Because we love stock photos as much as you do, and because we know finding the right stock photo agency to buy high-quality images from is no picnic in the park, we took upon the task of finding and listing the best stock photo sites in one big fat list. No more guessing, no more tedious research for you. When it's time to buy stock photos and high-resolution photos, take the word of the experts and simply find royalty-free images in the best offer according to your current needs!
This list is very useful to find your supplier for the best images for marketing purposes as well as creative projects! And if you're looking to buy photos to use in your business, don't miss our huge list with 102 master tips to create visual content!
These 5 stock photo websites are at the top of the market. They are all that we call microstock agencies, selling royalty-free stock images at very low prices with the minimum payment requirement.
Microstock is one of the best buying models for stock photos – check out this explanatory article on why microstock is so convenient. The Royalty-Free license is by far the most convenient for both commercial and creative works – get a detailed review of Royalty Free License here. We recommend you also check our Best Free Stock Photo Sites Guide and our guide to the best Stock Illustration Websites.
These offers are wide and aim at covering most photo buyer needs, be it commercial projects, editorial work, artistic and personal endeavors, etc.
So without further ado, here are the top 5 stock sites and if you are into medicine stock photos – check out our guide to get the best medical stock photos.
TLTR: Go check out our guide where to buy stock photos! Check out our top list of stock photo models – meet the best selling faces.
Whenever you need a photo to use in your blog posts, websites or social media, visit any of these stock image websites for inspiration and to help save your budget:
You can buy images on demand with image packs, starting at 5 for $39 and up to 100 for $360 – resulting in individual photos for between $3,60 and $7,80. But it is in subscriptions where you’ll find the best and most convenient deals.
The star product is the famous 99club plan: 200 downloads a year for $99. it’s a super flexible offer as you have a whole year to use your downloads, and you pay only once a year too. Not mentioning the really low price, with photos at just $0,49 each!
There’s also plans with monthly download limits, starting at 25 images for $35 and up to 500 images for $105. If you hire these plans annually, you pay between $550 and $999 per year, just once, and save hundreds of dollars. Like this, you can get a great image for as little as $0,16! They are adding up to 100,000 new images monthly.
Check out how Shutterstock compares to its main competitor, here.
You can buy royalty-free stock images on demand with image packs, at 5 photos for $49 or 25 for $229 –resulting in between $9,16 and $9,80 per photo–, but the best prices are those of subscriptions. Shutterstock has plans for 10, 50, 350 and 750 downloads per month, available monthly or annually. You can hire them for from $29 to $249 per month, depending on volume and length. And you will be downloading high definition stock photos for as little as $0,22 each! Learn all details about Shutterstock pricing right here.
You're going to love the chance to save money with our awesome Shutterstock Coupon Code that gives you up to 15% off in your purchase! Grab it now and spend less in your stock photos!
What you'll love even more is that you can now test their images and service quality for free with the new Shutterstock Free Trial that gives you 10 free downloads for 30 days!
You will also appreciate this list with great alternatives to Shutterstock, and if you're looking for lower prices you should definitely check these agencies cheaper than Shutterstock.
With 18 years in the industry and backed by the prestigious Getty Images, of whom we will talk son, the iStock stock site sells photos on-demand with credit packs (the larger the pack, the lower the unitary price) and subscriptions. The agency is now famous for its highly curated library that hosts hundreds of millions of photos in two main collections. But you can also use the site’s search feature or browse images by category.
You may be interested in learning how iStock compares to the one other leading stock photo agency, too.
Essentials are the collection that hosts budget-friendly, high-resolution quality images that you can use for marketing campaigns. You can buy single stock images at just 1 credit each –between $8 and $12 depending on credit pack used–. Subscription plans for Essentials downloads only are the most affordable, letting you choose between 10 and 750 images a month, and with both monthly and annual options. Of course, the larger the plan and the longer the commitment, the lower the per-image price. Choose to invest from $29 up to $199 per month, and get photos for commercial purposes for as little as $0,21!
