The site also provides an easy-to-use API for websites and apps. Stocksy is a cooperative of creatives offering authentic photos and videos produced by industry professionals. You won’t find the images you find on Stocksy anywhere else, since images are purchased directly, rather than the typical browse-and-click approach. Pixabay is packed with well over a million public domain images – not only photos, but also illustrations, vector graphics, and even a handful of videos. Its selection of landscape photography is particularly strong, and the Editor’s Choice is well worth a look if you don’t have something specific in mind.
For $9.99/mo, you get access to the entire Canva suite of tools, which are perfect for bloggers, marketers, and beginner graphic designers. You also get unlimited downloads of over 110 million stock images, many of which come from premium sites like Getty Images. If you’re on a tighter budget or you need a wide array of stock assets, an option with unlimited downloads is the best for you. The recent update to Shutterstock’s pricing is what finally sealed its fate at the top of our list of the best stock photography sites. Now, you can download images, videos, and music tracks with one active subscription, whereas before you had to buy a subscription for each type of asset separately.
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You can secure annual, bulk, and subscription discounts at iStock, Adobe Stock, and Depositphotos, reducing the price by up to 90%. IStock and Depositphotos also provide coupons, while Adobe Stock does not. Dreamstime is a great choice for those seeking extended licenses with subscriptions at a more affordable price point. However, due to the irregular image quality, it might best free photo stocks for designers not be the best fit for users who require consistently high-quality, professional images. Its library isn’t just extensive—it’s diverse, offering a wide array of assets such as templates, 3D objects, and fonts. Adobe Stock secures our third position due to its remarkable compatibility with Adobe Creative Cloud applications, making it a top choice for graphic designers.
You can search the free stock photos by theme or collection, like “everyday tech” or “active lifestyle”. Burst is a free stock photo resource powered by Shopify, where you can download photos for websites and commercial use. On Unsplash, you’ll find free stock images on any topic, which you can use without any attribution, and under the accepted terms.
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Shutterstock is a leading provider of licensed stock images, vectors, illustrations, and music for businesses and consumers around the world. It has a growing community of over one million creators and adds hundreds of thousands of creative assets every day. You’re looking for the right images for your online store, website, or social media feed. Some dodgy sites featuring “free” stock photos don’t always have permission to share them, putting you in danger of legal action for using these assets, even if you had the best intentions. So the safest bet is to purchase stock images from a reputable stock library instead. And even then, you always need to read the fine print on licensing and be sure these images will be okay to use now and in future.
The images can be used for virtually anything for commercial use with no attribution required. This means that if you’re looking for some great free images for your blog, website, or social media accounts, you can check out this resource and find some free goodies. You can sign up for their delivery service for free simply by providing your email address.
If you’re looking for actually physically free stock photos, then consult our first list. Thinkstock is the only subscription that combines photos, vectors and illustrations selected from Getty Images, iStockphoto, Jupiterimages. The exquisite stock image gallery you can browse today has been uploaded by photographers from all over the world, shot on film or digital. To ensure you receive the best content, all images are reviewed and approved by experienced editors.
The indemnification is usually $10,000 with a royalty-free license (Shutterstock, iStock, Adobe Stock), but some other sites offer much lower indemnity. For example, Depositphotos offers only $5,000 per image for no obvious reason. Sites offering unlimited downloads also generally offer lower indemnity since you pay significantly less for each image.
