StockSubmitter and Rastock AI both move finished files to many stock agencies, but they solve different halves of the job. StockSubmitter is a Windows desktop application built around breadth of destinations and hands-on metadata control. Rastock is a hosted service built around generating agency-compliant metadata and then delivering it. Neither takes a share of your royalties.
What each one actually is
StockSubmitter
A desktop submission tool that has been in the microstock world for well over a decade. You install it, connect your agency accounts, fill in metadata inside the app and send files out to many destinations at once. Their site states support for 40 agencies and lists them by group, and the download page specifies Windows 10 or newer, 64-bit only.
If you are not on Windows, the same publisher offers Microstock+, a browser-based product that covers the same ground from the cloud. It is worth treating the two as one family rather than as competitors when you compare them with anything else.
Rastock AI
A hosted platform that reads each file, generates a title, description and keyword set against the receiving agency's own field rules, embeds the result as IPTC, and delivers over FTP or SFTP to 10+ agencies with per-destination status. Anything else that accepts FTP or SFTP can be added manually. The feature set is oriented around metadata correctness rather than around transport, which is the fundamental difference between the two products.
Agency coverage: StockSubmitter wins on breadth
There is no honest way to spin this one. StockSubmitter states 40 supported agencies against Rastock's 10+, and that gap is real. If your portfolio goes to long-tail destinations — PhotoDune, MostPhotos, ClipDealer, PantherMedia, ScanStockPhoto, Zoonar — StockSubmitter reaches places Rastock does not ship with, and the list is published on their site so you can check your own destinations before you decide.
Two qualifications are worth adding, both of which cut in different directions. StockSubmitter groups its destinations by capability rather than treating them as equivalent — some accept full submissions, some only accept uploads — so 40 is a count of connections rather than 40 identical integrations. And their own pages give inconsistent agency counts across the desktop app, the web product and their wiki, so verify your specific destinations rather than trusting the headline number.
On the other side, Rastock accepts any agency that speaks FTP or SFTP as a manually configured destination, which means the practical ceiling is higher than the shipped list. What you do not get for a manually added destination is a pre-built understanding of that agency's metadata rules — which is exactly the thing you were paying for.
Two different pricing models
The two products meter completely different things, which makes a straight price-per-month comparison misleading unless you know what you are buying.
StockSubmitter: metered by submission, per agency
Their pricing footnote defines a submission as filling the metadata fields of a single file and sending it for review, and states that submissions are counted separately for every agency. That detail is genuinely generous rather than a trap: if you deliver to ten agencies, your monthly allowance applies ten times over. Transferring the files themselves is described as free and unlimited — it is the metered submission, not the bytes, that you pay for.
The tiers run from a permanently free plan at 33 submissions per agency per month, up through several paid steps to an unlimited tier. Prices are quoted in euros and drop as you commit to a longer billing term, so the monthly figure you see depends on which term is selected — check the term before you compare it to anything. Their refund policy offers a pro-rata refund of the unused period, requested within a short window.
That free tier deserves more credit than competitors usually give it. Thirty-three submissions per agency per month, indefinitely, is a real working allowance for a part-time contributor — not a trial that expires.
Rastock: metered by metadata generation
Rastock meters the expensive part of its own product, which is generating metadata rather than moving files. Plans start at $9 a month for 500 generations and scale up from there, with annual billing at roughly a fifth off. Delivery to your connected agencies is not counted separately — one generation covers the file wherever it goes.
The trial is 14 days and 30 generations with no card required, and it deliberately includes a real FTP delivery rather than stopping at keywording, because a metadata tool that has never actually reached an agency has not been tested. There is no permanently free tier, which is the honest disadvantage against StockSubmitter for anyone uploading a handful of files a month.
The practical way to compare them: if you already write your own metadata and simply need transport to many places, StockSubmitter's model charges you for the thing you need and Rastock's charges you for the thing you do not. If writing metadata is where your evenings go, the reverse is true.
Where your agency credentials live
This is a real architectural difference and reasonable people land on opposite sides of it. StockSubmitter's desktop app stores agency passwords locally on your own machine, with an optional master password — nothing leaves your computer, and the trade-off is that the credentials are only as safe as the machine. Their web sibling Microstock+ stores them encrypted on their servers instead, which is the price of running in a browser.
Rastock is a hosted service, so the same applies: delivery credentials sit on the server side, which is what allows a batch to keep running with your laptop closed. We prefer SFTP where the agency supports it and document how credentials are handled on our security page. If your policy is that agency passwords never leave your own hardware, the Windows desktop app is the only one of these options that satisfies it — that is a legitimate reason to choose StockSubmitter and we are not going to argue you out of it.
Metadata is where the two products genuinely diverge
StockSubmitter gives you a strong editor and expects you to bring the words. You type or paste titles, descriptions and keywords, apply them across a batch, and send. For contributors who have keyworded for years and have opinions about every term, that control is the feature, not a gap — an automated suggestion they have to correct is slower than typing it right the first time.
