Pond5 enforces three metadata fields on every upload: a title of up to 80 characters, a description of up to 500, and between 5 and 50 keywords. Everything else — city, release flags, price, editorial status — is optional on the form, but each of those optional fields changes how the file is priced, licensed or surfaced in search.
The three fields Pond5 actually requires
Pond5's contributor portal splits metadata into what you must supply and what you may supply. The required set is short, which makes it unusually easy to pass submission with metadata that is technically valid and commercially useless. The limits below are the ones the form holds you to. The guidance after them is what decides whether a buyer ever reaches the clip.
Title: 80 characters maximum, 40 to 80 recommended
The hard ceiling is 80 characters. Pond5 then recommends landing between 40 and 80, which is more specific than most agencies bother to be — the usual pattern is a maximum and nothing else. The portal's own wording on what a title should be is deliberately unglamorous: nothing fancy, and it should convey exactly what is depicted in the work.
Four things are named as problems rather than preferences:
- English only. The single exception Pond5 names is a place name that buyers more commonly search in its native language.
- No number codes. A trailing 001 or a sequence number carried over from an export preset counts against the title, not as a harmless detail.
- No file extensions. A .mov or .jpg left inside the title is explicitly called out.
- No repeated words. The same noun appearing twice in one title reads as padding to the search index.
Editorial work gets its own title format, and Pond5 publishes it as a template rather than a suggestion: CITY, COUNTRY (STATE) – YEAR/MONTH/DAY, followed by a factual description of what is in the frame. Month names are written as words, not numerals.
Description: 500 characters
Five hundred characters, which works out at roughly three to four full sentences. Pond5 asks for time and location, date and event name, and a description of the scene, and it wants you to be as descriptive as the space allows rather than restating the title. For editorial submissions the caption has to appear either in the title or here — it cannot be missing from both.
Keywords: 5 minimum, 50 maximum
The floor is five keywords and the ceiling is fifty. Commas separate them, and Pond5 treats everything between two commas as a single keyword or key phrase — so "aerial view of city" occupies one of your fifty slots, not four. Keywords carry the most weight in Pond5's search algorithm, which the portal states outright rather than implying.
Pond5's own pages disagree on how many keywords to use
This is the most confusing thing in Pond5's contributor documentation, and it is worth naming plainly. The file-preparation guide sets the range at 5 to 50 and calls 10 to 20 descriptive, precise keywords the optimal count. The metadata guide in the growth section of the same portal says you should always include 40 to 50 keywords on an item.
Both pages are official and neither is dated in a way that tells you which one supersedes the other. The practical reading: fifty is the hard limit, under five will not submit, and the gap between those two recommendations is the difference between a precision strategy and a coverage strategy. Keywording by hand makes the lower range defensible, because twenty good tags beat fifty padded ones. If metadata is generated and then reviewed, the upper range costs nothing extra and matches what Pond5's own growth guidance pushes for.
What Pond5 rejects in metadata
The banned list is short and mostly about padding rather than policy:
- Keywords unrelated to the content. Pond5 names this as spam, not as an optimisation.
- Filler adjectives. "Stunning" and "beautiful" are the two examples the portal gives — nobody licenses footage by searching for stunning.
- Special characters and symbols anywhere in metadata.
- Non-English metadata, with the place-name exception noted above.
The CSV route, with field names spelled exactly as Pond5 expects
Pond5's CSV uploader is the part most worth learning, because it can carry metadata for several hundred or several thousand files in one pass. The field names are single words with no spaces and no underscores, and they are case-sensitive in practice, so a header of "Original Filename" will not map. If you already build agency CSV templates for other platforms, treat this as a separate column order rather than a renaming exercise.
Mandatory columns
- Originalfilename — has to match the delivered file exactly, extension included.
- Title — the 80-character field.
- Keywords — comma-separated, 5 to 50 entries.
Optional columns
Description, City, Region, Country, Specifysource (the camera model), Modelreleased (yes or no), Propertyreleased (yes or no), Release (the release filename with its extension), Copyright, Price and Editorial (yes or no). Three of those are not really optional in any commercial sense: a file with people in it and no model release flag, or editorial content not marked as editorial, is a licensing problem rather than a metadata gap.
The builder below reflects those exact column names and limits, so you can see the shape of a valid row before you export one.
Pond5 CSV row builder
Pond5's bulk uploader requires three columns — Originalfilename, Title and Keywords — and accepts eleven more as optional. Titles cap at 80 characters, descriptions at 500, and keywords run from 5 to 50 comma-separated entries. Build a row here to see which cells fail before you export the file.
