers’ commissions
Alamy alamy.com is a UK-based photo agency owned by PA Media Group.
Unlike many platforms, Alamy has traditionally been of particular interest to photographers who offer documentary, travel, historical, and editorial photography.
However, in 2026, Alamy introduced significant changes to its contributor agreements.
The new terms, which took effect on September 1, provide for commission rates based on sales performance:
• Bronze — 15% for the photographer.
• Silver — 20% for the photographer.
• Gold — 40% for the photographer.
• Platinum — 50% for the photographer, subject to exclusivity and sales volume requirements.
In addition, the minimum accumulated balance required for payment has been increased from $50 to $75.
This may be disadvantageous for less active photographers, as lower earnings also mean a lower commission rate.
Interestingly, Alamy’s contributor agreement prohibits the submission of images created using generative AI image-generation tools.
Conclusion: Alamy continues to operate and remains a significant player in the authentic photography market, but the new commission rules indicate that the company is revising its cost model. Alamy’s most recent detailed financial results are not as widely available to the public as those of its publicly traded competitors.
Source: Alamy’s 2026 changes to its contributor agreement alamy.com/terms/contributor-contract-chan….
5. Depositphotos — Growing alongside VistaPrint and Investing in AI
Depositphotos depositphotos.com is another major platform for stock photos, videos, and illustrations.
In 2021, the company was acquired by VistaPrint, and in 2025, its brand was rebranded as DepositPhotos by VistaPrint.
This means that Depositphotos is part of a broader ecosystem of design, printing, and marketing services.
The company’s 2025 annual report states that:
• The content library has exceeded 326 million files.
• More than 531,000 AI-generated images have been created on the platform.
• AI editing tools have been used in more than 358,000 editing operations.
Depositphotos is also developing an offering for licensing content datasets for training artificial intelligence systems.
This is a significant issue for photographers, as the value of image libraries in the future may be driven not only by the sale of individual images but also by their use in the AI data licensing business.
At the same time, the company does not publish sufficiently detailed individual financial results to make a reliable assessment of Depositphotos’ profit or revenue growth in 2026.
Conclusion: Depositphotos continues to develop its platform and AI services, but the lack of publicly available data prevents an assessment of its financial health as accurately as in the case of Shutterstock or Adobe.
Source: Depositphotos 2025 Annual Report blog.depositphotos.com/2025-recap.html.
6. Dreamstime — A Romanian-founded photo agency successfully adapting to the AI era
Dreamstime dreamstime.com/#res578511 is one of the world’s largest stock photography platforms, founded in 2000. It is particularly interesting that the company’s roots lie right here in Eastern Europe—in Romania. Its founder and CEO is Romanian entrepreneur Șerban Enache.
Dreamstime is also well known among photographers in our region, who use the platform to sell their images on the international market.
According to data published by the company in 2026:
• The platform’s library contains more than 369 million images and other visual materials.
• There are more than 60 million registered users.
• Content is provided by approximately 1.4 million photographers and other creators.
• Several million new files are added to the library every month. Dreamstime dreamstime.com/#res578511
Unlike Getty Images, Dreamstime is a privately held company that does not publish such detailed financial reports. Therefore, it is not possible to reliably estimate changes in its revenue, profit, or sales volume in 2026.
However, the company continues to develop its platform. In 2025, Dreamstime introduced new subscription plans and improved its technologies for automatic image classification and keyword generation.
The company’s stance on artificial intelligence is also interesting. Dreamstime accepts AI-generated images if they meet certain requirements. Authors must label such content as AI-generated, and the platform generally does not accept AI-generated images of human faces.
Dreamstime’s royalty terms are also important for photographers:
• For non-exclusive contributors—25–50% of the net amount of the respective sale.
• For exclusive images—an additional 10% on top of the respective royalty rate.
• For exclusive contributors — 60% of sales revenue.
• Minimum balance required to request a payout — $100 USD.
