Are you looking for free amazing photos for business? Well, there are several websites from you can download royalty-free pictures and use for your website content or marketing creatives
In this article, I am going to tell you about some of the best free stock photo websites. And let’s start the list with my top 5 favorite free stock photo websites –
- Vecteezy
- Unsplash
- Burst by Shopify
- Pixabay
- Pexels.
If you are ready, let’s know these platforms in detail.
1. Vecteezy
Vecteezy is my #1 source of stock photos, vector art, and stock videos. Although it has paid plans, the site has a massive collection of free stock photos that you can use.
The best part about the site is that its search engine is quite robust and enables you to find your desired photos quickly using filters. It allows you to filter photos by license type, image color, orientation, style, number of people, age, and people composition in the images.
Vecteezy requires attribution for free photos and it includes signed model and property releases for every free photo, which protects you from any kind of legal liability.
Vecteezy License: Vecteezy has a free plan that allows you to use photos for free with attribution, but with its Pro membership, you get full commercial rights to use images along with access to premium photos.
2. Unsplash
Unsplash is an incredibly popular free stock photo website with over 2 million free HD images. Its categories include wallpapers, 3D renders, textures & patterns, architecture, nature, fashion, food, health, wellness, and the list goes on.
It has the pride of having a growing community of 2lakh+ photographers to serve you with credible images. It also integrates with major platforms like BuzzFeed, Squarespace, and Trello, making it easy for you to quickly access images for your marketing and advertising campaigns.
Unsplash License: All the photos can be downloaded and used for free. It allows for commercial, non-commercial purposes and does not require permission.
3. Burst by Shopify
If you own an online store on Shopify and looking for lifestyle images related to your products, then Burst shall be your go-to website. With this stylish and cool collection of photos in various categories, you can make the most of your social media and advertising campaigns.
One of my favorite sections is the Business Ideas. It gives you access to free photo collections and inspiring case studies that motivate you to start your own business in a trending niche.
Burst License: Some of the content available on the site falls under Creative Commons and Licensed ones. However, you can read the terms and conditions before using the images.
4. Pixabay
Having over 2.5M+ HD and royalty-free stock images, videos, and music, Pixabay serves you with impressive digital media. You can access 350K+ free illustrations, free vector art images, and vibrant sound effects for your commercial and non-commercial uses.
In addition to this, you can browse curated collections, best images via editors’ choice, and other popular images/videos. The best part is that it tracks the number of views and downloads for every media to better understand how attractive and appealing the image is to the people.
Pixabay License: All the content on Pixabay can be used for free across commercial and non-commercial purposes. You can make modifications to the content, and attribution is not required. However, you’re strictly prohibited from redistributing, selling unaltered copies of Pixabay content, or creating a misleading association with the product or service with these assets.
5. Pexels
Pexels is a top-grossing free stock photo website that offers authentic images and videos shared by talented creators. It has over 3.2M images for designers, bloggers, or anyone seeking to give life to their exciting stories.
It provides a broader collection of topics with lots of sub-categories. The range of topics includes photography, background, cover photos, summer collections, and you can discover pictures by color.
Pexels License: All images and videos are free to use. You can creatively modify them as there’s no attribution required.
6. StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io contains rich collections of free stock photo images designed to suit your purpose. Whether you need creatives for building a website, creating a magazine ad, or whatever it might be, you can identify beautiful images from its ever-growing repository each day.
With its intuitive search interface, you can browse through its long list of categories like business, love, nature, people, etc. Besides, it provides a tag-based category system to browse images that ideally resonate with your mood, feeling, sense, or content needs.
StockSnap.io License: All the images on StockSnap.io are governed by the Creative Commons CC0 License terms.
7. Splitshire
With over 2,000,000 downloads and 6,000,000 page views, Splitshire is a fantastic place to browse free stock photos, videos, and HD images. The downloaded media can be used in websites, blogs, book covers, magazines, mockups, infographics, TV shows, YouTube videos, and much more.
You can pick the best ones by surfing through 15+ categories covering all aspects. Comparatively, stock videos seem to be less, but we can expect more new uploads in the future.
