In a competitive marketplace, a stock site occasionally goes out of business. StockUnlimited.com had more than a million photos in 25 categories. The company’s library of images is now available as part of the free collection at 123rf. With 1.7 million stock images, Dissolve is based in Canada and licenses stock footage and images for royalty-free and rights-managed uses.
A design platform for creating graphics and presentations, Canva offers basic design tools for free. An online database to search and share animated images, GIPHY was purchased by Shutterstock in early 2023. GIPHY registers 1.3 billion search queries every day and posts more than 15 billion daily media impressions. If you’re using the image for a website or brochure, be conscious the image you choose represents your business or brand. Spend time picking the right image that conveys your message best. Searching for a particular image in these vast databases can be overwhelming.
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Quality is not entirely consistent, but it is generally very good, and there’s a wide range of types of images – you might even find some kinds of photos you can’t find on paid sites. That said it adds new content, and, with its intention to avoid cliched imagery, there’s a chance you might find something more original that suits your project. Some pieces are surprisingly beautiful for stock photos, and they come in sets, so you’re not left trying to make one specific image fit the dimensions you need.
Adobe Stock is one of the higher-end websites for stock photos, illustrations, vectors, videos, and audio files. If you’re already a user of the Adobe Creative Cloud, it also integrates seamlessly with your favorite apps like Photoshop and Illustrator. Picjumbo has free stock photos for personal and commercial use. There’s also a paid, premium membership that gives you access to 50+ exclusive stock photos every month, and 100+ member-only stock photo collections.
Why should you use stock photography?
There’s also a free tier which includes access to 2 million+ photos and vectors, standard license and unlimited downloads. If you do choose to go for a credit pack plan, you’re allowed to roll-over unused images. Many of the stock photo sites I tested now offer AI-generated images, either alongside human-generated photos or instead of them. I found 123RF to be the most useful option because, while it does free stock photos for designers offer AI-generated stock images, you can choose to filter those results out. This feature makes your image search much easier since both types of content are gathered in one place for you—but you don’t have to wonder which is which. If you’re planning to use stock photos in social media graphics or other visual projects, it can be helpful to use a source that pairs easily with basic graphic design tools.
And there are other offers in between, with bigger savings if you buy more. Join thousands of creators receiving our weekly articles about launching, growing, and thriving as a creative entrepreneur. Getty’s editorial collections, for instance, include Bloomberg, NBCUniversal, Disney AMB Television Group, and FIFA, among several other big brands. And if you’re a budding photographer yourself, you can even click Camera Finder under the Explore dropdown to see the most popular cameras currently being used in the Flickr community. New Old Stock publishes vintage photos from the public archives.
The Best Stock Photography Sites Compared
The best stock photo sites are becoming increasingly pivotal in providing high-quality images for industries such as media, design and entertainment. In many cases, it’s simply not cost-effective or practical to shoot specific scenes or subjects on one’s own. Pexels maintains a collection of 3.2 million stock photos and videos.
You can buy photos from this website with an on-demand plan or a subscription plan. It makes sure that you get the best quality photos that suit your designs. Stock photo websites host millions of high-quality photos that you can download for free or by paying a fee.
Brand Designer
Although this company is based in Florida it has offices literally all over the world and remarkably offers customer support in 20 different languages. Prices start at $12 a month for small businesses and $42 a month for agencies. Photos are categorized in galleries, such as nature, city, people, etc. The photographs are contributed by Montreal-based Leeroy Advertising Agency and its network of photographers. You will find 700 images that are out of the ordinary; some weird, some funny, and some outrageous. This clarity can be helpful for people who don’t know the details about copyright.
Not everyone has the time or inclination to learn how to create prompts to get the results they want—and even then, AI-generated photos aren’t consistent in quality or relevance. And while ethical and copyright-related issues are still up in the air around generative AI, some creators opt to use human-generated photos instead. As part of our testing, we also check usage and attribution rights. With many stock users creating content for businesses, being able to secure commercial and non-commercial rights is critical. Negative Space is based in the UK, so much of the photography features British scenes.
Vecteezy’s free plan doesn’t give access to all resources, but you can opt for the paid plans because they are affordable. DepositPhotos is an outstanding option for small businesses and bloggers. It hosts more than 186 million resources, including stock photos, videos, illustrations, and vectors.
- New among stock photo sites, Picography is an excellent source for high quality images that are free.
- Each individual credit is worth approximately $11.00 USD, and images and videos generally cost between 3-6 credits each.
- This is fine and might even be the perfect image for some people.
- There are also monthly and annual subscriptions available, which set aside the credit system and offer a set number of images per month.
- The thought of making money from your photos while putting your photography skills into practice is surely tempting for everyone.
- There’s a stock image website that’s right for your business and project needs.
When testing the best free stock photo site, we’re looking at how each individual platform compares with top asset libraries. PikWizard offers thousands of free stock photos across a broad range of subjects. The quality is impressive and – unusually for a free stock photography site – there are lots of photos depicting people in natural poses. The best free stock photo websites make it simple and easy to download free high quality stock photos to use in all your projects. For the quality of the stock photos that you get, Depositphotos has some of the best-priced plans on the market. They regularly have special offers, like 100 downloads for $100 or 20 to 30% off.
What are stock photo sites?
Unsurprisingly, they have dipped their toes into the world of royalty-free stock photos. It’s quick and easy to select and download the images you want. This is ideal for people who work with images where sourcing them is not a worry. They offer royalty-free photos, vectors, illustrations, and videos. This is helpful for someone who wants to make simple video edits but doesn’t have the software or time to do so. But for the rest of the time, to save time and money, use stock photography wisely and consider adding your pizazz with Photoshop edits (or the like).
