Automate Shutterstock

What I mean by automating Shutterstock

Automating Shutterstock means a bot handles the repetitive parts, on either side of the marketplace. As a contributor, uploading assets and filling in their titles and keywords, managing your portfolio, and pulling your earnings into a sheet. As a buyer or researcher, scraping search results and image metadata to work with. It is the busywork around the assets, done for you.

An asset nobody can find earns nothing

For a contributor, Shutterstock is a discoverability game. An image with no keywords is invisible, and an invisible image earns nothing, no matter how good it is. So the real work is not the shooting, it is the metadata, the title, the dozens of keywords, the categories, on every single asset. Do that for a batch of fifty and an evening is gone.

That metadata grind is exactly what a bot is good at. Keep your filenames, titles, and keywords in a sheet, and let the bot fill them in across your uploads. On the buying side, Shutterstock has an API for search and licensing if you integrate properly, and the browser covers the quick research scrapes the API setup is not worth for. Either way, the repetitive part stops being yours.

Who this is for

This is for the contributor uploading and keywording by hand, or the buyer or researcher gathering assets and metadata. A photographer with a backlog to caption, a designer pulling references, a team tracking what is out there. No-coders and coders both, since you can build it without code and drop into code when you want.

How I'd approach it

If you contribute, put your assets in a sheet, one row each, with the title and keywords, and let the bot fill them in as you upload. If you research, point the bot at a search and scrape the results and their metadata into a sheet. Take only what you are entitled to, and keep the pace reasonable.

Sheet to portfolio, or search to sheet. I would lay out the first draft with Build with description.

Automate Shutterstock from a description

Describe the task in plain words in the Chrome extension and it builds the steps for you. Give it a few short lines, check what it made, and run it. Explore no-code.

Automate Shutterstock in code

Build with code. If you would rather script it yourself, this is the path. Explore code

import { chromium } from "playwright";

const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(
  `wss://cdp-lb.axiom.ai/?token=${process.env.AXIOM_API_KEY}`
);

try {
  const context = browser.contexts()[0];
  const page = context.pages()[0] ?? await context.newPage();

  // Research side, scraping search result metadata
  await page.goto("https://www.shutterstock.com/search/mountains");
  await page.waitForSelector("[data-testid='asset']");

  const assets = await page.$$eval("[data-testid='asset']", els =>
    els.map(el => ({
      title: el.querySelector("img")?.getAttribute("alt"),
      id:    el.getAttribute("data-id"),
      link:  el.querySelector("a")?.getAttribute("href"),
    }))
  );

  console.log(assets); // metadata only, write to your sheet
} finally {
  await browser.close();
}

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Build with a Claude skill

Build no-code or code bots with a skill.

Add the Claude skill and describe the Shutterstock task you need. It builds the bot for you, no-code or code, keywording uploads from a sheet or scraping search metadata.

Install the skillLearn more

What can you automate?

The metadata grind, on either side of the marketplace. A couple of cases worth knowing first.

What I'd watch out for

Shutterstock is a large app behind a login, so a few things trip up a bot. Here is what I would watch for.

Keyword from a sheet, not by guesswork

The metadata is what sells the asset, so get the keywords right in your sheet first, then let the bot apply them. Run one asset and check it saved before the batch.

Take only the metadata, not the asset

Scraping titles and metadata for research is one thing. Downloading the full-resolution images without a license is not. Stay on the metadata unless you have paid for the asset.

Use your own session

Sign in as yourself on the account you own, and store the cookies so the bot keeps the session rather than logging in fresh each run.

When the layout shifts

Shutterstock updates its pages, and fields move. Repick anything that stops being found with the selector tool, and recheck after a big update.