Records / Negotiation levers

Stock agencies pass holders a fraction of a cent to a few cents per file held for AI training, and the figure is falling; curated sets sell for about 60 cents an image

Contributor statements put agency AI payouts per file held at $0.0015 to $0.035: Kneschke's pools give a median Adobe Firefly bonus of $0.035 per portfolio file in 2023 (23 contributors) and about $0.004 in 2025 (six contributors); one contributor's Adobe bonus fell from $0.034 per image in 2024 to $0.011 in 2026, and his Shutterstock fund payments ran from $0.0018 to $0.027 per image per payment, with iStock's AI Services at about $0.0005 per image a month. He writes that these payments are dropping year on year. On the selling side, PIXTA lists curated 1,000-image machine-learning sets at JPY 99,000 (about $0.62 an image) and Snapmart from JPY 90 an image, against Freepik's archive deals at 2 to 4 cents (held).

Dated 1 Oct 2026Source checked 20 Oct 2026Quote found on its page again 23 Oct 2026Basis: indicative