We love images as much as you do and understand that finding the right stock footage is not easy, so we took on the daunting but rewarding task of finding and listing the best stock photo sites from a long list.
No more guesswork, no tedious research, when you need to buy ready-made and HD images, trust the experts and find the best price for your needsRoyalty-free images!
This list will be very useful if you need some of the best images to use for marketing purposes and creative projects!
These 5 stock sites are at the top of the market and they are what we call microstock resellers, selling royalty-free stock images at affordable prices. To dateRoyalty-free licenseA convenient way to use them for commercial and creative work, these companies offer a wide range of photo buyers, whether for commercial projects, editorial work, image art, personal experimentation, or other areas.
Shutterstock is the best stock photo site that has been around longer than most of its competitors. As a microstock agency, they are responsible for introducing an innovative subscription model (which has now expanded to the entire market) and are known for having the largest gallery on the web – over 190 million files and counting.
Many sites claim to offer Shutterstock coupon codes and discounts, but they prefer to be offered by themselves rather than searching for untrusted sites, and you can check out the currently available coupons and promo codes on the official website.
Depositphotos is a well-established website that has been operating for many years and focuses on selling a wide variety of royalty-free images. They host over 80 million images and you can get them in packages or monthly subscriptions, which include all budget options.
Adobe Stock is an image service from software design giant Adobe, built on Fotolia(A famous photo agency acquired by Adobe) based on.
This gallery site is fully integrated into the Creative Cloud platform, allowing you to streamline your design process by accessing more than 80 million images directly in the application. It’s ideal for designers using Adobe Cloud applications, plus it can run independently of Adobe services, and all photos can be used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
Stock Photo Secrets is a stock company dedicated to small and medium-sized businesses. Developed by a team of stock footage website experts, this store offers over 5 million royalty-free images under flexible plans and packages.
iStock is an online stock company that uses micropayments under a royalty-free license and is the first microstock reseller – the operating model used by most stock sites today.
The operations team, with over 20 years of experience, is owned by Getty Images, a leading stock company that sells on-demand packages (the higher the quantity, the lower the price per unit) and subscription plans, and is known for its highly extensive photo library — hundreds of millions of photos hosted in two main warehouses.
These are the best in the stock industry, and most agencies (including the 5 listed above) sell high-resolution images, but premium stock sites can offer higher-end photography, aka the best image footage with little to no extras. Keep in mind that some of these are usingCopyright Management(Instead ofRoyalty-free) License.
Some key features exist for the following services: images taken by professional photographers with high value or portraying special locations, if you like them, please check them carefully.
Getty Images is one of the most prestigious stock companies, having started their image agency business before the age of the Internet and quickly adapting to online platforms, they are known for their wide variety of catalogs, including top-notch photography for commercial use, millions of exclusive images from around the world, and a vast array of editable content.
You can choose fromCopyright ManagementLicense to purchase photos, rights management is a more traditional licensing model that can be customized to your specific needs, which may include other proprietary uses of the photos. However, the price of this license is higher thanRoyalty-free.
Photocase is a company based inBerlinThe photo agency, a company that has been in the limelight for many years for its popular style. With strict vetting standards, they make their collection pocket-sized and high-quality, so if you want unique image material, it’s easy to find the best match here!
Some buyers need a lot of photos, and we’re going to present 3 more exceptional gallery sites, all of which offer unlimited download packages in order to allow you to maximize your budget and access all your favorite images.
Storyblocks is a media repository platform specializing in unlimited download plans, initially under the name Videoblocks. With repositories and plans for each media type, if you want the best unlimited media library, this is one of the best options.
StockUnlimited is a stock photo site with unlimited downloads and was the first company to adopt the unlimited download model and is still in use today. Originally offering only a handful of illustrations and vector images, it now features over 1 million visuals in a variety of media types, including images, audio, font files and more.
Envato Elements is a relatively new service from media library platform Envato, with several specific marketplaces dedicated to certain media types (images, video, vector graphics, audio, etc.). Essentially, Elements is an excellent collection of curated media, containing a selection of files from all markets – over 1 million in total – that you can access via subscription.
- Photo Gallery
- Graphics and presentation templates
- WordPress Themes and Plugins
- Design materials, fonts, 3D and add-ons
- Video Templates and Video Warehouse
- Music tracks and sound effects
- Tuts+ Courses and eBooks
Since Stock Xchng Free galleries have been a magnet for people since their inception. We all love free stuff, but when it comes to galleries, things get a little risky: you’ll find that free galleries aren’t always what they seem, they can hide great dangers, and can easily get you into legal trouble.
There are 2 main reasons for this.
- Deficiencies in the license.Most free galleries use a form ofCreative Commons License(mainly Creative Commons Zero, CC0), although this type of license allows legal use in commercial projects, you can be implicated if the original image infringes
- No critical review was conducted.These sites are usually low cost to run and theyCrowdsourcingpictures, and there are not enough resources to review the submissions. This way, anyone can upload anything, even photos that do not belong to them (or do not meet the legal requirements)
For these reasons, we usually do not recommend free stock photo sites, where professional microstock resellers can ensure that everything is foolproof and less expensive. On the other hand, we are aware of the attractiveness of free stock images and therefore have conducted a lot of research in order to find the best option.
Pixabay is a large free photo website based in Germany, originally created by Hans Braxmeier and Simon Steinberger Created to provide images for free download and use, these materials are crowdsourced from users. To date, the platform has over 1.4 million files.
Pictures subject toCreative Commons Licensethat are bound to be free for use in personal and commercial projects. Considering that these photos are still protected by privacy and property rights, they have a dedicated staff (photographers and image editors) that review submissions that are not only of high quality but also legal – a big plus that few other free photo sites can reach.
Unsplash connects clients with freelance designers, web developers and small studios. What started as a modest Tumblr The blog, which offers custom photos for free, has since grown into one of the most popular free galleries for multinational brands like Apple, hosting 500,000 free photos from various contributors and integrated into various other platforms and products.
The photos are very high quality, modern and realistic, with a strong youthful feel, and they are all free to download and use. Unsplash uses a custom license (essentially similar to CC0), but removes the right to edit photos, which helps avoid unsuspecting people using their images to create competing services.
Pexels is a free photo website based in Germany and run by twin brothers Bruno Joseph and Ingo Joseph(all with a background in computer and software technology) were created to provide more authentic and modern free photos.
All images are subject to the CC0 license and can be used in commercial projects without attribution. Of course, you know that CC0 means risk, but this is still a serious and respectful site.
By Canadian digital agency LEEROY Created, Life of Pix offers a large number of high quality free images with a strong artistic sense and has hundreds of thousands of materials donated by photographers, all of which can be downloaded for free.
Life of Pix is a member of Adobe Stock, so both the gallery and the results contain images owned by the latter, but you must pay to use them, all the rest of the images are free.
withbe a culture snoband unconventional approach to marketing, Gratisography by Ryan McGuire Founded – he is also Bells Design owner and graphic and web designer. The goal of this site is to provide unique, intimate, and engaging images, approximately hundreds of them, all personally signed by Ryan and of high quality.
The images are free to download and use, the license is custom but almost identical to CC0 with some similar royalty-free restrictions such as sensitive and defamatory use restrictions. It is worth noting that the site makes it clear that its images may be subject to privacy and property rights, and although they can be used commercially, they recommend due diligence before using them in commercial projects, which means you need to check the legal status of their images.
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