Shutterstock meters what you can submit rather than what you can upload, and the meter is a rolling seven-day window holding 500 images and 100 video clips. That single rule reshapes the whole workflow, because the bottleneck stops being your internet connection and becomes the question of which 500 files deserve the week. Everything else follows from it.
The limit that shapes everything else
The cap is published plainly. Shutterstock's help centre states that contributors can submit up to 500 images and up to 100 video clips during any 7 day period, and the reason given is review throughput rather than storage. The important word is rolling. It is not a weekly allowance that resets on Monday morning; it counts backwards from whatever moment you press submit.
Shutterstock's own example makes the trap visible. Submit 100 images on Monday, 200 on Wednesday and 200 on Friday, and you are at the ceiling, with nothing further accepted until the following Monday releases the first 100. Contributors who dump an entire shoot on one day lose the rest of the week, then find themselves with a backlog and no room to clear it. A notice appears on the account dashboard when you hit the wall, and it stays until the window frees space.
The practical answer is to stop thinking in shoots and start thinking in daily tranches. Roughly 70 images a day keeps you under 500 across any seven consecutive days with headroom left for the day a client shoot delivers more than expected. Video deserves its own counter, because 100 clips a week is tight for anyone shooting motion seriously, and a clip submitted is a clip spent whether it is approved or refused.
The technical gate comes before the metadata
A file that fails the technical check never reaches a reviewer, so this is the first filter worth automating. Shutterstock's image requirements state that all images must be at least 4 MP, calculated as width multiplied by height. The page's own examples show the trap: 2000 by 2400 pixels is 4.8 MP and passes, while 1200 by 3000 pixels is 3.6 MP and fails even though it is the taller file. Aggressive cropping is where most contributors lose files.
JPEG and TIFF are accepted, and Shutterstock recommends JPEG because everything is converted to JPEG on approval anyway. PSD files and layered TIFFs are not accepted. Colour must be sRGB, and files in other profiles can shift visibly during conversion, which is a refusal that looks like a quality problem but is really a profile problem. Still frames pulled from video files are generally not accepted either.
File size is where the two upload routes diverge for the first time. Through the browser the ceiling is 50 MB for photos and 100 MB for EPS. Over FTPS a JPEG can go to 50 MB, an EPS to 100 MB, and a TIFF as far as 4 GB. Vector work carries an extra constraint at the top end as well: EPS files run from a 4 MP floor to a 25 MP ceiling, measured on the bounding box around the artwork rather than the artboard.
Would this file clear Shutterstock's floor?
Enter pixel dimensions and file size to test a file against Shutterstock's published limits: a 4 megapixel floor for all images, 50 MB for JPEG through either route, 100 MB for EPS, 4 GB for TIFF over FTPS, and a 25 megapixel ceiling on EPS bounding boxes. Every limit is taken from Shutterstock's own technical requirements page.
Two routes in, and when each one is right
The browser uploader
The browser uploader is the right tool for small, considered batches. You drag files in, they land in the Portfolio area as uploaded but unsubmitted content, and you add metadata before pushing them to review. The separation between uploading and submitting matters more than it first appears, because it is the gap where the seven-day counter has not yet ticked. Files can sit uploaded indefinitely while you decide which ones are worth a slot this week.
What the browser route does not do well is volume. Fifty files is comfortable, two hundred is tedious, and a thousand is a bad evening. Browser sessions also fail in ways that leave you unsure which files made it, which is exactly the uncertainty that produces duplicate submissions.
FTPS
The second route is FTPS, and Shutterstock's own instructions give the settings exactly: host ftps.shutterstock.com, port 21, with your contributor email or username and your account password. The encryption is explicit TLS, which each client labels differently. FileZilla wants FTP with the option to use explicit FTP over TLS if available and a Normal logon type. Cyberduck wants FTP-SSL with explicit AUTH TLS. WinSCP wants FTP with TLS or SSL explicit encryption.
Two details in that article are easy to skip past and worth keeping. Shutterstock advises declining the prompt to save your password, particularly on a shared machine, which means unchecking Save Password in Cyberduck rather than clicking through. And a certificate warning on first connection is described as normal and should be accepted. If you have ever abandoned an FTPS setup at that warning, that was why it failed.
FTPS moves bytes and nothing else. It does not carry a sidecar metadata file, it does not submit anything for review, and it does not assign categories. Files arrive in your account as uploaded content and still need a pass through the web interface to go to review. Anyone expecting FTP to be a complete pipeline, the way it works on some agencies, will be surprised here.
The metadata fields that stop a submission
Three things are required before a photo can go to review: a description, between 7 and 50 keywords, and at least one category. Property releases, model releases, the editorial designation, the mature content flag and notes to the reviewer are all optional additions rather than gates. Missing or misspelled keywords are named by Shutterstock as a common reason a submission simply will not go through, which is a validation failure rather than a refusal and costs you nothing but time.
The description is the field contributors most often write wrong, because the guidance is explicit that descriptions should read like a sentence or phrase and not like a list of words. Shutterstock asks for the who, what, when, where and why, and for a description that uniquely identifies the file. Links, camera details and trademarks are out unless the content is editorial and the detail is genuinely relevant.
Keywords have a second rule layered on top of the count, and it is the one that catches bulk workflows. Shutterstock defines keyword spamming as overusing repeated or irrelevant terms, with its own example of what fails being strings like car ride, car road, car drive, car move. What passes looks like ski lodge, ski resort, mountain, ski lift, snow, Austria. The difference is that the second list adds information with every term. Titles follow the same logic: run running runner is rejected, while a sentence naming the subject, action and place is fine.
