Free Stock Photo Sites
As we use more and more stock photos it seems our budgets are getting slammed with the price of the paid stock photo services.
I know being a web guy, I use a lot of stock photos for my self and my clients.
Many places when we use stock photos they are for social media, or websites, reports, presentations etc.
I’ve recently done some research to locate some of the best free stock photo services out there. While I probably utilize the first two, the most, the remainder on this list in no particular order.
- stocksnap.io – What I like about this one is the fast search and good library for the item category I’m looking for.
- Pexels – This site has a lot of photos being added frequently. A lot of good usable photos. Pexels also has free stock videos as well.
- Canva – This is a new addition to the list. They currently report 1000+ Free Photo’s to use – and a great service as well.
- pixabay.com – This service has a great search and a wide range of images. This service also has a WordPress plugin to add images to your site quickly.
- unsplash.com – this service has a decent supply of images and a good search feature.
- gratisography.com – This has some unique photos worth checking out. It also has a search but only at the top of the page.
- negativespace.co – Decent photos here, though not as many as some of the other sites.
- splitshire.com – Smaller database of images.
- lifeofpix.com – Nice images, smaller database, images are presented in larger format instead of thumbnail view.
- deathtothestockphoto.com – hard to navigate but decent photos – no search option.
- picjumbo.com – Good Database, good photos. Images in large format so a lot of scrolling but has a search feature.v
- imcreator.com/free – Another smaller site but with some unique choices.
- snapwiresnaps.tumblr.com– This site has a lot of images with a lot of scrolling to find them. It is provided by the snapwire service where you can create a request for an image you are looking for and a photographer (for a fee) will take that photo.
- morguefile.com – This site seems to have a good database of images.
- freeimages.com – This site has a large database with a good search feature. Be aware this site also shows images for paid stock photos.
- pikwizard.com – This site has over 100,000 completely free images on the site, over 20,000 of those are exclusive with new images being added daily. You can also find fee stock videos here as well.
I’m sure there are many other stock photo sites out there – these are just the ones that I’ve located and found somewhat useful. If you have others that you use, I’d love to hear from you. Simply leave your suggestion(s) in the comments below.
Great listing, Frank. I’ll just throw out one caution.
If you decide to use a free image on a commercial/business site, be certain to get some sort of proof that you have a free license to use it on your site.
One of my clients was invoiced $500+ for “unauthorized use of an image” on her website when she couldn’t produce proof of license. That was on 1 image – an image that had been purchased over 6 years previously. ( Jeez, even the IRS only requires receipts from 3 years previous.)
As a result, I now just go to photodune.net and pay $1 for stock images. It’s well worth the buck for the TXT file license. 🙂
I hope that helps other readers avoid sticky situations in the future.
Good point! Always read the fine print. Thanks Karen.
Hi, very informative article.
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