Neil LimNeed some free stock photos for your next project? Check out our list of top stock photo libraries.
Let’s be honest, most stock photo sites out there charge an arm and a leg for a single image. It’s hard to justify paying a high price for an image that you might only use once but incorporating an image helps keep visitors to your website engaged.
In a post by Jeff Bullas, posts with images receive 94% more views and it’s an easy way to increase engagement rates on your site posts by using the right image.
Creative Commons Zero
It’s important to recognize the different licensing and copyrights of images. From a legal standpoint, you may need to provide attribution whenever you use an image unless it has a Creative Commons Zero license.
Here’s how the Creative Commons website describes the CC0 license:
“The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.”
In other words, you are free to edit and use that amazing photo you found if it is under the CC0 license. Without any further delays, here’s our list of the best stock photo websites.
Unsplash
If you have an idea for an image, there’s a good chance that you can find it on Unsplash. From boardrooms to offices to beaches, Unplash has a vast collection of images for your site.
Pexels
Pexels’ goal is to provide designers, writers, artists and other creatives access to beautiful stock photos that can be used however they want. Its library of 15,000 images is a testament to its goal and is a great resource for any business online.
Death to the Stock Photo
Death to the Stock Photo add new images each month and you’ll need to sign up for its newsletter to receive the latest collection. If you want to access more images, $13.00 per month grants you access to its large archive of photos.
Gratisography
If you’re looking for wacky and whimsical photos, Gratisography is the site for you.
Picjumbo
Picjumbo offers a wide variety of images ranging from technology to city skylines.
Negative space
Negative Space delivers 20 royalty-free, high-res stock photos every week. All photos contain no copyright restrictions so you can use them however you please.
Lock & Stock
Lock & Stock features free stock photos that you can use however you want. The images range from lifestyle to abstract photos so there’s a good selection of images to choose from.
KaboomPics
KaboomPics offers a large collection of free images to bloggers, site owners, small businesses and freelancers. From architecture to nature photographs, all the high resolution images are free for commercial use.
Fancy Crave
Fancy Crave’s photos are all free and they’re beautiful. The only condition the site has is that you never claim the photographs as your own and provide attribution when you can. Fancy Crave uploads two new photos every day so make sure you add the site on your bookmark.
FoodiesFeed
If you’re looking for images of food, then look no further. All the images on FoodiesFeed look amazing and immediately make your mouth salivate. From meats to pastries to beer, FoodiesFeed should be at the top of your bookmarks list if you’re looking for great images of food.
StockSnap.io
From business photos to lifestyle images, all images on StockSnap are free. No attribution necessary, so you can use them whenever and however you want.
Life of Pix
Leeroy from the Awesome Agency in Montreal created a home for some amazing images on Life of Pix. All of the images are donated to the public domain, which means they’re free for personal and commercial use.
If you’re also looking for free videos, it’s sister site, Life of Vids, provides free video clips and loops.
Jay Mantri
Jay Mantri has a couple of new photos every Thursday that range from lifestyle to landscape images. The images are all professionally done and they’re all completely free.
Magdeleine.co
Magdeleine adds new photos every day and you can browse their collection to find the other amazing images. Most of the images available on Magdeleine are free for commercial use but there are others that require attribution so make sure you double check the image’s requirements.
ISO Republic
Tom Eversley, founder of ISO Republic, publishes new photos every week. All the images are high-quality and were made available for designers, bloggers, marketers, and small businesses.
MMT
New York photographer and UX/UI designer Jeffrey Betts provided free for commercial use photos on MMT. You’ll see a lot of nature and scenic images here but you’ll also find a couple of tech and business-related photos.
Moveast.me
Follow the journey of a Portuguese photographer on his journey across Asia. As part of his travels, he takes great pictures and posts them on Moveast.me, all free for commercial use.
Bucketlistly
Everyone has a bucket list but not everyone is a photographer. The folks at Buketlistly curates a collection of close to 3,000 images that are free for commercial use. For easier sorting, you can click on the tags at the top of the page to view images by country.
PhotoCollections
PhotoCollections has a small collection of amazing landscape, adventure and lifestyle images.
GoodStock.Photos
Aside from their use of a .PHOTOS domain, GoodStock Photos covers a wide range of themes; from scenic landscape to lifestyle images. All the images you can find on GoodStockPhotos are completely free but the site asks that you never claim any of these images as your own. Other than that, you can use them however you want.