Conclusion: Dreamstime dreamstime.com/#res578511 is a major competitor to Getty Images and iStock that continues to develop traditional photo sales while integrating artificial intelligence technologies. The company’s private status makes it difficult to assess its financial situation, but publicly available information indicates active development of the platform. For photographers in Eastern Europe, Dreamstime remains one of the options for selling their work on the global market.
What does all this mean for the future of photography?
Getty Images’ financial restructuring is one of the most high-profile events in the stock photography industry in recent years, but that doesn’t mean professional photography no longer has a future.
A comparison of the five major platforms reveals several distinct strategies. Shutterstock is striving to cut costs and develop new revenue streams. Adobe is leveraging the advantages of its software ecosystem. Freepik/Magnific is rapidly shifting its focus to AI. Alamy is changing its commission model, while Depositphotos is combining traditional image licensing with AI services.
What they all have in common is that simply maintaining a massive photo library is no longer enough to guarantee business success.
For photographers, this is a reminder that it’s worth diversifying income from image licensing, keeping up with changes in agency policies, and focusing more on creating content that has unique documentary, commercial, or artistic value.
AI can create very convincing illustrations, but it cannot replace an authentic photograph as proof that a specific event actually took place.
And perhaps it is precisely this distinction that will become one of the greatest values of professional photography in the future.
Information compiled on October 14, 2026, based on official company announcements, financial reports, and author contracts. Getty Images’ restructuring process is not yet complete.
On October 12, 2026, Getty Images announced an agreement with its largest creditors and investors that provides for the company’s financial restructuring, using the procedures set forth in Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
It is important to clarify right away that Getty Images does not plan to cease operations. This process allows the company to continue operating while restructuring its debt and ownership structure.
According to the company’s official statement at sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1898496/00012…, the bankruptcy protection petition is expected to be filed in the coming weeks, with the restructuring to be completed by the end of 2026.
How did Getty Images end up in this situation?
Getty Images is one of the best-known names in the professional photography industry. The company was founded in 1995 and has spent decades building a massive photo archive, acquiring other companies, and collaborating with the world’s largest media outlets.
It manages three key brands:
• Getty Images — licensing of professional, editorial, and commercial images.
• iStock — a marketplace for photos, videos, and illustrations accessible to a wider audience.
• Unsplash — an ecosystem of free and paid images.
The company’s platforms offer hundreds of millions of images, and it collaborates with more than 600,000 content creators.
However, a large image library and a globally recognized brand do not guarantee financial stability.
According to Getty Images’ second-quarter 2026 financial report:
• Total debt as of June 30 amounted to approximately $2.07 billion.
• Cash on hand was only $51.6 million.
• Quarterly revenue was $229.1 million, down 2.5% from a year ago.
• The quarterly net loss totaled $85.8 million.
• The number of active annual subscribers had declined by 25.2% over the past 12 months.
Of particular concern is that the company’s costs and debt service are putting significant pressure on it, even though the photography and image licensing business continues to generate substantial revenue.
The Failed Merger with Shutterstock
In early 2025, Getty Images and Shutterstock announced plans for a merger valued at approximately $3.7 billion.
It would have been one of the most significant deals in the history of photo agencies.
The combined company would have had massive image libraries, a large customer base, and significantly greater influence on the photo licensing market.
However, the deal ran into objections from the UK competition regulator. The regulator demanded that Shutterstock’s editorial image business be divested to prevent excessive market concentration.
Getty Images did not accept these conditions, and in July 2026, the merger was called off.
This occurred at a time when the company was already facing significant debt and additional financing costs.
Is artificial intelligence destroying the stock photography business?
It would be an exaggeration to claim that Getty Images’ financial problems were caused solely by artificial intelligence. Debt, interest payments, legal expenses, and the failed merger also played a major role.
However, the competition created by AI is one of the most significant long-term challenges.