Upload paths: web, FTP and templates
Files reach Pond5 either through the My Uploads page in the browser or over FTP. The distinction worth holding on to is that FTP moves media and nothing else — the transfer carries no title and no keyword list. Metadata arrives separately, by CSV, by template applied to a batch of similar files, or typed into the web form. That separation is why automating Pond5 video metadata is a different job from automating the upload.
Price is a metadata field here, not a setting
Most agencies decide what your file sells for. Pond5 does not, for most media types — it states that contributors have the freedom to set their own prices, and Price is a column in the CSV like any other. Video is the exception: it runs on a tiered price structure that takes the prices you submit together with other factors. There is also a LET POND5 SET MY PRICE option for contributors who would rather not make the call per file.
Royalties, payout and review timing
Exclusive video artists earn a 40% royalty. The payout threshold is twenty-five dollars, and once a balance clears it Pond5 pays automatically on the fifteenth of each month. Review timing is described only in relative terms — it varies by asset type, by marketplace designation and by batch size — and the portal adds a warning that is easy to misread as a problem: after approval, counters can take a few hours and in some cases up to a week to catch up.
A pre-upload check that matches Pond5's rules
Almost everything above fails quietly rather than loudly: a title with an extension in it still uploads, a four-keyword file still submits on some paths, and a missing release flag only becomes visible when a buyer wants a commercial licence. Running the list once per batch is cheaper than finding out later, especially since metadata problems on video are expensive to fix at scale.
Pond5 pre-upload metadata check
Every item here comes from Pond5's own contributor rules: an 80-character title ceiling with 40 to 80 recommended, a 500-character description, 5 to 50 comma-separated keywords, English-only metadata, no symbols, no filler adjectives, and release and editorial flags set before delivery rather than after.
Where Pond5 sits in a multi-agency routine
Pond5's limits do not line up with anyone else's. An 80-character title is shorter than several agencies allow and longer than others recommend; a fifty-keyword ceiling sits below some platforms and above others; and the price column has no equivalent anywhere that sets prices centrally. That makes Pond5 one of the clearer arguments for keeping one source text per file and deriving each agency's version from it, rather than writing metadata once and hoping it survives every destination.
Rastock AI generates per-agency metadata and delivers over FTP or SFTP to 10+ agencies, Pond5 included, with the field limits applied before the file leaves rather than after it is rejected — there is no revenue share and IPTC and CSV export stay yours. You can see what it does or check the plans. The trial runs fourteen days and does not ask for a card.
Frequently asked questions
How many keywords does Pond5 allow?
The range is 5 to 50. Below five will not submit and above fifty is not accepted. Pond5's own pages then disagree on the target inside that range: the file-preparation guide calls 10 to 20 descriptive, precise keywords optimal, while the metadata growth guide says you should always include 40 to 50 per item. Fifty is the ceiling either way.
What is the Pond5 title character limit?
Eighty characters is the maximum, and Pond5 recommends landing between 40 and 80. The portal's instruction on style is deliberately plain: the title should convey exactly what is depicted. Number codes such as a trailing 001, file extensions like .mov, and the same word repeated twice are all called out as things to keep out of the title.
Which fields are mandatory in a Pond5 CSV upload?
Three: Originalfilename, Title and Keywords. Everything else is optional, including Description, City, Region, Country, Specifysource, Modelreleased, Propertyreleased, Release, Copyright, Price and Editorial. The field names are single words with no spaces or underscores, spelled as shown, and a CSV can carry metadata for several hundred or several thousand uploads at once.
Can I upload to Pond5 over FTP?
Yes. Pond5 supports FTP alongside web upload through the My Uploads page, and a CSV can then apply metadata to the delivered batch. Templates can also be applied to groups of similar files. FTP moves the media; the metadata still has to arrive by CSV, template or the web form, because the transfer itself carries no title or keyword list.
Does Pond5 let contributors set their own prices?
For most media types, yes — Pond5 states contributors have the freedom to set their own prices. Video is different: it uses a tiered price structure determined by the prices you submit together with other factors. There is also a LET POND5 SET MY PRICE option, which hands the decision to the platform. Price is a metadata field, not an account setting.
What is the Pond5 minimum payout?
Twenty-five dollars. Once the balance clears that threshold, Pond5 pays out automatically on the fifteenth of each month. Exclusive video artists earn a 40% royalty. Review timing varies by asset type, marketplace designation and batch size, and the portal warns that counters can take a few hours and in some cases up to a week to update after approval.