Adobe Stock Pricing and Plans: Which is the Best Option for You?

Creative Cloud users will most certainly benefit from using Adobe Stock as their primary stock photo source. The stock site is deeply integrated with CC desktop applications, such as Photoshop and Adobe illustrator. This allows CC users to license, access and manage images directly inside their favorite editing software.

Adobe Stock was launched in mid-2015, after the Adobe acquired the stock photo agency Fotolia. They have a very strong and valuable offer for creative professionals around the world.

All content in the stock photo website is royalty-free, meaning you can use them in any project for as long as you like. Adobe Stock offers various purchase options that meets your needs and budget.

  • Month-to-month Commitment. If you have one-off, unpredictable stock photo needs, this type of plan suits you. Adobe Stock’s monthly plans bring you flexibility. You can choose between 3 standards assets per month to 750 standard assets per month, whichever fits your creative needs and budget. All plans are cancellable anytime. They have no annual commitments. They also allow you to purchase additional images at super low prices.
  • Annual Commitment. Adobe Stock offers the best pricing with their subscription plans. The annual commitment, particularly, helps you save up to 20% on royalty-free images. Paid monthly, you can also download additional images for lower prices. Currently, the stock site offers a free trial for the 10 standard assets and 40 standard assets. This means you get the first month for free, cancel-risk free.
  • How about content that you can’t get with a plan? Adobe Stock has a solution for that. They offer credits for premium 3D, premium templates, premium images, and videos. The price varies depending on the stock file you want to download. Credit packs are available in the website. The larger the pack you purchase, the bigger your savings. They last for one year from purchase and don’t auto renew.

What is the best purchasing option for you?
With Adobe Stock, you can purchase images and videos through credits, plans or both. Plans are best for typical image needs. They are priced for value, are easily the most popular option among creatives. On the other hand, credits are best for content that are not included in subscription plans. They are priced for flexibility, and are the best deals for video and premium stock files. You can buy them separately, or combine them – whichever suits your creative needs.

Adobe Stock is a great and valuable stock photo agency for a number of reasons. But, the main advantage is its huge collection of high quality images. Over 100 million royalty-free photos are waiting to be discovered. And, the best part of it all is you can access them right inside your favorite Creative Cloud applications. Yes, you can preview watermarked images inside your design and get the approval of clients – saving you a lot of time and effort from reworks.

Is Adobe Stock the best stock image source for you? There is only one way to find out. Experience the stock agency at no cost at all with the Adobe Stock free trial and see how it meets your creative needs.

5 Cheaper Places to Get Single Images than Adobe

With it’s release of Adobe Stock, Adobe has already won a lot of praise and recognition for some of their innovative moves and quality imagery offerings.  But their pricing plan options aren’t anything too new or revolutionary.  Just like most other big name stock photo vendors, Adobe offers imagery at a subscription rate, or for a per image fee for those users who don’t need as many stock photos as often.  However, unlike some more thrifty options, the per image fee for Adobe Images is fairly high at $10 dollars per download.  If you need images on an on-demand basis, and want to get cheap imagery without paying the high rates for Adobe images, here are five cheaper places to get single images.

1) PhotoSpin

photospin

While Adobe offers a “one price fits all” approach for their single image downloads, many other stock photo agencies price their on demand offerings based on image size, definition, and other metrics.  At PhotoSpin, stock photos are priced based on image size.  If you just need a small image, which PhotoSpin categorizes at 864px or 2.5 inches@300ppi, you’ll only spend $2.  Medium images, at 1800px or 6 inches@300ppi, will run you $8.  Compared to the $10 fee for single downloads of Adobe Images, your dollar will go further at PhotoSpin.  While larger images have a higher price attached, small or medium sized imagery at PhotoSpin’s definition will be suitable for many users, and a good deal cheaper for single images than Adobel

2) Dreamstime

dreamstime

One of the attractive elements of Adobe’s on demand image pricing plan is that you can download just one image at a time, whereas many other stock photo agencies require credit bundles for on demand image downloads.  At Dreamstime, the smallest credit package offers 11 images, which may be more than some people will utilize if they aren’t frequent stock photo users.  However, Dreamstime’s 11 credit package only runs $14.99, for a per image download cost of just $1.36.  While the initial investment is a bit higher than the $10 dollar cost of Adobe images, Dreamstime will pay itself off after only buying two images with your 11 credit pack.

3) CanStockPhoto

canstockphoto

Again, like Dreamstime, CanStockPhoto doesn’t offer single image downloads per se, but their cheapest credit package costs very little next to Adobe’s on-demand photo fee.  For just $9, less than a single Adobe image, you get a package of 15 credits on CanStockPhoto.  The highest definition large imagery costs only 10 credits, which on a credit to dollar ratio translates into a $6 dollar value.  And unlike Dreamstime, the initial investment for a credit pack at CanStockPhoto is also less than Adobe’s per image fee.

4) StockFresh

stockfresh

At StockFresh, you will need to buy a credit package to download images, but the required investment is very low.  For less than you will spend on a single image at Adobe, you can buy credit bundles that can lead to multiple image downloads.  For $9.99, you get ten image credits from StockFresh, with images ranging from 1 to 10 credits depending on image size and definition.  Even if you need a very high quality, large image download, spending all 10 of those credits on one image at StockFresh will still cost you a little less than Adobe charges for their single image downloads.

5) PhotoDune

photodune

If you want incredibly cheap imagery on a per download basis, PhotoDune is a good place to start looking.  The site doesn’t require credit packages, and has near un-beatable deals if you only need a few stock images for a smaller project.  Their smallest image size, labeled “extra small” at 548 by 365 pixels for most images, will run you only a dollar.  If you need larger image sizes the prices go up from there, with many image sizes and small incremental price increases per image.  Their largest “Extra extra large” image offering, at 5760 by 3840 pixels, will only run you $9, again less than Adobe’s flat $10 per image on demand fee.

Why Are Adobe Images More Expensive?

There are a few reasons why Adobe Images are more expensive for on demand, single image downloads than some other places on the web.  First, many new stock photo users can be turned off by the credit system used by many stock photo sites, and would rather spend more to buy imagery with dollars instead of credits.  But for users who don’t like to bother with credits, there are still some options out there a lot cheaper than Adobe, like PhotoDune and PhotoSpin, described above.

The real reason why Adobe can charge more for their on-demand imagery than many other photo sites is probably based on name recognition.  The brand “Adobe” carries a lot of weight, and especially new stock photo users might choose to pay more for that trusted quality.  But if you are looking for absolute value for your dollar, try one of the five sites above for your per image downloads: all beat Adobe on price.