Stock Photo Metadata Checker

How to write stock photo metadata for Shutterstock and Adobe Stock

Metadata is the primary signal stock marketplaces use to index and surface your images. A title, description, and keyword set that follows agency guidelines improves both your approval rate and your discoverability. Here’s what each platform expects.

Shutterstock metadata requirements

Title.Shutterstock accepts titles up to 2,048 characters, but reviewers recommend keeping them under 70. A good title is a complete descriptive sentence — not a comma-separated keyword list. “Young woman working on a laptop in a bright modern home office” beats “laptop, woman, work, office, remote.” Avoid special characters (slashes, brackets, pipes) and never include camera metadata like ISO values or file formats.

Keywords.Shutterstock requires at least 7 keywords and allows up to 50. The sweet spot is 25–40 focused terms. Near-duplicate keywords — for example “sunset” and “sunsets” in the same set — are detected as spam and penalized. Think about what a buyer would search for: subject, setting, mood, colors, and intended use case.

Description. For commercial submissions, a brief description aids search indexing. For editorial submissions, the description must follow a strict format: “City, COUNTRY - Month DD, YYYY: caption text.”

Adobe Stock metadata requirements

Title. Adobe Stock limits titles to 70 characters and requires them to be natural phrases rather than keyword lists. Camera specs, model names, or editorial date formats in the title can get submissions flagged. Focus on subject and context.

Keywords.Adobe Stock allows up to 49 keywords and recommends 15–35 for maximum visibility. Unlike Shutterstock, Adobe’s Sensei AI prefers individual single words over compound phrases — split “mountain landscape” into “mountain” and “landscape” as separate entries. Remove near-duplicates; keyword stuffing is detected and deprioritized.

Description.Adobe doesn’t display descriptions to buyers, but the field contributes to internal search indexing.

Common metadata mistakes that hurt your submissions

• Comma-separated titles:“sunset, beach, tropical, summer” is rejected on both platforms. Write a sentence.
• Too few keywords: Submitting with 3–5 keywords leaves your image invisible in most searches.
• Keyword spam: Repeating the same concept with slight variations wastes keyword slots and can trigger spam filters.
• Missing category: Both agencies use categories to route content internally. Skipping it limits your discoverability and costs 15 points on the quality score.
• Camera metadata in titles:“ISO 800, RAW, f/2.8” details belong in EXIF data — not your title or description.

How the score is calculated

This checker applies the published submission guidelines to your metadata and returns a 0–100 score for each agency. Points are weighted by field importance:

• Title — 30 points (completeness, format, character limits)
• Keywords — 40 points (count, deduplication, spam detection)
• Category — 15 points (presence)
• Description — 15 points (presence, editorial format where required)

A score of 80 or above means your metadata is ready. Between 60–79, fix the warnings. Below 60, address the errors before uploading.

Scores are estimates based on publicly available guidelines and do not guarantee approval. Always review the Shutterstock contributor guide and the Adobe Stock contributor guide for the latest requirements.