Just a few years ago, an advertising agency that needed an image of a businessperson at a computer, a group of people gathered together, or a family in the kitchen often had to purchase a ready-made stock photo or organize a photo shoot.
Now, in many cases, similar visual content can be created in a matter of seconds with the help of generative artificial intelligence.
And this directly competes with one of the traditionally largest categories of stock photography—general commercial images.
At the same time, AI cannot fully replace all areas of professional photography. News photography, sports events, historical archives, documentary photography, and real people or events still require an authentic source.
This is partly confirmed by Getty Images’ own results. While revenue from the commercial content segment fell by 2.6% in the second quarter of 2026, revenue from editorial content rose by 9.2%.
This is an interesting sign: perhaps in the future, greater value will lie not in easily reproducible images, but in content that documents the real world and cannot simply be replaced by AI.
What will happen to iStock?
iStock is one of the brands owned by Getty Images, so the parent company’s financial restructuring also affects this business.
However, no announcement has been made yet regarding the closure or sale of iStock.
In its statement, Getty Images emphasized that there will be no service interruptions for its customers, partners, and content creators, and that payments will continue as usual.
However, the iStock business itself is also facing challenges.
Getty Images’ financial documents show that in the first six months of 2026, iStock’s online sales revenue decreased by $12.1 million, compared to the same period the previous year.
The company attributes this to several factors:
• A lower number of website visitors.
• The discontinuation of the free trial offer.
• Changes in partnerships that brought in customers.
• Changes that temporarily worsened the site’s search engine rankings.
Consequently, not all of the decline in sales can automatically be attributed to competition from AI.
However, iStock is particularly vulnerable to the pressure created by generative AI, as part of its offering consists of relatively standardized commercial images.
Should photographers remove their images from iStock?
For now, there is no obvious reason to take such a step.
Getty Images has reached a restructuring agreement with its main creditor groups. The Getty family and Koch Equity Development have committed to providing up to $533 million in capital to help the company stabilize its financial situation.
The restructuring plan calls for reducing the financial burden, extending the repayment terms for some debts, and, upon completion of the process, returning Getty Images to private ownership.
Under the plan, current holders of publicly traded shares would lose their existing ownership rights.
For photographers, however, this does not mean an automatic loss of copyright or the termination of image licensing.
Nevertheless, those who regularly receive income from Getty Images or iStock should:
• Keep copies of their sales and royalty statements.
• Review their expense reports and payment history.
• Review the terms of their contracts, particularly regarding exclusivity and content usage rights.
• Keep an eye out for potential changes in how royalties are calculated.
• Consider diversifying your income by not relying solely on a single photo agency.
Currently, the company promises to continue payments as usual, but the restructuring is not yet complete, and this promise is not an absolute guarantee.
What’s happening with the five biggest competitors to Getty Images and iStock?
Getty Images’ problems raise a broader question: Is the entire stock photography agency industry facing difficulties?
We looked at five major competitors and their latest publicly available financial results. This is not an exact ranking of the world’s largest agencies by revenue, as not all companies publish separate financial data for their stock photography business.
1. Shutterstock — Revenue Is Plummeting, and Its Competitor Is Also Facing Serious Problems
Shutterstock shutterstock.com is one of Getty Images’ biggest direct competitors.
Following a failed merger, the company continues to operate independently, but its financial results are also disappointing.
In the second quarter of 2026, Shutterstock:
• Revenue was $221.8 million, down 17% from a year earlier.
• The company reported a net loss of $155.9 million.
• The number of paid downloads decreased from 112.6 million to 98.7 million.
• The number of subscribers decreased from 1.073 million to 951,000.
It should be noted that the net loss was significantly impacted by a one-time non-cash accounting write-down related to an impairment of the company’s value.
The company is cutting costs and increasingly focusing on AI data licensing, enterprise services, and new content monetization opportunities.
Conclusion: Shutterstock is not currently in bankruptcy proceedings, but its traditional image licensing business is under significant pressure.
