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Mystical_strategist98c4
Participating Frequently
October 3, 2026
Question

How do some Adobe Stock contributors get 100,000+ downloads with relatively few assets?

I have been looking at the Weekly Top Sellers section on Adobe Stock and noticed something I don't fully understand.

Some contributors appear to have 100+ pages of content and around 1,00,000 downloads, while others have only 10 or fewer pages of content but still have around 1,00,000 downloads.

How is this possible? Does the number of assets/pages have little relationship to the number of downloads?

Are there particular factors that can cause a contributor's assets to receive significantly more downloads - such as content type, search ranking, keywords, customer demand, licensing type, contributor history, or the age of the assets?

I would really appreciate an explanation from experienced Adobe Stock contributors about how these high-download contributors achieve such results.

    8 replies

    Nancy OShea
    Community Expert
    Nancy OSheaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 4, 2026

    This user-to-user forum is not monitored by Adobe employees.  

     

    If you wish to report poor quality or mislabeled Stock assets, create a new post in the Stock buyers forum below where an Adobe employee is most likely to see it. Be sure to include the offending asset ID #s so Stock’s internal team can review them. 

    https://community.adobe.com/stock-29

     

    If you purchased unusable Stock assets, contact Adobe Customer Support to request a credit refund. 

    https://account.adobe.com/support

    Click the online chat icon, ask for an AGENT. 

    The agent will ask you to verify that you deleted the purchased asset from your library or hard drive.

     

    Contributor accounts with multiple customer complaints are typically deactivated for content violations.

     

    Hope that helps. 

     

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    Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
      Nancy OShea
      Community Expert
      Nancy OSheaCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 3, 2026

      Focus more on quality, not quantity, 

      The biggest fish in a small pond usually gets noticed first. 

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      Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
      AlexBond
      AlexBond
      Inspiring
      October 4, 2026

      It’s not about “quality.”

      Of the portfolios that are actually featured as "Recent top sellers" in the “Photo” and “Illustration” categories, there are at least several containing AI-generated work of rather mediocre quality that isn’t labeled as “AI-generated” at all. And work from several other portfolios simply wouldn’t pass moderation if that “Similar” rule were actually applied to everyone.
      This has absolutely nothing to do with quality. It’s more about “cleverness” and about the fact that knowing how to bypass the “rules for everyone” is profitable.

      Here’s an example of a “quality” image from the first page of one of the portfolios currently featured among the “Top” portfolios: 
      Burgundy satin ribbon
      Notice that, apart from the rather questionable cropping and color correction, there is a clearly visible logo of some AI generation service. Also, funny that such watermarks are actually explicitly against the stock’s rules in the first place.

      Quality, huh?

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        oleschwander
        Legend
        October 4, 2026

        Yes - funny and sad. It looks as though more than one entire accounts of these ‘best selling images’ consists of unmarked AI generated images. I wonder how that’s possible.

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        yamato713108855
        Community Expert
        yamato713108855Community Expert
        Community Expert
        October 3, 2026

        Even with assets of the same quality, the likelihood of appearing at the top of search results depends on your choice of themes and keywords.
        Unless you rank high in search results, your assets won't sell.

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        RALPH_L
        Community Expert
        RALPH_LCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        October 3, 2026

        it all has to do with “demand”, “quality” and “previous sales”.

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        Mystical_strategist98c4Author
        Participating Frequently
        October 3, 2026

        I noticed these examples in the Adobe Stock Top Sellers:

        • AntonKhrupinArt: 28 pages — 100,000 downloads
        • Tanya Shulga: 21 pages — 100,000 downloads
        • dlyastokiv: 100 pages — 250,000 downloads

        How can contributors with only 20–30 pages of assets reach 100,000+ downloads?

        Does Adobe Stock's download count depend mainly on search ranking, content demand, keywords, asset age, or individual assets being downloaded many times?

        I’m trying to understand how a relatively small portfolio can generate such a high number of downloads.

        [The duplicate post has been merged by a moderator.］

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