Getty Images
Getty Images · Image
Getty Images is a stock photo and video marketplace that licenses creative and editorial content, plus a commercially safe AI image generator, from a 477 million asset library.
About Getty Images
What Is Getty Images
Getty Images is a visual media company founded in 1995 by Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein. It sells licenses to stock photos, videos, illustrations, and music for commercial, editorial, and personal use. The library runs to hundreds of millions of assets, and its editorial desk covers more than 160,000 news, sport, and entertainment events every year.
The problem it solves is finding a picture you are legally allowed to publish. Buying a copy is really buying a license that spells out where, how long, and in what context you can use an asset. Getty Images handles that paperwork by tagging each file with the right license, so a magazine, an ad agency, and a blogger can each pull the version that fits their project.
The catch is cost and scope. Getty Images sits at the premium end of the market, and the biggest collections and the deepest archives sit behind enterprise agreements or higher-priced packs. For casual use there are cheaper options under the same roof, but the flagship editorial and creative libraries are priced for professional budgets.
Getting Started
- Open gettyimages.com and search for a subject, then filter by image, video, illustration, or editorial.
- Pick a file and check its license type, since royalty-free, rights-managed, and rights-ready assets carry different terms.
- Choose how you want to pay: a single download, a prepaid UltraPack, or a recurring individual subscription.
- Download the licensed asset at the size your project needs and keep the license details with your records.
- For AI work, open Generative AI by Getty Images, describe the image you want, and download the result under the same liability cover.
Product Information
A quick look at Getty Images's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.
Best for
The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.
Users
- Journalists and newsroom editors
- Creative and ad agencies
- Freelance photographers and creators
- Marketing and brand teams
Tasks
- Licensing a hero image for a campaign
- Sourcing editorial coverage
- Generating a custom visual with AI
- Building an image library over time
Scenarios
- A weekly magazine that needs fresh editorial photos for every issue
- A product launch where legal sign-off is mandatory
- A design team that needs one premium shot for a billboard
- A startup that runs monthly campaigns on a tight budget
Key features
A Library of Hundreds of Millions of Assets
Getty Images carries one of the largest privately owned photographic archives in the world, with millions of images dating back to the start of photography on top of a modern library that runs to 477 million assets. Everything is rights-cleared, which means each file comes with a license that states how you can use it. For anyone who has to prove where a picture came from, that paper trail is the point.
Creative and Editorial Collections
The catalog splits into two lanes. Creative images are trend-researched, art-directed shots meant for advertising, branding, and marketing, and they usually come with model or property releases. Editorial images cover news, sport, and entertainment as it happens, and they carry restrictions on commercial use. Picking the right lane up front keeps you out of copyright trouble later.
Royalty-Free, Rights-Managed, and Rights-Ready Licensing
Not every file is priced the same way. Royalty-free images and clips are priced by file size and come with broad usage rights. Rights-managed editorial images and rights-ready video are priced by how you plan to use them, so a small blog placement costs less than a national ad campaign. Working out which license you need is the first decision on any download.
Generative AI by Getty Images
The company runs its own text to image tool, built with NVIDIA and trained only on licensed Getty Images creative content rather than web-scraped data. Anything you generate stays out of the public Getty library, and downloads come under the company's standard royalty-free license with uncapped indemnification and perpetual worldwide rights. Getty Images says that cover starts at $50,000 per generated image, which is the draw for brands that need AI visuals they can defend.
Single-Seat Creative and Editorial Subscriptions
Since July 9, 2026, individual professionals no longer need an enterprise agreement to subscribe. The new single-seat plans give one person recurring downloads from the Creative or Editorial library at a single predictable price. The trade-off is built in: the right to download or display subscription images expires when the subscription ends, so they suit ongoing work rather than assets that must stay live forever.
Downloads, Packs, and Enterprise Plans
Getty Images pricing works several ways depending on how often you need files. You can buy a single download as you go, stock up with prepaid UltraPacks for occasional premium assets, or commit to a larger annual allowance through a Premium Access plan. Teams with high-volume or workflow needs still run on custom enterprise agreements. Matching the payment route to your real usage is what keeps the bill sane.
A Documented API and Integration Path
Getty Images publishes a developer API with endpoints for search, image and video delivery, and licensing, backed by SDKs and sample code. Access is gated through an account representative against a licensing agreement rather than a self-serve sign-up, which suits newsrooms and platforms that embed a Getty picker into their own tools. For developers building media workflows, that integration path is the practical feature.
Pros and cons
Pros
- One of the deepest rights-cleared libraries around, so hard-to-find news, sport, and archive shots are usually covered.
- Every asset comes with a clear license, which makes legal sign-off faster for agencies and publishers.
- Generative AI by Getty Images produces commercially safe output trained on licensed content, backed by uncapped indemnification and cover from $50,000 per image.
- Single-seat Creative and Editorial subscriptions opened in 2026, so individuals can subscribe without an enterprise contract.
- Flexible payment routes, from single downloads to UltraPacks and annual Premium Access plans, let you match cost to real usage.
- A documented API and SDKs let developers embed search and licensing into their own products.
Cons
- Pricing sits at the premium end, so a single large image or 4K clip can cost hundreds of dollars, which rules it out for casual or high-volume use.
- Subscription download and display rights expire when the plan ends, so images that must stay online long term need a different license.
- API access is sold through a sales rep against a licensing agreement, with no self-service tier for small builders.
- The richest collections and archives are tied to enterprise agreements, so the full breadth is not open to solo users.
Frequently asked questions
Getty Images is a marketplace for licensing stock photos, videos, illustrations, and music, covering both commercial creative work and editorial news, sport, and entertainment. It also runs Generative AI by Getty Images, a text to image tool that produces commercially safe visuals trained on licensed content.
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