There is a new website called
TopImageSites that, in theory, will help customers find “The Best Stock Images On The Web.” Ten agencies are listed and the number of “products” available in each agency’s collection are listed in the chart below. Products include: photos, vectors, illustration, videos and audio files. Some of the agencies don’t have audio files and Panthermedia doesn’t have either video or audio.
| Agencies |
Products Available |
| Dreamstime |
60+ million |
| DepositPhotos |
60+ million |
| 123RF |
80+ million |
| Adobe Stock |
75+ million |
| Getty Images |
100+ million |
| Alamy |
100+ million |
| Panthermedia |
60+ million |
| Pond5 |
25+ million |
| iStock |
20+ million |
| Envato |
20+ million |
When the customers does a keyword search they are shown a selection of 4 images from each agency’s website. To see more of what the agency has to offer they must go to the agency’s website. It is virtually impossible to tell which agency might have the most appropriate images without toggling back and forth between various sites.
In many cases an image found at one agency may also be available at up to 6 of the other agencies. But there is no easy way to find the same image on another site in order to do a true price comparison. It may be buried deep in each of the other collections. A visual search could simplify this process, but that is not available at this time.
Going from site to site may be a way for customers to see what other customers using that site have found to be the best images, but it is not clear how important that might be for customers.
Part of the idea of this site is to help customers understand which companies offer the best prices, but the prices tend to vary wildly from site to site. For example, customers can get 10 images a month for the following prices at these sites.
| Agency |
Price for |
Additional Notes |
| |
10 Images |
|
| Dreamstime |
$39 |
|
| DepositPhotos |
$49 |
|
| 123RF |
$79 |
You get 5 images per-day for $79, or any 5 images for $39. |
| Adobe Stock |
$49.99 |
|
| Getty Images |
$4,500 |
Of course what they don’t tell you is that if you qualify for Premium |
| |
|
Access (ready to spend a few thousand dollars a year) you can get |
| |
|
the same high priced images for less than what the others charge.) |
| Alamy |
Between |
|
| |
$19.99 & |
Price depends on use for each image. (Multiply by 10 to get the |
| |
$59.99 |
10 image price.) But you can also get 24% off any purchase. |
| Panthermedia |
$90 |
But you can also get 20% off any purchase |
| Pond5 |
$99 |
But that price is for photos, vectors and illustrations. If you want |
| |
|
video clips, which is what Pond5 is known for, prices range from |
| |
|
betweem $20 and $800. |
| iStock |
$99 |
But that is for any image, either in the Exclusive Signature |
| |
|
collection or the non-exclusive Essentials collection. If you can |
| |
|
find all the images you need in the Essentials collection (and there |
| |
|
are some very good ones there) you can get 10 images for $40. |
| Envato |
Between |
|
| |
$2 & $30 |
(Multiply by 10 for comparison with the other prices.) But you’ve got |
| |
each |
to pick an image before you can determine what the price is. |
On each site there are a lot of other pricing options available depending on how many images the customer needs and whether the customer wants to purchase images one at a time, or via credits or subscriptions. The options vary widely from agency to agency. It is almost impossible to really compare price from one agency to another.
For the customer, the trick when it comes to comparing prices is knowing exactly how many images they might need in the next month, or year and which images those really will be. Since most customers have very little ideas as to what they might need in the future, it is almost impossible to determine which deal will give them access to the best images for their purposes for the lowest price.
What tends to happen is the accounting departments of a firm (particularly large companies) look at the various deals offered and make a determination based purely on price. Then they tell the creatives at their company that they must get the images they need from the agency the accounts have chosen. Sometimes they will do deals with two or three agencies, but all the other sources tend to be shut out, no matter how great their images happen to be.