iStockPhoto

Total Scam! Do not subscribe! I paid $499 for a 1 month subscription to download 250 images. After two weeks of downloading about half my photos, I get a call from their sales rep telling me that in the fine print of the agreement I am required to use all the images I download in a professional publication before the end of the month or I must delete them. He then tries to pressure me into spending $1999 for a 1 year subscription. I spoke with the manager and they would not refund me and they cancelled my subscription so that I can't download the rest of the images I paid for. It's a total rip off!

Do not deal with this organisation, it is tricky. You think you are purchasing credits but what ever you pay will become a subscription for them and they will take take take money and there is no way to stop or cancel the subscription they set up with your credit card. Be warned

IStockPhoto has excellent collection of photographs, backgrounds, technological perspectives, and so on. But all those collections are looking similar and I didnt find any variety in a particular category. Either a photographer or a technology enthusiast is always searching for unique and new concepts. Thus, this site is not up to the extent of the vision of enthusiasts.

#ScamAlert DO NOT USE. They are a subscription trap! After the "free trial" you are supposedly locked into a 12 month contract at $80 a month. This is not clear and concise in their T&Cs and after reaching out they refuse to cancel.

I've used many stock image sites over the years to get images for some of my projects. And really like iStockphoto and iStockvideo. I lost the image I'd downloaded months before and they allowed me to download again at no extra charge. Friendly customer support highly trusted and professional people.

As with many others I too am fed up with istock and their changes in pricing/credits.

Yet again they have devalued my investment and I can't see how it can be legal.

Example, invest £100 and get for ease of maths 100 credits. I used to get low res images for 1 credit but then they all went up to 2 credits. Over night the value of my investment halved.

Recently I had about 48 credits left so could buy 24 low res images. Then iStock changed the structure again so I could only buy a maximum of 10 photos. I am no maths expert but I think that works out that iStock reduced the value of my investment over night by 60%.

My advice do not touch iStock. Overpriced and it wont be long before they change their structure again and you get even less for your money.

I thought I cancelled the trial subscription, I never used their services. Then I saw they were subtracting money from my account. When I emailed them about it, they said I needed to pay 135(!) euros to cancel the contract, even though they saw I NEVER used their services. Will keep calling them until they cancel. But stay away from them. They are not interested in doing business, they are interested in scamming people. Will take legal action. *******.

Stay away. I used a free trial. I forgot to cancel. I explained I didn't have funds to cover the ridiculous fee I was charged. I explained I forgot to cancel and was basically told too bad for you! $97 charged to me. Thank gawd they cancelled the rest of the service but on a tight budget $97 was a big hit to my small budget. Their answer was pretty cold.

I've been using istockphoto on and off for about 5 years. In general, the site works well and the selection is great. I am not certain about this but it seems to me that their prices went up - alot - recently. They are much less affordable. That isn't a big deal since I can make my own decision not to shop a more expensive brand but it is their lack of customer service that led me to write this review. I bought an image for around $25 to use in print. When I downloaded the image, it became clear that it was slightly our of focus at full resolution. For a small banner, this would not be an issue but for print, it is. I contacted the customer service to ask for a refund since the photo was not usable for my purposes. I never heard back from them.

Money grubbing company, unethical company. Do not risk signing up - they will look for any excuse to take money, even if unused, you will be charged nearly $100AU with no allowance for a refund when implored.

I felt for the free trial option to check if their content is worth it for my projects but never downloaded anything, then I was charged without notice, and now after telling me I signed a sketchy contract they don't want to cancel my subscription. I can't delete my credit card from the site and cancel it by myself, fine if they don't want to refund me but are unwilling to cancel my subscription. This is a SCAM

I use this website to sell my photos and for anyone who either needs stock photos or wants to make some extra $$$ this is the best site out there. Don't expect to make a fortune, but you can expect to make some money proportional to the amount of work you put into it. It does take time to make some money so do not be discouraged if at first you are not collecting a big paycheck.

istock.com has been a staple of my design department for years and years, and I must say each year they get worse and worse with their manipulation. I have subscribed, paid as I go and bought signature series. It turns out istock.com has concerned with catch 22's and not stock anymore.

