Recover lost licensing fees for your photos
A business used your image and never paid for it. We'll get you the fee.
Submit as many cases as you like for free, even ones you found yourself outside Pixsy. We take 50% only when we recover money for you. See how Pixsy Resolve works
Our case managers and partner lawyers have handled more than 250,000 infringement cases for photographers, artists and agencies.
We go after businesses in other countries and pay your share to your bank, wherever you live.
How we work out what you're owed
When a business uses your photo without a license, you're usually owed at least what they'd have paid to license it properly. Often more. Pixsy works out that license fee, contacts the business and negotiates a retroactive license or settlement. Then we pay you.
The starting point is simple: what would this use have cost if the business had licensed it? Our case managers look at six things.
Type of use
An corporate post, ad, a product page and a blog post all carry different license values.
Size and placement
Where and how the image in being used - a full-width homepage banner is worth more than a small thumbnail.
How & where long it ran
The longer the image was up combined with the market (local, domestic, international), the bigger the license fee.
Where the business operates
Local market rates and the business's reach both count.
Your licensing history
What you've charged for similar licenses before.
USCO Copyright registration
If you're in the US, whether the image was registered with the US Copyright Office.
Here's how the money splits
Say a business agrees to pay a license fee of $1,500 for an unlicensed use of your photo. You get $750, we keep $750 as our fee, and you paid nothing to get there.
Example based on a $1,500 license fee based on a US commercial 1 year usage.
Which uses qualify
Company websites and blogs
The most common case. A business drops your landscape shot onto its homepage, or a travel company uses your image in a blog post, and nobody ever paid for it or asked permission.
Online stores and listings
Your photo is used to sell something: a product page, a marketplace listing or a property ad, with no license behind it.
Ads and marketing
A business puts your image in an ad, a banner, a brochure or a marketing email without paying for it.
Personal, non-commercial use, like someone sharing your photo on their own social account, isn't something we pursue.
What photographers recover
infringement cases managed
average license fee recovered*
average settlement when a case goes legal*
Someone used your photo without paying?
Questions about recovering licensing fees
Fees, registration, and what happens if a business won't pay.
How much can I recover for a stolen photo?
It depends on how the image was used. Across our cases, the average license fee recovered is $1,500, and the average legal settlement is $8,000 (based on a 1 year US commercial use). A full-page ad is usually worth more than a small blog image.
Do I need to have registered my photo?
No. Your photos are protected by copyright the moment you take them, and we take cases whether you've registered or not. If you're in the US, registering is still worth it. You need it to take a business to federal court, and it unlocks statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per photo, or up to $150,000 if the infringement was willful. Those damages only apply if you registered before the infringement started or within three months of publishing. With Pixsy Register, we handle US Copyright Office registration for you, up to 750 photos per application. Haven't registered? Submit the case anyway. A registered photo just gives us more leverage with a US business.
What if the business is in another country?
That's normal for us. We run our retroactive licensing program internationally, work with copyright lawyers around the world, and pay you out wherever you live (in your local currency/bank).
I already sent them an invoice and they ignored it. Can you still help?
We recommend not contacting the image user and letting us be the first point of contant. A letter from us, and later from a law firm, tends to get a different response. If you have contacted them, let us know in the case submission form.
If you haven't contacted the business yet, we recommend letting us make first contact, using our carefully written letters and process.
What does it cost, and who decides on the settlement?
Nothing upfront. We take 50% of what we recover. If a case goes to court, we pay the legal costs as it runs and take them out of the recovery. You set our settlement authority when you submit, including a minimum amount if you want one, and we keep you updated at every step.
What if Pixsy can't recover a license fee?
We ask our local legal partner to assess whether it's a viable legal case. If it is, they start legal proceedings against the business, and we handle the whole process. If it isn't, we email you and release the case back to you at no cost. You get all the case details, the option to send a free takedown notice with our Takedown tool, a takedown template to use yourself, and the evidence we collected if you ask for it.