Source: Shutterstock’s Q2 2026 financial results investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/n….
2. Adobe Stock — a strong parent company, but AI is changing the market here as well
Adobe Stock stock.adobe.com is one of the most significant players in the stock photography market, as its content is integrated into Photoshop, Illustrator, and other Adobe products.
Unlike Getty Images and Shutterstock, Adobe’s business model does not rely solely on image licensing.
In the third fiscal quarter of 2026, Adobe’s total revenue reached $6.76 billion, which is 13% more than the previous year.
However, these figures represent the entire Adobe company, not just Adobe Stock. Adobe Stock’s standalone revenue trends are not published in sufficient detail to reliably determine how successfully this platform is currently performing.
Adobe is actively investing in Firefly generative AI solutions and integrating AI tools into its software.
Adobe Stock still offers photographers the opportunity to sell their work, receiving a standard 33% royalty for image licensing.
However, there is a risk that some customers who previously purchased ready-made stock images will now generate them themselves using Adobe software.
Conclusion: As a company, Adobe is financially much stronger and more diversified than traditional photo agencies. However, this does not guarantee that Adobe Stock photographers’ earnings will increase.
Sources: Adobe financial results adobe.com/cc-shared/assets/investor-relat…, Adobe Stock Royalties contributor.stock.adobe.com/royalties.
3. Freepik / Magnific — From Stock Images to a Full-Fledged AI Platform
One of the most interesting examples is Freepik freepik.com.
The company was long known as a platform for photos, illustrations, vector graphics, and design assets. However, in April 2026, it announced its transition to a new brand—Magnific.
The company’s strategy clearly demonstrates how the visual content market is changing.
Instead of focusing solely on selling ready-made images, Magnific offers AI-powered image and video generation, editing, upscaling, and other creative tools.
According to data published by the company itself at the time of the rebranding:
• It had more than one million paid subscribers.
• The platform was generating approximately 100 million visits per month.
• Annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached approximately $230 million.
• The content library contained more than 250 million stock assets.
These metrics apply to a broader creative services ecosystem, not just the sale of photographs.
Conclusion: Freepik/Magnific is an example of a company that, rather than fighting against AI competition, is striving to make AI the foundation of its business. For photographers, this simultaneously creates both new distribution channels and greater competition from generated content.
Source: Freepik’s transformation into Magnific magnific.com/blog/freepik-is-now-magnific.
4. Alamy — continues to operate but reduces photographers’ commissions
Alamy alamy.com is a UK-based photo agency owned by PA Media Group.
Unlike many platforms, Alamy has traditionally been of particular interest to photographers who offer documentary, travel, historical, and editorial photography.
However, in 2026, Alamy introduced significant changes to its contributor agreements.
The new terms, which took effect on September 1, provide for commission rates based on sales performance:
• Bronze — 15% for the photographer.
• Silver — 20% for the photographer.
• Gold — 40% for the photographer.
• Platinum — 50% for the photographer, subject to exclusivity and sales volume requirements.
In addition, the minimum accumulated balance required for payment has been increased from $50 to $75.
This may be disadvantageous for less active photographers, as lower earnings also mean a lower commission rate.
Interestingly, Alamy’s contributor agreement prohibits the submission of images created using generative AI image-generation tools.
Conclusion: Alamy continues to operate and remains a significant player in the authentic photography market, but the new commission rules indicate that the company is revising its cost model. Alamy’s most recent detailed financial results are not as widely available to the public as those of its publicly traded competitors.
Source: Alamy’s 2026 changes to its contributor agreement alamy.com/terms/contributor-contract-chan….
5. Depositphotos — Growing alongside VistaPrint and Investing in AI
Depositphotos depositphotos.com is another major platform for stock photos, videos, and illustrations.
In 2021, the company was acquired by VistaPrint, and in 2025, its brand was rebranded as DepositPhotos by VistaPrint.