The Signature collection offers the best photos that not only have greater commercial potential but are also exclusive to iStock. Buying on demand they are 3 credits each –$24 to $33– and subscription plans for Signature also include access to Essentials. Maintaining the same volume and duration options, prices start at $70 and go up to $399 monthly. But this means you can get exclusive, top-class photos for as little as $0.43 each!
Want to know the good news? We have an exclusive and limited-time iStock Promo Code that saves you 15% on credits and subscriptions! You can buy your choice of credit packs at a cut price! Hurry up before it expires!
Image packs let you get royalty-free photos on demand, starting at 10 images for $49 and up to 100 images for $229. This means a range of $4,90-$2,29 per photo.
Their subscription plans are all with monthly download limits, and you can hire them per month or per year. They have a great Flexible plan for small budgets, of just 10 downloads per month for $9,99 monthly or $99 yearly. There’s also plans for 75, 150 and 750 images per month, costing between $69 and $199 monthly, and between $699 and $1999 annually. This lets you download cool stock photos for just $0,22 each!
And what’s even better is that with our special Depositphotos Coupon Code you can get 5 FREE photos plus a 20% off on your purchase! A very good opportunity to get photos cheap!
Adobe Stock is a stock photo service owned by Adobe –the design software giant– and it is built on the base of the photo library of Fotolia (a well-known stock photo agency acquired by Adobe).
This best stock photography website is fully integrated into the Creative Cloud platform, allowing access over 80 million stock photos right within your design apps, streamlining the design process and saving time and effort. It’s ideal for designers using Adobe’s cloud applications, but it also works independently, from its own website. All photos are enabled for commercial use, as well as for non-commercial purposes. You might ask yourself: “Can I use these photographs for offline marketing campaigns?” Of course!
Adobe Stock sells photos via subscription only, but they have a small plan of only 3 downloads a month, at just $29,99 –so $9,99 per image–, that you can hire for one month and renew at your discretion. You can also opt for an annual commitment of 10 downloads per month for the same monthly price. And then you have bigger plans for 40, 350 and 750 photos per month, that you can hire monthly or annually for between $79,99 and $249,99. Like this, you can get great images taken by talented photographers for as low as $0,26 the unit! Here you can learn it all about how much are Adobe Stock photos.
What’s even cooler is now you can try the service without spending a penny. With our Adobe Stock Free Trial, you get up to 10 FREE images for 1 month! Start your trial today!
Best Premium Stock Photo Websites
This is the cream of the top in the stock photography industry. Most agencies –including the top 5 listed above– sell high-resolution images, but premium stock photography websites offer high-end photography aka the best stock image with that little extra something. Do keep in mind some of them work with Rights Managed licenses instead of Royalty Free. This comparative guide between Royalty-Free and Rights Managed images will come in handy!
Images by professional photographers, having higher production value or portraying exclusive locations are some of the key features in these services. If that appeals you, do check them out:
Photocase sells all its photos on demand, and they’re priced according to size from small to large. Buying by the unit –paying as you go– photos will cost you $14 to $42 each. But if you want to buy in bulk, they have a credit pack system to save you from a ten and up to thousands of dollars: they price photos from 5 to 15 credits. Great way to get premium stock photos from one of the best stock photography websites, at lower prices!
Another great way is to seize our special Photocase Coupon Code, with 5 FREE credits plus a 10% discount on your purchase!
In Getty Images you can buy photos under Rights Managed license, a more traditional licensing model that is tailored according to your specific needs and may include exclusive usage of the photo among other perks. This license has much higher price points than Royalty-Free, costing from hundreds and up to thousands of dollars. See what you can do with Rights Managed images here.
But they have a great selection of Royalty Free photos and editorial images that you can buy in an Ultrapack on demand, with great discounts for bulk purchases. Priced according to size, royalty-free images here cost from $125 to $499 the unit, and you can save up to 15% buying packs for 5 or 10 downloads, saving you hundreds of dollars.
