How long do stock agencies take to review footage?

What each agency publishes

We read the help pages of the three agencies on 11 October 2026 looking for a review time. The table shows what they say, in their own terms. Day counts that circulate on contributor forums are individual reports from a given week and queue, so they are left out.

How long does Shutterstock review take?

Shutterstock's article on the question answers it without a number: its reviewers check legal and compliance requirements as well as technical and metadata standards, "as quickly as possible". A second article explains why the time varies. All content is "funneled into separate queues by media type and marketplace designation", so a video does not wait in the same line as a photo.

Shutterstock lists four reasons why one file can take longer than the rest of its batch:

• Second opinion. An inspector passes a single item to a colleague for more input, which delays that file only.
• Escalation to a manager. A reviewer asks for a more authoritative judgment. Shutterstock says this does not mean there is a problem with your submission.
• Peak periods. When submission levels are high, reviews take longer.
• Account flags. Some contributor accounts and content get additional review.

A fifth reason concerns data licensing. Assets identified as a potential match for Shutterstock's data marketplace "often require further review times" and stay in Pending longer. This connects to a quality rule from July 2025: a clip that meets the legal, compliance and metadata requirements but falls short of the minimum quality bar can be accepted for data licensing only, and only an egregious quality issue leads to rejection.

Adobe Stock: moderation tied to queue volume

Adobe's content moderation page, updated on 18 August 2026, has a section titled "Moderation timeline" that gives no timeline. It says moderation times vary with the volume of content in the review queue, that each upload is moderated individually, and that turnaround times may vary by content type. You get a notification in the Contributor Portal when content is approved or refused.

The same page links review time to Adobe's upload limits: they "help manage this volume and reduce the overall time required to approve or refuse content". Since 20 May 2025, Adobe applies a weekly submission limit and a maximum amount of content pending moderation. Reaching either brings a temporary pause, and Adobe has published no figure for either. How to plan batches around them is in the Adobe Stock submission limit.

Moderators look at five things, according to the same page:

• technical quality: sharpness, exposure, noise, compression, artifacts;
• intellectual property, with releases for identifiable people, property, brands or designs;
• commercial value for current customer needs;
• metadata quality, with titles and keywords that describe the content;
• how original the content is compared with the collection.

One practical limit applies during the wait: Adobe does not let you change the keyword order while a clip is in moderation. Set it before you submit, as described in Adobe Stock keyword order.

Pond5: first in, first reviewed

Pond5 is the only one of the three to describe the order of its queue. Once you submit, a file moves to Pending Review and joins the curator queue, and "our review system sorts uploads by order of submission". Review time then depends on three things Pond5 names: the media type, the size of your submission and the number of submissions ahead of yours. Its uploading page adds that review times vary by asset type and batch size.

The statuses tell you where a clip stands:

Processing comes before the review clock starts. Pond5 asks you to allow "at least up to a few hours" for uploads to appear on the Uploads page when it receives many files. A clip left in Needs Edits is not in any queue. The submission steps are in how to upload video to Pond5.

The delays agencies do publish

The review itself has no published duration, but the steps around it do. These are the numbers you can plan with.

The 21-day window at Shutterstock is the one that costs footage. If you upload a large shoot and submit it in parts, anything not submitted within 21 days of upload is deleted from Shutterstock's servers and has to be uploaded again. The rest of the sequence is in how to upload video to Shutterstock.

What to do while clips are pending

Shutterstock says no action is required from you while files are pending. A few habits still make the next batch go better.

• Leave pending clips alone. On Shutterstock they cannot be edited, and deleting them to resubmit risks a permanent block.
• Check the next batch before you submit it. A rejection costs a full review cycle. Run the files through the free video spec checker and compare them with the reasons in why stock footage gets rejected.
• Keep Adobe batches modest. Content pending moderation counts against Adobe's cap, so a very large submission can pause you until moderators work through it.
• Watch Shutterstock's 21-day clock on anything uploaded but not yet submitted.
• Keep your tax form up to date. Shutterstock disables Upload and Submit if the form is not completed within 90 days of the first reminder, which stops your next batch before any review.

After the review

On Shutterstock, results appear in the Recently reviewed tab, and a rejected clip links to an explanation of the reason. If an approved clip is still missing from your portfolio after 72 hours, Shutterstock suggests three checks: make sure your account is not opted out of sales, clear your cache and reload, then contact support with the clip ID. Clips marked Mature Content only show when Safe Search is turned off.

On Adobe Stock, a refused clip comes with a refusal reason in the Contributor Portal, though Adobe says it cannot give detailed individual feedback on every submission. On Pond5, a Returned clip can be fixed and submitted again, while a Rejected one comes with an email explaining why. Read the reason before you upload similar clips, since the same problem is likely to repeat across a shoot.