Unlock the power of world‑class visual content with the Getty Images API

Easy to implement, our flexible API brings the best visual content straight to you and your customers, letting you integrate outstanding images, videos, and illustrations from Getty Images and iStock directly into your platform.

Getty Images API solutions

Integrate our visuals in your platform

Give your customers a competitive visual edge while driving consumption and retention by featuring our premium content through an API integration.

Enhance your product with AI Training Data Sets

Train your AI models using Getty Images visuals and associated metadata to improve performance and efficiency.

Earn affiliate revenue

Become an affiliate partner and access the most competitive commissions in the industry by featuring our content on your site. Contact us to learn more.

Build plugins for mutual customers

Allow customers who have Getty Images logins to download imagery against their Premium Access subscriptions—directly in your platform—by securely and conveniently integrating our API, which supports OAuth 2.0.

Access your agreement

Save time and upgrade your workflow by accessing your Getty Images or iStock subscription directly in your platform.

Work smarter and faster with our powerful API

Integrate with ease

Get access to Getty Images' content, metadata, and search technologies, including the Img.ly Search UI widget, by integrating our API with your publishing tools, products, and services. With easy communication, complete documentation, robust SDKs, and sample code, your developers will be fully supported.

Discover world‑class search

Integrate our industry‑leading, fully localized search engine and access all the great search filters available on our websites, including reverse image search, all asset metadata, and file sizes for every asset available in your license agreement.

Stay secure

For your convenience and security, our API supports OAuth 2.0 so that you can integrate with an authentication model that works best for your use case.

Access global support

Our globally distributed sales and technical support teams are ready to help you, no matter where you are, 24/7.

Case studies

Bluescape

Integrate new search functions into an existing ecosystem to heighten user satisfaction.

Kahoot!

Boost engagement across channels through a larger library of high-quality visuals.

PlayPlay

Provide a simple and efficient search alternative to streamline video creation.

IMG.LY

Integrate simplified searching, licensing, and editing of stock images into an existing system.

Why work with Getty Images?

As a leading creator and distributor of still imagery, footage, music, and other premium content, our goal is to inspire communicators—and give them the tools to create inspiring work of their own. We offer the industry's best and broadest collections of imagery and footage, including award‑winning news, sports, and entertainment content, plus rare and contemporary archival imagery.

How do I work with Getty Images?

We offer a variety of flexible solutions and customer agreements to meet your specific needs, goals, and business models. Contact us now to get started.

How can I generate revenue with the Getty Images API?

Reselling our content as part of your product line is a great way to generate new revenue or supplement existing revenue streams. Getty Images works with a variety of partners including print on demand services, advertising solutions, and web publishing tools just to name a few. Contact us to learn more.

How can the Getty Images API help my business?

Getty Images’ technology and content brings great value to your business, your staff, and your customers. With our API, you can streamline your processes and costs by automatically publishing relevant and up‑to‑date content based on the topics and themes you need. Or, you can grow revenue by integrating Getty Images into your products and services to enhance your customer offering.

What is an API?

An API is an application programming interface that allows you to seamlessly access and integrate functionality and data from other web services and websites—like gettyimages.com—directly inside your products and internal workflows. The API service hosts and serves data dynamically and in real‑time to minimize hosting and storing costs on your end. API services help you fully control and customize the integration, scaling as you grow.

What does the Getty Images API provide?

Our set of APIs provide direct access to millions of images and videos across our collections and brands, allowing for an integrated search experience that’s similar to what’s offered on gettyimages.com. This includes our powerful sorting and filtering capabilities, as well as access to our extensive and rich metadata and keywords. Lastly, our API enables downloads of all the file sizes available, from small to high‑resolution files.

How do I get access to the APIs?

If your company has an existing Getty Images agreement, contact your Account Manager and ask for access to our API. If you are exploring whether our API is right for your business, please contact us for more information and access to a test account.

How do I integrate with the API?

Any API integration requires customers to have development resources. The implementation timeframe and scope of work varies and depends on your internal development resources and the level of customization and integration work you want to accomplish. Our technical support team is here to assist you along the way, and we provide extensive resources including documentation, online forums, and code samples to facilitate and accelerate the implementation work.

How many new images are added each week?

Between 50,000 and 80,000 new images are added to our catalog each week with the majority of them being editorial images. Some weeks may see over 100,000 images added, typically when big news, sports, or entertainment events are taking place (Olympics, Academy Awards, etc.).

How long does it take for new content to become available via the API?

You get it at the same time that it’s added to our sites.

What is the difference between editorial and creative images and videos?

Editorial images and videos represent newsworthy events or illustrate matters of general interest, such as news, sports, and entertainment and are generally intended for editorial use, not commercial use. Creative images and videos are stock assets that are trend‑researched, art‑directed, and shot by professional photographers and are available for commercial use.

What content do I have access to?

Your API credentials are configured to provide access to the content in your licensing or revenue share agreement. Please refer to the terms of your agreement with Getty Images or contact your Account Manager with any questions.

What is my throttle? How are my API requests throttled?

Your throttle rate—established when your application is first set up to access Getty Connect—limits the number of API requests your application can make per second. Queries per second (QPS) will vary based on your application's needs and usage. All calls to an API endpoint count against the throttle.

How do I search for images of a specific celebrity or other known figure?

To retrieve images of a specific person, we recommend that you structure your search to use the following:

Use the “phrase” query parameter in a request to the search/editorial/images endpoint, with the name of the person as the value
Additionally, provide one of the following keywords in the phrase parameter:
- One Person
- Head Shot
- Waist Up
- Set the “sort_order” parameter in the request to “most_popular” or “best_match”

How do I find the newest images?

Editorial images are automatically sorted by recency, with the newest images at the top, if “sort_order” is not specified in the search request. You can also filter by date created to restrict the result set to a specific date range. Creative image search results can also be sorted by newest.

Why are there different results on gettyimages.com vs. my own API results?

When you search on gettyimages.com, unless you restrict your query to the content in your license agreement, you're searching across all our images. When you search using the API, you're automatically restricted to the content outlined in your licensing agreement.