This means that Depositphotos is part of a broader ecosystem of design, printing, and marketing services.
The company’s 2025 annual report states that:
• The content library has exceeded 326 million files.
• More than 531,000 AI-generated images have been created on the platform.
• AI editing tools have been used in more than 358,000 editing operations.
Depositphotos is also developing an offering for licensing content datasets for training artificial intelligence systems.
This is a significant issue for photographers, as the value of image libraries in the future may be driven not only by the sale of individual images but also by their use in the AI data licensing business.
At the same time, the company does not publish sufficiently detailed individual financial results to make a reliable assessment of Depositphotos’ profit or revenue growth in 2026.
Conclusion: Depositphotos continues to develop its platform and AI services, but the lack of publicly available data prevents an assessment of its financial health as accurately as in the case of Shutterstock or Adobe.
Source: Depositphotos 2025 Annual Report blog.depositphotos.com/2025-recap.html.
6. Dreamstime — A Romanian-founded photo agency successfully adapting to the AI era
Dreamstime dreamstime.com/#res578511 is one of the world’s largest stock photography platforms, founded in 2000. It is particularly interesting that the company’s roots lie right here in Eastern Europe—in Romania. Its founder and CEO is Romanian entrepreneur Șerban Enache.
Dreamstime is also well known among photographers in our region, who use the platform to sell their images on the international market.
According to data published by the company in 2026:
• The platform’s library contains more than 369 million images and other visual materials.
• There are more than 60 million registered users.
• Content is provided by approximately 1.4 million photographers and other creators.
• Several million new files are added to the library every month. Dreamstime dreamstime.com/#res578511
Unlike Getty Images, Dreamstime is a privately held company that does not publish such detailed financial reports. Therefore, it is not possible to reliably estimate changes in its revenue, profit, or sales volume in 2026.
However, the company continues to develop its platform. In 2025, Dreamstime introduced new subscription plans and improved its technologies for automatic image classification and keyword generation.
The company’s stance on artificial intelligence is also interesting. Dreamstime accepts AI-generated images if they meet certain requirements. Authors must label such content as AI-generated, and the platform generally does not accept AI-generated images of human faces.
Dreamstime’s royalty terms are also important for photographers:
• For non-exclusive contributors—25–50% of the net amount of the respective sale.
• For exclusive images—an additional 10% on top of the respective royalty rate.
• For exclusive contributors — 60% of sales revenue.
• Minimum balance required to request a payout — $100 USD.
Conclusion: Dreamstime dreamstime.com/#res578511 is a major competitor to Getty Images and iStock that continues to develop traditional photo sales while integrating artificial intelligence technologies. The company’s private status makes it difficult to assess its financial situation, but publicly available information indicates active development of the platform. For photographers in Eastern Europe, Dreamstime remains one of the options for selling their work on the global market.
What does all this mean for the future of photography?
Getty Images’ financial restructuring is one of the most high-profile events in the stock photography industry in recent years, but that doesn’t mean professional photography no longer has a future.
A comparison of the five major platforms reveals several distinct strategies. Shutterstock is striving to cut costs and develop new revenue streams. Adobe is leveraging the advantages of its software ecosystem. Freepik/Magnific is rapidly shifting its focus to AI. Alamy is changing its commission model, while Depositphotos is combining traditional image licensing with AI services.
What they all have in common is that simply maintaining a massive photo library is no longer enough to guarantee business success.
For photographers, this is a reminder that it’s worth diversifying income from image licensing, keeping up with changes in agency policies, and focusing more on creating content that has unique documentary, commercial, or artistic value.
AI can create very convincing illustrations, but it cannot replace an authentic photograph as proof that a specific event actually took place.
And perhaps it is precisely this distinction that will become one of the greatest values of professional photography in the future.
Information compiled on October 14, 2026, based on official company announcements, financial reports, and author contracts. Getty Images’ restructuring process is not yet complete.
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