Sell photos and images to AI companies: 10 buyers, what they pay, on what terms

The list holds 10 data buyers for photos and images. Seven publish a figure, and three quote a price per image. Freepik / EyeEm pays "2 to 4 cents per image; EyeEm 50/50". Photobucket quotes "5 cents to $1 per photo, >$1 per video (in negotiation)". Defined.ai quotes "$1 to $2 per image" and says content owners get "20 to 30% of deal value". Shutterstock reports "$25M to $50M per big-tech deal", and its contributor share is undisclosed.

Three editor's picks open the list. Wirestock licenses non-exclusively, sets no minimum, pays a revenue share or a lump sum, and reports $15M paid to creators and sales to 6 foundation-model labs. Defined.ai names Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft as buyers and posts a scam-impersonation notice on its site. Freepik / EyeEm reports a 200M-image archive sold and names 2 big tech firms as buyers. Photobucket, the fourth pick, holds 13B photos and videos from its users, covered by its terms of service.

Nine of the 10 license non-exclusively; Depositphotos does not say. Adobe Stock trains only its own Firefly and does not sell to outside labs. In the contract, check whether the grant covers training only or also derivative models. Clear the copyright in every frame, with model and property releases where people or private places appear. Ask whether the buyer wants originals or edited files, and whether captions and metadata ship with them.