Sell photos online your own prices, your own licence terms, your own Stripe account.
Stock agencies pay photographers a fraction of each licence in exchange for a shop window. That trade makes sense for volume and none at all for the work people already come to you for: a themed image pack, a set of textures, your editing presets, or a licence for a specific photograph a client found on your site.
Overview
EmbPay is the checkout that sits on that site. Upload the pack, state the licence in the description, set the price, and let the buyer pay by card without leaving your portfolio. The full-resolution files go out as a private download link the moment payment succeeds, and the money settles to your own Stripe account with no percentage taken by the platform.
How photos are priced in practice.
Preset packs and small themed image sets commonly sell in the tens of dollars; commercial licences for a single image and large texture libraries are priced in the hundreds and above.
What you are pricing is the licence, not the pixels, so state it plainly on the product page: personal, editorial, commercial, and whether the buyer may use it in products for resale. Two pricing options on the same product, personal and commercial, let the buyer self-select at checkout and remove the awkward email exchange.
Pricing options that fit
- Several one-time options — personal licence and commercial licence as two prices on one product.
- Order bump — the matching preset pack on the photo pack's checkout.
- Subscription — a monthly texture or background drop for designers, delivered as a hosted URL you update.
One product can carry up to six pricing options; the buyer chooses at checkout. Full detail in subscriptions, split-pay and pay-what-you-want.
Selling photos with EmbPay takes three steps.
- 1
Create the product
In the dashboard, add a product with a name, description and price. Choose how it is delivered: upload a file, point to a hosted URL, issue a licence key, or show instructions after purchase.
- 2
Package your photos
Photos sell as sets, and a set is one zip: the full-resolution JPEGs, TIFF or DNG originals if the licence includes them, and a licence text file stating what the buyer may do. EmbPay hosts one file per product, up to 500 MB. A pack of full-resolution RAW files can exceed that, so for RAW-heavy products either split by theme into separate products or export DNGs with lossy compression and say so on the page.
- 3
Share the link or embed the checkout
Every product has a hosted page you can link from anywhere, and an embed snippet for your own site. Connect your Stripe account and buyers can pay; until then the page says the product is not on sale yet.
The parts of EmbPay photos sellers actually use.
Every item here is enforced in code, on the free plan unless it says otherwise.
Checkout on your portfolio
Paste the embed snippet under the gallery, or use the styled buy button next to an image. Buyers pay on your site, in your design, and never see a third-party storefront.
Licence tiers as pricing options
Put personal and commercial pricing on one product and let the buyer choose under “Choose how to pay”. Each option has its own price and label; the receipt records which one they bought.
Short link windows for large files
The default download window is one day from purchase and can be set from one hour to never. For a commercial licence you might leave it long; for a low-priced pack, short is safer.
Geo and quantity limits
Restrict a product to certain countries, or cap the number of copies of a limited-edition set. Both are enforced at checkout, not just displayed.
What a sale costs you: Stripe's fee, and nothing else.
EmbPay platform fee
On every plan, including free. There is no per-sale percentage and no per-order charge anywhere in the payment path.
0%
Stripe processing
Billed by Stripe on your own account, as on any card payment. Usually 2.9% + 30¢ for a US domestic card; other countries differ.
Stripe's rate
Monthly
Free covers two products. Pro adds unlimited products, licence keys and API keys. Neither takes a cut.
$0 or $29
Work out the exact Stripe fee for your country and price with the Stripe fee calculator.
Selling photos: the questions we get.
Can buyers preview the photos before paying?
Show watermarked previews on your own page or in the product description images; EmbPay delivers the unwatermarked files only after payment. EmbPay does not generate previews or watermarks for you.
How do I sell one photo to one client?
Create a product for that image with the licence in the description, set the price you quoted, and send the client the hosted checkout link. Once paid, they receive the download link by email. For a client who will buy repeatedly, a coupon or a dedicated product per project keeps the paperwork straight.
Is there a size limit?
One hosted file per product, up to 500 MB. That covers most JPEG packs and preset collections. Large RAW libraries should be split into themed products or delivered from your own storage using the hosted-URL delivery option.
Does EmbPay handle model or property releases?
No. Releases and the licence you grant are between you and the buyer. EmbPay records the sale, delivers the file and shows the licence text you wrote.
What does the platform take per sale?
Nothing. The platform fee is 0% on every plan. Stripe bills you its processing fee directly on your own account, exactly as it would on any card payment.
Start selling photos on the free plan.
No card required. Build the product and rehearse the checkout in test mode, then connect your Stripe account to be paid.
Also selling videos and stock footage, posters and printables, digital art or clipart? Or see everything you can sell with EmbPay.