Recently, I purchased $100 in Signature 'subscription' which means that I cannot go back and download past signature purchases unless I subscribe again for images I don't need. This is unlike their credit system in which you can re-download. So stay away from subscriptions, and high-priced Signature collection as you cannot re-download what you paid for.

I hate this company and I'm switching to Adobe stock.

I hope you'll join me and put this greedy, manipulative company out of business. They suck!

It's unacceptable that they don't allow any exceptions to refunds when trying to cancel the free trial the day you get charged and didn't use any of the credits. What a rip off!

My sister paid for an image using her phone. She wanted to download it onto her computer so she opened the email on her laptop. She downloaded the file, it was a zip file. When she went to open it, it tried to release a virus! Thankfully her laptop security (McAfee) caught it right away! Who knows what would of happened! The file then disappeared. This is unacceptable! There needs to be an online company to oversee all websites. So criminal charges can start being placed on online criminals! Shame on you iStock.

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.

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 don't do much in the way of photography and I don't sell photos. I did need a new piece of artwork for my living room and found on istockphoto that I could download a really cool photo and print it out in high resolution and simply hang it on my wall. Much better than buying a print at a store!

Used to really like this site. Their prices are crazy. Search for a picture and one costs a few dollars, and the one right next to it costs over $100. Their site always crashes too. Not happy here anymore.

This website is way too expensive. $13~20 for a single image of flat ribbons or objects that aren't even cropped out of a background? Not only that, but they charge extra for certain images that are "in trend" (of course they better looking ones). This isn't an ethical way to do business. This isn't jewelry or stock market, they're just images that can be downloaded and copied multiple times by many people. It's not right to charge almost double for certain ones. I bought a subscription for a month for no reason because every time I search images, the good ones cost extra.

Then I went on another stock image website and their subscription is only $24 a month and you can download unlimited images. They had the same stock image. Unbelievable. Running businesses cost so much already, iStock isn't the best value.

I called iStock customer service several times to ensure that I wouldn't miss the deadline for my month's free trial subscription. The last staff member I spoke with gave me dates that extended into 2024. I thought that was wonderful until the day after the month deadline was up when I called to confirm that and was informed the info I was given was incorrect.

They would indeed charge me ($70!) for the next month although I was 1 day over the monthly deadline and was told earlier that it had been extended. Which staff person was I to rely on? I went with the most recent and got dinged for $70 for the entire month. IStock falsely promised a year by phone so that intentionally supersede the monthly deadline...and then charged SEVENTY DOLLARS for the next month! Additionally, I'd only downloaded 2 photos that month (neither of which I used) for a local kids non-profit,

IStock Photo is dishonest and greedy and engage with them at your own peril.

Scammers they use unethical practices to force you to pay for a year subscription i signed up for trial and decided it's not worth the $89/yr and right at the top of the plan page there's a "tun off auto renewal" button, logically that would disable the "auto renewal at the end of the trial. I was changed $89 and fed some bs that auto renewal doesn't appl.

I asked them to refund and they instead argued and refused. There's a reason they have terrible reviews stay away

If I had the foresight to read some of these reviews before using this service I wouldn't be in this situation. I opted for the free trial, and was planning to use the service for a couple of months while developing some materials for my company. When I asked to discontinue the service I was told I am required to pay the exorbitant ($70!) fee each month for the next 12 months.

This is called an annual subscription, but you're limited to only a very small number of images on a MONTHLY BASIS!

They claim it is "not fair" for them to let me cancel a service that I've paid for up to this point, and no longer require.

Someone needs to address this site, as it appears I'm only one of the many people they've scammed.