Splitshire License: You can enjoy using Splitshire content for personal and commercial use without copyrights or attribution. But you’re prohibited from selling the photo as it is. Usage of Splitshire media in any inappropriate content is strictly not allowed.
8. Foodiesfeed
FoodiesFood is a mesmerizing and visually appealing site exclusively catered for aspiring food bloggers. Whether you want to share food tips or use creatives for your business or vlogs, then Foodiesfood is the top-notch destination for you.
The food pictures are categorized into closeup, healthy, sweet, fresh, and top view. You can either download for free with full resolution or sign up for instant downloads. Over 18,51,143 images have been downloaded so far.
FoodiesFood License: All published food photographs come under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) License.
9. Gratisography
Gratisography is quite different when compared to other free stock photo websites. You’ll get a bizarre feeling like the entire site seems peculiar, which means the images depict a fanciful behavior or humor.
You can browse different categories and interesting collections like funky food, goofy grownups, amusing animals, virtual backgrounds, and much more. Gratisography publishes only the most exciting pictures, providing highly selective images with the best quality.
Gratisography License: You are free to use Gratisography pictures as per your needs like advertising campaigns, websites, other digital mediums, and merchandising (as long as the picture itself isn’t what you’re selling).
10. Picography
Being in the industry for the past three years, Picography has been one of the must-use free stock photo websites. It provides high resolution and spectacular images on a long list of 20+ categories like animals, architecture, cultural, fashion, transport, wildlife, tech, seasonal and more to go.
Picography License: Picography makes use of the CC0 license. But you’re strictly not allowed to advertise the photographs as your work.
11. Jeshoots
Jeshoots is owned by the author Jan Vasek who delivers original thematic photos & mockups absolutely for free. Her collections include casino, love, tech, sports, education, drone, coffee, summer, animals and the list goes on.
If you’re a developer, you can browse through new mockups and create instant mockups for t-shirts, devices, packaging, books, mugs, hats, and much more, all of which can be downloaded instantly.
Jeshoots License: You can copy, modify and use images for your own purposes. However, the photos cannot be sublicensed, resold, shared, transferred, or redistributed on their own.
12. Freestocks.org
Freestocks.org is passionately run by a group of three fellow photographers who strive to deliver royalty-free stock images. You can search an image for any topic or cleverly use several categories like people, nature, fashion, food, drinks, objects, city, and technology.
These young pals create stocks in their free time; however, we can expect new additions in the future. All the photos are fresh, updated, and designed to suit complex and specific needs.
Freestocks.org License: The CC0 license is approved to play around with your own design. Instead of redistributing without permission, Freestock.org advises you to use a thumbnail photo and add a link to their single photo page.
13. Foca Stock
Foca Stock provides visually attractive free stock photos, videos, and templates that can be used for multiple purposes. Upon landing on the site, you can browse based on top categories, recent photos, and videos applied to websites, themes, projects, print materials, and many more.
One standout aspect to accentuate is Foca provides a unique editor to design free social and blog graphics. You can choose a template or blank canvas, change fonts, get access to a free photo/vector library, add shapes, edit images and finally download to share it with your audience.
Foca Stock License: Foca Stock media is free to use, doesn’t require attribution, and allows for redistribution. You can use it in any theme, template, downloadable app, UI kit, photo library, or software.
14. ISO Republic
ISO Republic is an independent free stock photo website that gives you access to sparkling images and 4k+ HD videos. Its trending topics include sunset views, forest, flowers, work scenes, sky & clouds, design, flat lays, abstract, and many more.
Besides, it also offers many creative photographs under each categorized collection. Designer’s toolkit, Spirit of Entrepreneurship, Women taking the lead are some of the best-curated collections that you should have a look at.
ISO Republic License: Thousands of high-resolution images and videos are free for personal and commercial use.
15. Picjumbo
Being competitive for over 9 years, Picjumbo is a free stock photo site developed by photographer Viktor Hanacek. Its high-resolution stock images, backgrounds, and photos do not contain any watermark. The most popular categories on Picjumbo include business photos, people, tech, abstract images, and HD wallpapers.
