Dreamstime Review: The Popular & Affordable Stock Photo Company
If you are wondering what exactly Dreamstime is then it’s a stock photo company. The brand has been in the industry for the last 15 years. It’s one of the initial players in the microstock photo business and earned a great reputation.
It’s library consists of over 85 million royalty-free stock pictures that have high quality and come at really affordable prices. The brand sells pictures on demand along with credits at the price ranging between $0.88 and $22.50 on the basis of size, credit, and level. However, one can grab the best prices with special subscription plans.
The subscription plans range from one month to one year. It’s entirely depending upon your download capacity. Hence, it’s a trusted brand to get authentic and affordable stock photos without beating around the bush.
One can easily search the relevant pictures by clicking on the search button. Just put the relevant keywords to get images of your choice.
- Description
Know the Basics
- One can find out over 11 million pictures
- It’s online since 2000
- One can find out multiple image file types, including TIFF, Vector files in JPG, and RAW files.
- It accepts various payment methods, including VISA, PayPal, American Express, Discover card, etc.
Know Dreamstime Specifications
- One can search images via keywords, collections, categories, file type, and license type.
- One can also find out free weekly pictures and free pictures galleries.
- There is also an Active blog for photographers and buyers wherein they can get tips, tutorials, tools, help, etc.
- There are different languages offered by the platform such as English, Spanish, French, Polish, Dutch, Italian, etc.
- The FAQ section is quite immersive to get answers to all relevant queries.
- The corporate headquarter of the company is in Brentwood, US.
What About It’s Credit & Subscription Based Currency Options?
Here, one can find out the available subscription options along with multiple currencies as per the location. The pricing has been kept very transparent per credit in every location/country.
The pricing system is entirely based upon the popularity of an image. The cost of a picture or the credit required to get it ranges between 3 and 5 credits more in some time, in case it’s been downloaded over 5 times since the membership started.
Hence, it impacts the credit as well as the subscription payments.
Here are the Credit buying options:
- One can buy credits in predefined packages
- Via custom selection options
- Credits commence from 93c and go up to $1.25 per credit in the credit package plan.
- In the custom selection option, one will get a minimum credit purchase of 110 credits at just .93c. The more you buy the less you need to spend.
- One can also buy extended licenses with credits commencing at 50 credits.
Benefits of Credit
- One gets customized and pre-defined packages options
- One can purchase extended licenses via credits
- It allows users to buy only one image at a time
- One can also buy multi-seat licenses with credits
Disadvantages of Credit
- Credits are very costly
- The pricing of the images is entirely based on the number of downloads that can shoot the cost of buying images to a great extent.
What About It’s Subscription Services?
One can get a flexible subscription options
- One can get minimum of 10 pictures to 50 pictures a day in the subscription service
- The subscription plans are divided into a weekly plan, monthly plan, 3 months plan, 6 months plan, and a yearly plan.
Subscription Benefits
- A lot of flexibility is offered in the plans
- They save a lot of money
Subscription Drawbacks
- Image information and type info unavailable in the subscription plan
- Information about subscription plans is scarce.
- The pricing structure is very confusing
What Image Searching Tools Are Available?
Dreamstime works relentlessly to improve the searchability of stock images and files. It keeps involving it’s members to improve the search process. However, the basic search options offered are quite elaborative and consist of licensing options.
But, the DreamFinder offers enhanced search parameters to get the best images. There are also well-executed categories, popular collections, and picture display options, including image size, properties, record, etc to simplify the search.
What are the Licensing Options
The popular licensing options offered by Dreamstime are extended, royalty-free, full copyright, and editorial.
Dreamstime Special & Advanced Features
Dreamstime Blog
It’s a member-driven blog that helps all the members and users to get answers to their queries related to photography, licensing, etc.
- Stock Photos Utilities
If you are a designer then this section will help you to get information, books, and essential suggestions.
- Photo Map
Dreamstime recently unveiled the photo map that helps members to search images as per the country and location.
- Merchandise Store
It is exclusively available for members to get branded merchandise. It helps the brand to spread its name and make a community.
Final Thoughts
It is a membership-based community and brand that offers incredible stock images gallery to it’s members at highly affordable prices. The brand offers a versatile range of licensing options, image files, RAW file inventory, free membership, subscription plans, and copyright buying options to it’s members.
The brand also offers exclusive and seamless searching tools that offer an extensive file search system helping members to get the images easily.
However, it’s confusing subscription plans, high pricing for popular images, and less information on subscription plans are the only drawbacks for users/members. We hope, the company will sort out these issues soon.
Overall, it’s one of the best and most affordable stock photography brands that one must try.