Earn Money as a Shutterstock Image Reviewer

Consider this non-phone work at home job. Being a Shutterstock Image Reviewer offers a flexible way to earn extra cash.”

Have an Eye for Detail? Be a Shutterstock Image Reviewer

Do you want to earn a living while working out of your own home, but find the idea of doing customer service work or writing sales articles all day a bit tedious? If you answered yes to that question, one of the things you might want to consider is applying to work as a Shutterstock Image Reviewer.

What You’ll Be Doing

Shutterstock is a stock photo site that earns money by selling pictures to people who need them for book covers, websites, and other art projects. To help attract customers to the website, Shutterstock promises to provide a wide selection of top quality pictures. In order to make sure that customers are pleased with the selection, Shutterstock uses freelance contractors to inspect each image that gets posted to the website. (See my post, Non Phone Work From Home Jobs for more great job ideas like this one.)

What You’ll Need

Shutterstock has made it very clear that when it comes to hiring freelance contractors to work as image reviewers, they have high standards. Liking to look at pictures won’t be enough to get the company to accept your application. When you apply to work as an image reviewer, you need to;

Enjoying photographs and is just one aspect of working as an image reviewer for Shutterstock. In order to use this type of work to supplement your income, you have to know when a photo is high quality and when it’s not, and you need to be prepared to deal with a high amount of low-quality photos.

Another thing that Shutterstock is looking for in freelance photo reviewers is a strong knowledge of the stock photo industry.

When reviewing image reviewer applications, there are some pretty specific things Shutterstock is looking for, which include:

• A minimum of two years working the photography industry
• A computer with an accurate color display
• The skills needed to do quick edits on some photos

Payments

The way Shutterstock currently has things set up, you’ll get paid for every image you review. In 2011 the pay was $0.05 per image reviewed. I did find a post on Glassdoor that states an average of $10 an hour though that's more recent.

One Word of Warning

While it’s true that you’ll be able to set your own hours and enjoy a flexible schedule while doing image reviewing for Shutterstock, you shouldn’t fool yourself into thinking that it’s a job you can do whenever you like and forget about for weeks on end. Shutterstock has expectations which include working at least 5 hours on the weekends and devoting yourself to 25-30 working hours every week. If you know you won’t be able to do this, you shouldn’t apply.

Final Thoughts on Being a Shutterstock Image Reviewer

I worked at Shutterstock as an image reviewer for quite some time and loved the experience. It was so different from the other methods I used to earn a living from home. The only reason I left the position was that other, more lucrative, opportunities were coming my way and I could no longer devote such a large chunk of my time to Shutterstock.

**They are not always hiring – but here is the most current link I've found: Shutterstock Careers.