Credits never expire when you use your iStock account once a year. We'll send you an email before your credits expire. To extend the expiry date another year, simply sign in to your account before your credits expire.

Unused credit packs can be returned for a full refund within 14 days of purchase. If any credits from a credit pack have been used, no refunds will be offered.

In a word? Access. Our Essentials Subscription includes over 66% of all iStock photos, vectors and illustrations. The Signature Subscription brings that number up to 100% and includes everything you can get with an Essentials Subscription, as well as over 6.6 million handpicked photos, vectors and illustrations you can only get from us. Compare the difference between our Essential Collection and Signature Collection, and discover which subscription is right for you.

You can’t currently get audio or video content with your subscription – but you can always supplement your subscription with credits to download these files when you need them.

If you need a file that isn’t available for download with your subscription, you can always download it with credits.

Our generous monthly download limits are designed to let you get all the great iStock content you need each month. This limit is the maximum number of images you’re allowed to download each month, and is reset one month from your subscription’s start date. No images are carried over from month to month and we will not put a hold on or extend the duration of your subscription under any circumstance. You can always see the number of downloads remaining and end date of your subscription in your account profile.

All files downloaded on iStock include our standard license, which lets you use your file in a wide variety of projects and comes with a $10,000 legal guarantee. When you download with credits you can add extended licenses that let you use the file in even more ways. When you download with credits, your license never expires. Images downloaded with subscriptions are subject to our subscription terms, which mean your license for the file only remains valid as long as you use it in an end project within 30 days following the expiry of your subscription.

Our standard license lets you use our content in a wide variety of projects. If you need to use a subscription image for purposes not covered under the standard license, you’ll need to download the file with credits and add an extended license.

Our standard subscriptions are built for single users. If multiple members of your team need to be able to download and use subscription content, you’ll need a multiple seat subscription, which our support team can help set you up with. To learn more about multi-seat subscriptions, contact us.

You can re-download your subscription images at any time within the term of your subscription. When your subscription ends and you no longer have an active image subscription, you can no longer re-download these images. If your subscription has expired, renew or upgrade to regain access your previously downloaded images.