If you’re looking for the prestigious photos of Getty Images, Getty Images Ultrapacks are very convenient, saving you up to 15% off regular price and making premium photos more affordable.
Signature photos are available on-demand with credits, at just 3 credits per photo. Depending on the credit pack you buy, this will mean between $24 and $33 the image. But to get them at lower rates you can get a subscription. Plans that let you download Signature images also include access to the other main collection (Essentials) for the same price. There are options for 10, 25, 50 and 750 downloads per month, hired monthly or annually. According to your selection, you’ll pay from $70 and up to $399 a month, getting premium, best stock photos for as little as $0.43 each. By far the lowest price in the best royalty-free images!
Even lower for you thanks to our exclusive iStock Promo Code with 20% off in credits for a limited time! It gives you a 20% discount on any credit pack, so use it today!
We also think of you, buyers needing lots and lots of photos all the time. We are listing the next three stock photo websites that have plans with unlimited downloads, letting you really maximize your budget and access the large number of images you need. Below you'll find the best websites offering unlimited plans, and you can also find more in our list of Unlimited Downloads Agencies.
Storyblocks does things differently from most stock photography sites. It has a wholly-owned library with over 400,000 images, and they sell you subscriptions to access them. They have a new Basic plan with just 5 downloads per month for $9 monthly or $49 yearly, but the best deal is their Unlimited plan with all the downloads you want, at just $19 per month or $99 per year. Given you can get as many images as you wish, the average per-image price can easily go down to single cents per download! A very good deal if you need lots and lots of photos all the time.
Additionally, the agency has a crowd-sourced Marketplace where you can buy photos from other artists, on-demand. All images are $9,99 each, but if you have a subscription you get them at cut price for just $3,99 per image! A nice bonus for extra content.
They offer on-demand packs starting at $9 for 10 downloads and up to $50 for 100 –so between $0.50 and $0.90 per image–, but the star is their unlimited downloads plan, which you can hire monthly for $19, yearly for $79, or for three years for $169. A very low price for all the images you want! Plus, StockUnlimited packs and plans include all media types: you can download stock photos, vector illustrations, audio files, and fonts indistinctively. It’s a very good deal to get all kind of stock media for one fixed rate, without worrying about limitations!
The plan they offer is very simple: unlimited downloads from the entire collection, and you can hire it monthly for $29, or annually for $228 –which saves you 34% from monthly price–. If you need different media types and lots of files, this is certainly a good option to consider!
There are websites in the stock photo market offering different, unique stock photos with specific aesthetics, concept or topic. Generally, they’re deliberately smaller collections, as they’re more tightly curated and/or the subject they cover is narrower. Niche agencies have their charm, and if you’re after something specific, they’re ideal. Most of these agencies specialize in genres or themes that are currently trending –see what is trending today in our Photography Trends 2018 Report!–. Here’s a selection of the best.
If you're looking for authentic, unique and outstanding visuals with a modern feel, you should definitely try Photocase. You can buy photos on demand for between $14-$42 each, and if you use credit packs you can get them for as little as $7,60-$33.
Even better, if you use our exclusive Photocase Coupon Code you'll get 5 FREE credits plus a nice 10% off!
You can buy TONL photos on demand for $20 the piece, and they also offer small subscription plans for 15 and up to 75 downloads, ranging between $29 and $105 –which equals to as low as $1,40 per image–, a very affordable offer for unique and diverse stock photos.
Being a brand rather than an agency, DragonImages' photos are available at various outlets, including the Pressfoto agency as well as the top stock photo sites listed above, and many more. Prices for their images vary according to the agency, sometimes being less than $1 per photo. If you're looking for fresh, modern Asian photos, they are a great option!
