So you’re on the hunt for stock photos?
Then it’s a good thing you stopped by here! We’ve rounded up the best stock photo sites on the web so you can find the best photos for your blog, YouTube channel, or TikTok profile.
Whether you want to create content on a budget with free stock photos or buy high-quality stock photos to make your content stand out, read on. We’ll start with our favorite free sites—and then move on to premium sites that are worth your money.
Free Stock Photo Sites
Burst
Burst is a free stock photo website owned by the web’s most popular e-commerce platform, Shopify. All photos on Burst are free for commercial use and don’t require author attribution.
Visit Burst → (or read license)
FreeImages
FreeImages is one of the most popular free stock photo websites on the web. Keep in mind that not all images on the website can be used for commercial use, and some require you to attribute the author.
Visit FreeImages → (or read license)
Freepik
Freepik isn’t just for stock photos. You will also find vectors, illustrations, mockups, fonts, and even Photoshop templates. There’s a free and a paid plan, and it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the license before you incorporate any design elements into your work.
Visit Freepik → (or read license)
Gratisography
Gratisography has some of the most beautiful free stock photos on the web, and one of the most permissive licenses. You can use their photos for personal and just about any commercial use—as long as you don’t claim them as your own or use them for one of the forbidden uses.
Visit Gratisography → (or read license)
Pexels
Owned by Canva, Pexels has thousands of free stock photos that you can download and use in your projects for personal and commercial use. Attribution isn’t required, but there are a number of restrictions you need to be aware of if you use the photos unmodified.
Visit Pexels → (or read license)
Picjumbo
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.
Visit Picjumbo → (or read license)
Picography
Picography is a site for free stock photos published under the Creative Commons CC0 license. The license allows you to use the photos for personal and commercial use without author attribution as long as you don’t claim them as your own.
Visit Picography → (or read license)
Pixabay
Owned by Canva, Pixabay has a collection of 2.6+ million free stock photos that you can use for free under the Pixabay license. You can use them for commercial use without attribution—but note that you can’t sell them on physical products without alteration or redistribute them as NFTs or wallpapers.
Visit Pixabay → (or read license)
Reshot
Slightly different from the rest of the sites in our roundup, Reshot is a collection of tens of thousands of free icons, vectors, and illustrations that you can incorporate into your designs. All of the work on the website is published under the Reshot Free License.
Visit Reshot → (or read license)
StockSnap
StockSnap is a large collection of beautiful stock photos, with new images added daily. The free stock photos on StockSnap are published under the Creative Commons CC0 license, which makes them almost free from copyright restrictions.
Visit StockSnap → (or read license)
Stockvault
Stockvault has well over 100,000 free stock photos, textures, and backgrounds. The stock photos can be published under one of three licenses—non-commercial, commercial, and CC0—so be sure to read the terms and check the license of each image you download.
Visit Stockvault → (or read license)
Unsplash
Unsplash is one of the best sites for free stock photos on the web. It also has one of the easiest-to-understand licenses: you can download and use all of the photos on the site for free for personal and commercial use. You can’t sell them without significant modification or post them on a stock photo site of your own.
Visit Unsplash → (or read license)
Vecteezy
If you’re looking for free vectors and illustrations to use in your web designs, look no further than Vecteezy. There’s a free and a paid plan, and you should familiarize yourself with the site’s license before incorporating any of the files on it into your work.
Visit Vecteezy → (or read license)
Premium Stock Photo Sites
123RF
If you’re looking for high-quality stock photos, vectors, footage, and audio at a reasonable price, 123RF is one of your best options. Psst! Watch out for special discounts at 123rf.com/promocode.
Adobe Stock
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.
Depositphotos
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.
Dreamstime
Dreamstime has a collection of almost 200 million royalty-free stock photos and illustrations, as well as audio and video files. You can buy and download images ad-hoc, as you need them. But if you subscribe to a plan, downloads become much more affordable.
iStock
iStock has some of the best stock photos, illustrations, footage, and music on the Internet. You can try iStock for free for a month, and you get to download 10 images for free—which you can keep even if you decide to cancel.
Shutterstock
If you’re looking for a stock photography, footage, and music website with a lot of diversity—and whose subscription plans won’t break the bank—look no further than Shutterstock.
These are some great stock photo websites! I definitely need to check some of these out the next time I am looking for photos.