Introducing Creative Impact: Bringing Creators and Contributors Together

See how your work is empowering creators around the globe

Every day, Pexels contributors share their creative vision with the world, and the world responds. Over 1.2 million photos and videos are downloaded from Pexels each day, used for everything from Facebook events and personal essays, to marketing and educational materials, to birthday cards and thank you notes.

Your work is literally helping shape the visual language of our world, and we want you to know about it.

Introducing Creative Impact: a new feature that connects you with the creators who are using your work. For decades, stock photo contributors have been pouring their creativity into the world without any hope of connecting with the people and companies who are actually using it.

Traditional stock photo providers have an incentive to keep contributors in the dark—securing their position as the middle man by obscuring your impact from view.

Creative Impact changes all of that, connecting creators and contributors for the first time ever.

Starting today, the designers, writers, artists, and other creators who download your photos on Pexels will receive an email asking them to share a link or a short message so that you can see how your work is being used around the world. Then, every two weeks, we’ll aggregate all of those messages and send them to you.

This idea was inspired by the hundreds of enthusiastic emails that we receive each week from creators asking us to pass along a link, a heartfelt thank you, and even partnership and job offers to the Pexels contributors who make their work possible. These requests showed us the kind of connection that’s possible when you’re part of a one-of-a-kind visual library that’s accessible to every creator.

Our goal with Creative Impact is to facilitate that connection and build a collaborative creative community unlike any other.

“With the Creative Impact feature, we’re directly connecting Pexels creators and Pexels contributors so they can share appreciation and feedback with one another,” says Daniel Frese, Pexels COO.

“We’re putting human connection back into the creative process by opening up an easy channel for appreciation and gratitude. This helps our contributors push the art of photography forward, and give life to their own epic visions as part of a one-of-a-kind community built on open access and visual creativity.”

Creative Impact goes beyond the traditional reverse image search that many Pexels contributors depend on to find their work in the wild. It addresses a pain point that traditional stock contributors have been facing for years, while simultaneously fostering a worldwide community made up of generous contributors and grateful content creators.

We’ve been testing this feature with a select group of Pexels Heroes for a couple of months, and the feedback has been incredible.

“Receiving messages about how people are using and have used the work I put on Pexels brings a lot of value and fulfillment to my life, and creates a desire to continue to go out and shoot and explore the world!” - Kelly Lacy, Chattanooga, USA

Many Pexels users were just waiting for a better way to say thank you, and are using this feature to send heartwarming messages about how your images and videos are helping to improve their work, grow their business, or simply put a smile on their face during these difficult times:

"I absolutely love the messages I've received. It's heartwarming to see how many teachers have used my photos since most schools switched to online classes." - Brett Sayles, Boise, USA

Now that we’ve worked out the kinks, we’re ready to roll out this feature to the entire Pexels community, and we need your help to begin tearing down the wall that’s been created between creators and contributors.

If you’re a Pexels contributor, you don’t have to do anything—you’re already enrolled, and should start receiving feedback in the coming weeks. If you want to opt out, we’ve provided the option in settings, but we highly recommend you give it a shot.

If you’re a creator who uses Pexels to source images and videos, you’ll begin receiving an email every two days with a list of all your downloads and the option to drop a quick thank you note or link. You also have the option to opt out in settings, but Creative Impact is a great opportunity to get to know your favorite Pexels contributors.

We hope you’ll join us on our journey to bring more joy and community into the world of photography.