This is the part of the workflow that most rewards doing once, properly, rather than per batch. The keywording rules Shutterstock actually enforces and the complete field reference both go deeper than this page needs to.
The order of operations that avoids rework
Most wasted effort in a Shutterstock pipeline comes from doing the right steps in the wrong order. Writing metadata for a file that is about to fail the 4 MP check is wasted work. So is submitting a hundred files on Monday before deciding what the rest of the week looks like. The sequence below costs nothing to adopt and removes both.
The sequence that stops you writing metadata twice
Six stages of a Shutterstock submission in the order that avoids rework: technical screening against the 4 megapixel floor and sRGB requirement, colour conversion, metadata written to the file, transfer by browser or FTPS, category and release assignment, then a submission sized to what is left of the rolling 500-image window.
Sizing batches against the rolling window
The uploaded-but-unsubmitted state is the single most useful feature of this workflow, and it is the one contributors most consistently ignore. Treat it as a staging area. Transfer freely, in whatever size batch suits your connection and your evening, and keep submission as a separate deliberate act with its own rhythm. A pipeline built this way absorbs a 900-file shoot without any drama; one that submits on arrival hits the wall on day one.
There is a sequencing decision inside the cap too. Because the window is rolling rather than weekly, a steady daily submission produces a steady daily release of capacity, while bursts produce long dead periods. If you shoot in concentrated bursts but want to submit evenly, the staging area is what bridges the two, and it costs nothing to hold files there for a fortnight.
What breaks once the volume is real
Three failures account for most of the pain. The first is similar content: a set of near-identical frames submitted together invites a refusal that no amount of metadata work prevents, and the refusal codes Shutterstock sends back are worth reading before you build a selection habit. The second is the interrupted transfer, where you cannot tell which files arrived and re-send everything, producing duplicates. The third is metadata drift, where the same subject gets keyworded differently in March and in October and your portfolio stops behaving like one library.
The third one is the expensive one, because it compounds quietly. A consistent CSV structure for the metadata you reuse across batches is the cheapest fix available, and it makes the difference between a portfolio you can re-optimise later and one you cannot.
Where automation helps, and where it does not
Nothing automates away the seven-day cap, and no tool should claim to. What automation genuinely removes is the repetitive middle: screening files against technical floors, converting colour, writing a description that reads as a sentence and a keyword list that avoids repeated stems, then delivering the batch over FTPS without you watching a progress bar. Selection and submission timing stay human decisions, because they are judgements about your own portfolio.
That middle is what Rastock AI is built for. It generates titles, descriptions and keywords against each agency's published constraints rather than a generic template, then delivers over FTP or SFTP to more than ten agencies, Shutterstock among them, with status tracking per file so an interrupted transfer is visible rather than guessed at. Banned and mandatory keyword handling and a rollback path exist for the same reason: at volume, a metadata mistake applied to 500 files is worse than a slow afternoon.
If what you need right now is the narrower task of getting a client connected and a first batch moving, the step-by-step FTP walkthrough covers that end of it in more detail than this page does.
What to do next
Start with the two changes that cost nothing: screen files against the 4 MP floor before writing any metadata, and separate transferring from submitting so the rolling window becomes a choice rather than an accident. If the repetitive middle is what is consuming your evenings, Rastock AI has a 14-day free trial with no card required, which is enough time to run a real week of uploads through it and see whether the metadata holds up against a reviewer.
Frequently asked questions
How many files can I submit to Shutterstock at once?
Shutterstock's help centre states that contributors can submit up to 500 images and up to 100 video clips during any seven-day period. The window is rolling rather than calendar-based, so it counts backwards from the moment you submit rather than resetting on a fixed day. Uploading more is possible; it is submitting that gets blocked, and a notice stays on your dashboard until the window frees enough room.
What are the Shutterstock FTPS settings?
The host is ftps.shutterstock.com on port 21, using explicit TLS, with your contributor email or username and your account password as credentials. FileZilla needs FTP plus the option to use explicit FTP over TLS, with a Normal logon type. Cyberduck needs FTP-SSL with explicit AUTH TLS. WinSCP needs FTP with explicit TLS or SSL encryption. A certificate warning on first connection is normal and should be accepted.
Can I send metadata or a CSV file over Shutterstock FTPS?
No. The FTPS route moves image and video files only, and Shutterstock's article covers transfer rather than metadata. Files arrive in your account as uploaded content, and description, keywords, categories and releases are still added through the web interface before anything goes to review. If you want metadata to travel with the file, embed it in the file itself rather than relying on a sidecar.
What is the minimum image size for Shutterstock?
All images must be at least 4 megapixels, calculated as width multiplied by height. Shutterstock's own examples show why the shape matters: 2000 by 2400 pixels is 4.8 megapixels and passes, while 1200 by 3000 pixels is 3.6 megapixels and fails despite being taller. EPS vectors also carry a 25 megapixel ceiling, measured on the bounding box around the artwork rather than the artboard.
How large a file can I upload to Shutterstock?
Through the browser uploader the limit is 50 MB for photos and 100 MB for EPS. Over FTPS a JPEG can reach 50 MB, an EPS 100 MB, and a TIFF as much as 4 GB. That TIFF allowance is the only size advantage FTPS has over the browser, so for JPEG work the reason to use FTPS is volume and reliability rather than file size.
How many keywords does Shutterstock require?
Between 7 and 50, with at least one category, and a description written as a sentence rather than a word list. Shutterstock treats repeated word stems as spam, giving car ride, car road, car drive as an example of what fails, while ski lodge, ski resort, mountain, ski lift, snow, Austria passes because each term adds information. Missing or misspelled keywords can stop a submission before review.