What stock footage sells: the themes agencies ask for

Adobe Stock: seven high-demand themes

Adobe’s video submission overview (11 June 2026) says some themes “consistently demonstrate strong licensing performance, driven by market demand patterns” and lists these high-demand categories:

The same page adds three craft notes. Clean, subtle camera movements “often outperform shaky handheld footage.” Simple compositions with clear subjects “typically license more frequently than complex, busy scenes.” And vertical video shot on a phone “performs on par with professional cinema camera videos” when both meet the technical and creative standards. Adobe’s technical page asks for vertical clips shot natively in 9:16, recommends 10 to 30 seconds for them, and the words “vertical” and “video” in the title and keywords.

Adobe’s 2026 Creative Trends, presented on its blog on 8 January 2026, name four trends: All the Feels, Connectioneering, Surreal Silliness and Local Flavor. They cover every content type, not video in particular. Its video best practices also ask you to “capture diverse subjects, locations, and cultures.”

Shutterstock: briefs and trending keywords

Shutterstock’s article on what customers look for (17 July 2025) points to four resources: The Shot List, a monthly guide built from seasonal and recent search trends; a monthly list of trending keywords; content briefs; and an annual creative trends report, whose link still goes to the 2024 edition.

The trending keywords article (18 July 2025) still shows a Summer 2025 list with three requests, each with a tag to add to your keywords so Shutterstock can surface the content: education (KnowledgeForAll), beauty and skincare (sstkDiverseBeauty) and technology, augmented and virtual reality included (sstkTechnology).

The other briefs on that page are not specific to video: travel, technology, wellness, health, business, industry, seniors, families and their celebrations, backgrounds (patterns, abstract and textures), sustainability, faith, holidays from Easter to Diwali, and local content from Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, India, Japan and Latin America.

Pond5: top searches and shoot briefs

Pond5’s Data and Trends page for footage lists “the most popular customer search terms for footage in the Pond5 marketplace from September 2026”, in this order: vintage, nature, drone, timelapse, woman, animation, artificial intelligence, backgrounds, anime. Pond5 suggests comparing these terms with what the marketplace already holds before choosing a topic. The month menu on the page reads February 2026, while its text names September 2026.

The “What’s Selling?” block on the same page shows clips that “caught the eyes of our curators in September 2026”. It is a curators’ selection; it gives no sales figures. Drone footage, one of the top searches, has its own rules, covered in how to sell drone footage.

On artificial intelligence, read the search term as a subject. Pond5’s legal guidelines refuse AI-generated content, so a clip about AI has to be filmed for real.

Pond5’s current shoot briefs carry no dates, though the political one refers to the 2026 US midterm elections: Diverse People and Global Community, Holidays and Seasonal Traditions, Family, Travel, Workplace, Patterns and Textures, Political Content, Football (soccer) and Earth Day. Several give a keyword to add so Pond5 can promote the content, such as WORKPLACEP5BRIEF, PATTERNSTEXTURESP5BRIEF, FOOTBALLP5BRIEF or EARTHDAYP5BRIEF.

Where the agencies agree on what stock footage sells best

Set side by side, the published lists overlap on a handful of themes:

Four themes appear at all three agencies: people and family, business and work, travel and local culture, and abstract or background footage.

From themes to a shoot plan

Each theme comes with acceptance rules attached. Among them:

• People. Lifestyle, family, health and workplace footage needs a model release for every recognizable person: see model releases for stock video.
• Homes. Shutterstock’s brief itself asks for home exteriors “submitted with a valid property release.”
• Business and technology. No logos in commercial clips, and no real apps, browsers or operating systems on screens: Shutterstock uses the Intellectual Property rejection for them.
• Holidays. Shutterstock’s Christmas brief says buyers start shopping in July, so plan holiday clips months ahead of the date.
• Vertical. Shoot natively in 9:16. Shutterstock lists 1080x1920, 2160x3840, 2160x4096 and 2304x4096; Adobe recommends 10 to 30 seconds.
• Keywords. Add the brief tag where an agency asks for one, on top of keywords that describe the clip: see how to keyword stock footage.

What the agencies do not publish

• Sales or download counts by theme, for video or any other content.
• A best-seller list for footage. Pond5’s “What’s Selling?” block is a curators’ selection.
• How many clips already exist per theme. Pond5 asks you to compare by searching its marketplace.
• What a clip on a given theme will earn.

Earnings depend on the license and your level at each agency, set out in stock footage earnings by agency. If you already have footage from past shoots, selling b-roll as stock explains what it needs before upload.