Free stock photos have been luring people into the web since back in the early days of the Stock Xchng platform. We love free stuff as much as you do, but when it comes to free stock photos, things get risky. You'll see, free stock photos aren't always what they appear to be, they hide considerable danger and they can easily get you in lots of legal trouble when using them. Why? Two main reasons:
You can learn all about the risks in free stock photos here.
For those reasons, we are not fans of free stock photo sites, and we normally don't recommend them. It's just so much safer and not so much more expensive to use professional microstock agencies. But as we know how appealing free stock photos can be, we did our research to find the best free stock photo websites out there, listed below. Do keep in mind that at any of them you must revise the image validity on your own, and you'll be at your own risk using the photos. Here are 5 options, you can find 20 more in our list of the Best Free Stock Photo Sites!
Images are under Creative Commons Zero license, free to use in both personal and commercial projects. While they note that these photos can still be subject to privacy and property rights, they have a dedicated staff member –a photographer and image editor– tasked with reviewing submissions not only for quality but also for legality. This is a big plus, that nearly no other free photo site has, and adds more safety to their service.
They make money via sponsored photos: they include results from Shutterstock –listed in our top stock photos sites above– collection in your searches, and you are redirected to purchase at that agency if you wish to download those images. But Pixabay's native images are free of charge. Creative Commons photos are still risky to use, but having the added reassurance of an experienced reviewer makes this free stock photo site worth exploring.
Their photos are high quality, modern, authentic and with a strong youthful feel. And they're all available to download and use for free. Unsplash uses their own custom license, which is essentially a Creative Commons Zero license but removing the right to compile their photos –this avoids you creating a competitor service using their images–.
On this site, all images are for free and there is no catch, owners use it to fuel traffic and customers to their Crew services, and lately, they are developing business opportunities based on Unsplash directly. It's a very pro-like website, and the team behind it is very serious about it. While it's still a CC0 license model to be cautious about, it's also an undeniably cool service to get stock images free.
Pexels images are all under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, enabling use in commercial projects and without attribution requirements, at absolutely no cost.
The site monetizes by including sponsored images from paid stock photo collections they're affiliated to, in their results and galleries. If you like one of those photos, you'll be redirected to the agency website to buy it. But their own, native images are free. You know CC0 means risk, but this is certainly a serious and respectable website.
All their photos are donated to Public Domain, and so they don't have any copyright requirements –although Life of Pix encourages attribution–. They forbid mass distribution, though, limiting you to 10 images and demanding writing consent from them for higher volumes. However, for end-users, there's no limit to downloads.
Life of Pix is an affiliate to Adobe Stock –listed amongst our top 5 stock photo sites above–, and they include images from that library in their galleries and results. If you want one of those photos, you must pay for it. All the rest are free of charge. Public Domain Images can be tricky too, but this site has a lot of love and work invested in, making it a serious option for free stock photos.
These images are free to download and use, no catch. The license is custom, but it is pretty much a CC0 licensing model with some restrictions similar to Royalty-Free (but it's NOT Royalty Free), like the sensitive use and defamatory use limitations. It's to be noted the site expressly says their images might be subject to privacy and property rights, and that while they enable commercial use, they recommend “due diligence” before using photos in commercial projects (which means, it's up to you to check its legal status). However, being all images owned by Ryan, at least you know where they come from.
The site slightly promotes McGuire's design business and also has some affiliations with top stock photo sites of the listed above. McGuire's photos, however, are free. This is a cool website to find extraordinary, quirky photos for free. But do take their word about due diligence.
Regardless of which site you choose to go with, there are a few tips for using free stock images in the safest way possible. And we're telling you now:
If you want to skip all this hassle altogether, you can: get Royalty Free stock images at super low rates in any of the Top Stock Photo Sites we listed above!
Next, we are going to answer all the main, commonly asked questions about stock photography, how it works and what does it offer. You’ll have no doubts about these concepts when you’re done the reading!
What is a stock photo license?