Rastock starts one step earlier. It reads the image, writes the metadata, and shapes it to the receiving agency's rules — different keyword ceilings, different title conventions, banned and mandatory terms, the alphabetical-split behaviour some agencies apply to keyword fields. The point is not speed on its own but avoiding the specific failure where the same file is accepted at three agencies and rejected at two for a metadata reason.
Both approaches have a real cost. Manual keywording does not scale past a certain volume without quality drifting, and the drift shows up as copy-pasted keyword sets across near-identical frames. Generated metadata needs review, and any vendor who tells you otherwise is overselling — including us. The right question is not which is more accurate in the abstract but which failure you would rather spend your time fixing.
What both of them get right
Neither product takes a cut of your earnings and neither claims ownership of your files. That sounds unremarkable until you compare it with the managed-distribution category, where handing over a percentage of every sale for the life of the file is the normal business model. We have written separately about stock tools that avoid revenue share, and StockSubmitter belongs on that list as much as we do.
When to use StockSubmitter vs Rastock AI
Choose StockSubmitter when you are on Windows, you deliver to a long tail of smaller agencies, you want agency passwords stored on your own machine, and you already write metadata you are happy with. The free tier alone makes it the obvious starting point for a low-volume contributor, and there is no argument for paying anyone anything until you have outgrown it.
Choose Rastock when writing metadata is the bottleneck rather than moving files, when you are on macOS or Linux and would rather not run a second product, when your batches are large enough that you want them running without a machine awake, or when your rejections are metadata rejections rather than transfer failures. If you are not sure which of those two your rejections are, that diagnosis is worth doing before you buy anything at all.
There is also a legitimate case for both. Nothing stops you keeping StockSubmitter's free tier for the handful of long-tail agencies it reaches and running your main destinations through a metadata pipeline. They are not mutually exclusive, and treating a tool choice as a permanent allegiance is how contributors end up defending a workflow instead of improving it.
What neither of them does
Neither product decides what is worth shooting, and neither will rescue a portfolio whose problem is the images rather than the pipeline. Neither gives you complete visibility into acceptance either: not every agency reports approval or rejection back through an API, so any dashboard from any vendor is partially inferred. Treat a green status as "delivered", not as "approved".
And neither removes the need to read the receiving agency's own rules at least once. Ingestion delays, file-size ceilings, category requirements for AI work and folder conventions all change without notice, and no third-party tool learns about a change before the agency publishes it.
If you are still shortlisting, our wider survey of tools for generating stock keywords covers the alternatives to both of these, and our look at cost-effective tools for large portfolios works through the arithmetic at 5,000 to 20,000 files.
If the metadata half is what you want to test, the 14-day Rastock trial runs 30 files through the complete path — generation, IPTC embedding, CSV export and an actual FTP delivery — without a card, which is enough to tell you whether the generated metadata survives contact with your own agencies.
Frequently asked questions
Does StockSubmitter work on macOS?
The StockSubmitter desktop application is Windows only — their download page specifies Windows 10 or newer, 64-bit. For macOS and Linux the same publisher points you to Microstock+, a browser-based product covering similar ground from the cloud. Rastock is hosted, so it runs from any browser without a second product.
Which one supports more agencies?
StockSubmitter, clearly. Their site states 40 supported agencies against Rastock's 10+. The caveat is that their destinations are grouped by capability rather than being 40 identical integrations, and their own pages give inconsistent counts, so check your specific destinations. Rastock can also be pointed at any agency accepting FTP or SFTP as a manual destination.
Does either tool take a share of my royalties?
No. Neither StockSubmitter nor Rastock takes a percentage of your earnings or claims ownership of your files; both are subscription products. That distinguishes them from managed distribution services, where handing over a share of every sale for the life of the file is the standard model. It is worth confirming on the vendor's current terms before committing a portfolio.
What is a "submission" in StockSubmitter's pricing?
Their own footnote defines it as filling the metadata fields of a single file and sending it for review automatically, counted separately for every agency. So a plan with 250 submissions gives you 250 per agency, not 250 in total. Transferring the files themselves is described as free and unlimited; the metering applies to submissions, not bytes.
Is there a free way to try both?
StockSubmitter has a permanently free tier at 33 submissions per agency per month, which is a real working allowance rather than a countdown. Rastock offers a 14-day trial covering 30 metadata generations with no card required, including a genuine FTP delivery. There is no permanently free Rastock plan, which is the honest disadvantage for very low-volume contributors.
Can I use both tools together?
Yes, and for some portfolios that is the sensible answer. Keep StockSubmitter's free tier for long-tail agencies it reaches and Rastock does not, and route your main destinations through whichever handles the metadata work better for you. Neither product requires exclusivity, and nothing about running both breaks either pipeline.