PicJumbo License: The photos are free to use; however, some images do not have a model or property release, and others might contain copyrighted brands, logos, objects, or personal properties. So do a thorough check and then start using the images.
16. Picspree
Picspree has its own creative community of contributors to upload and share beautiful images. You can discover hundreds of high-resolution images, stock photos, illustrations, and vectors for different kinds of projects.
It has a broad set of categories: architecture, family, science, tech, moods & feelings, holidays, seasonal, business, lifestyle, special occasions, and many more. Picspree is also available in more than 10 languages for easy accessibility.
Picspree License: Picspree images can be used in any project, across social media platforms, and for commercial purposes. However, if the media contains any trademark, logos must be protected. In such cases, you’ll have to gain permission from the respective third party.
17. Styled Stock
Styled Stock is a simple and elegant stock photo website focusing mainly on women entrepreneurs’ feminine photography. Finding images as per your requirement is quite tricky as they’re all mixed up together. However, the collection is free for your personal use.
StyledStock License: You can use the images on your website, newsletter, social media platforms, crop, add text/logo/illustrations, and many more.
But keep in mind that you can’t use the images on your design app or website builder. If needed, you must contact the team for the quote.
18. SkitterPhoto
Skitterphoto offers a plethora of free photos in a diverse set of categories. You can surf through the admin picks or from the newest collections as per your requirements. Every image has its own number of views, downloads, and likes so that you can make the best choice. Also, as a sense of gratitude, you can donate to the photographers via PayPal.
Skitterphoto License: Skitterphoto comes under Creative Commons CC0 License.
19. Deposit Photos
DepositPhotos is a free stock photo website that contains around 200M+ files of different types. You can browse through videos, vectors, royalty-free images, illustrations, music, sound effects, and a massive collection of stock photography.
It is trusted by some of the leading companies like Tripadvisor, Forbes, Omnicom Media Group, Bosch, and many more. You can also do a reverse image search to find free alternatives.
DepositPhotos License: DepositPhotos places a long list of conditions to use its digital media properly. I recommend you read their entire terms and conditions by clicking here before starting with your project.
20. Barn Images
Barn Images is a subtle and elegant free stock photo website that provides rich stock images. Not only you’ll find barns, but also other exciting photos like beaches, classic architecture, business, hiking trails, and much more. You don’t have to worry as they’ll update by adding new images regularly.
Barn Images License: You can use the free images for your commercial and non-commercial purposes. If you wish, you can donate via Patreon, a membership platform for creators. However, you’re prohibited from reselling or redistributing photographs elsewhere.
21. Reshot
Reshot consists of a beautiful, clean, and authentic collection of stock images designed to suit your needs. With instant downloads, you can surf through 40,000 SVG icons, 1500 vector illustrations, 25000 HD images made by the designers of the leading subscription platform, Envato Elements.
Reshot License: The items in the Reshot can be used for social media posts, online marketing ads, educational, editorial, and commercial projects. It offers a copyright license that lets you download, copy, modify, distribute, publicly perform and broadcast the items.
22. Jay Mantri
Jay Mantri’s free collection of photos looks simplified, natural, and artistic. He is a senior product designer at Twitter who loves to build exciting products and brands. You can just visit his site, endlessly scroll and download your favorite images within one click.
Jay Mantri’s License: All images are created under CC0 License.
How to use free stock photos?
Almost every free stock photo comes with Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which means you’re free to use, copy, modify, and distribute the images without requiring the photographer or platform’s consent.
However, on some platforms, the licenses vary for each photo. So, I’d recommend you to look for the usage rights in the photo description before downloading or using it for your business.
You should look for these labels –
- Free for commercial use
- No attribution/ attribution required
- No copyright restrictions
- Modification allowed
- Can/cannot be used on merchandise for sale
I hope this article helped you find some of the best platforms to download free stock photos. If we have missed any platform to list, please feel free to reach out to us via our contact page.