Stock photos aren’t really for sale: when you buy a stock photo, what you actually buy is a license to use the photo in a certain number of ways. But the copyright (the ownership, so to speak) of the image is not yours. The license is the legal agreement between the agency and owner of the photo, and you –the end-user–. See more details about the most popular stock photo licenses.
What are Royalty Free stock photos?
Royalty-Free is a type of stock photo license. It’s the most used one in microstock photography and the most popular amongst buyers. Mainly because of its flexibility and low cost: with this license, you pay a flat fee, only once, and you get a considerable number of usage rights, forever. Get more details on what are Royalty Free stock photos.
Are Royalty-Free photos free?
No, at least not by definition. The name Royalty-Free refers to the fact that one license lets you use a photo multiple times, in multiple projects and for as long as you want without ever having to pay royalties. But most royalty-free stock photos are paid. You might find, however, some sources offering them free of charge. More likely than not these sources will be stock photo agencies giving away free photos. You can learn where to get free stock photos here.
Are all Royalty Free licenses the same?
Not necessarily. Each agency can and often do customize their license agreements. However they all follow a standard for Royalty Free license model, so the main terms are common to all of them. You must always read the license terms carefully to make sure you understand them (and your intended use is covered)! You’ll find the agreement on the agencies’ websites.
What’s the difference between Royalty-Free and Rights Managed license?
Both licenses let you use stock photos legally with a commercial purpose, but Royalty-Free is more flexible, gives a set of general usage rights, it’s a one-time fee and it’s cheap. Rights Managed is tailored for your intended use, it’s more specific, allows exclusive use, and it’s higher priced. Plus extra royalties may apply depending on the case. See a comparative review on Rights Managed and Royalty Free licenses.
What can I do with a Royalty-Free stock photo?
The question should be what can’t you do! Royalty-free photos can be used in commercial, editorial and personal projects, both printed and digital: websites, banners, flyers, decoration, packaging, social media, etc. Under the Extended License, they can also be used in products for resale. Most agencies sell high definition images that are suitable for professional use. You can solve most, if not all, of your creative needs with stock photos. See what you can do with Royalty-Free Photos here.
What can I not do with a royalty-free image?
There are a few copyright restrictions in Royalty-Free license. In general terms, you cannot sell the image as is to anyone else, you cannot use it in defamatory ways, and you cannot use it in products for resale unless you have an Extended License. Always make sure to read all the limitations carefully prior to using a stock photo. See what you cannot do with Royalty Free images.
What is an Extended license?
Extended License is a license that gives you, as the name gives away, bonus rights added to the standard Royalty-Free agreement. For a higher cost, this adds perks like unlimited copies, extra seats and more importantly, the right to use photos in products that you can resell for a direct profit. See more details on the Extended License.
Do you have a question that is not answered here? Drop a comment below this post and we’ll happily answer it!
Gotten this far, you’re probably thinking “there’s a lot of really cool stock photo websites out there, how on earth am I going to decide which one to use?”. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. And we’ve found there are some really useful tips to identify the best stock photo site for you! Here’s what you must consider:
Following these simple tips, you will easily clear your way amongst the large crowd of very good stock photo offers to find the one that is meant for you!
So that was our giant list of the best stock photo sites around. Reviewed, analyzed and curated just for you! If there's one obvious conclusion at this point is this: no matter what you're looking for, what budget you have and what your spending preferences are, there is a stock photo website out there that has exactly what you want!
You're all set with any of the top stock photo sites:
And don't forget you also have lots of options for specific needs!
And these are just some of your many options!
Which ones are you exploring first? Do you know of a good stock photography websites we haven't listed? Drop us a comment and let us know!
PS: If you need stock videos – check out our guide to the best stock footage sites on FootageSecrets.com.
Guest Blogger: Amos Struck - https://www.stockphotosecrets.com/best-stock-photo-sites - StockPhotoSecrets.com - Blog / Stock Photo Shop