Images are everything these days. And unfortunately one or two good ones on your website or blog just won’t do the trick. So it is essential to have a pool of amazing, high quality free stock photos at your disposal so that you can spend your money on things that aren’t free.
Some of these are my favorite go-to image sites and others were great discoveries that I came across researching for this post. With this list, there is definitely no need to pay for photos anymore! Good luck.
Pixabay
Pixabay is first on my list because it is my first stop for free photos. They’ve got a huge selection and (for free photos) they’re pretty amazing. Experiment with different keywords and take note of the “related photos” that are listed under each picture when you click through. I still edit and touch up most of the photos I choose, but many of them are ready to go right away!
Unsplash
Unsplash is a neat website with a cool concept. You subscribe to it (for free) and every week you get an email with 10 free images. Most are landscapes, but that works well if you’re adding text on top. I try to go through the email every time I get it and save my favorites, but I’ve also created a special folder in my inbox where I save the Unsplash emails so that I can go back if I’m in need of something specific.
Pexels
Pexels is just like Pixabay with one really cool feature – on their homepage, they also show their newest high quality photos. I like going there just to see if something jumps out at me (it’s almost like Pixabay and Unsplash put together!). I still tend to find more on Pixabay, but Pexels selection is large, so if I’m stuck I will usually be able to find something here.
Death to Stock
Death to Stock is another free subscription service that will send you a pack of images once a month. They come from a creative duo and they’re great if you write about blogging, working from home, design, or anything else in the arts. The images are all high quality and most lend themselves to the addition of text, which is a big bonus in my book.
Gratisography
Gratisography is a really unique place to find free photos. Most of the photos are a little weird…but almost all of them are high-quality. And let’s be honest, after a while you get tired of the same looking photos. When that happens, this is where you want to go. It’s different, but really, really impressive.
LibreStock
LibreStock has a huge selection (probably the largest on this list), but the quality isn’t necessarily the highest. However, if you’re good at editing photos this might be your best destination. There is a lot to choose from, so it’s great for niche topics…or better yet, for the broad topics that you feel like you’re always using the same images for. It will also automatically connect you to other free photo sites if your search terms match (which can be a big bonus).
StockSnap
StockSnap was a new discovery for me and I’m really excited to start using it! They have a Pixabay type setup with a basic search engine, but also have the Unsplash and Death to Stock feature of weekly emails for new images. Many of the images are unique to StockSnap, so it’s a good fresh selection if you’ve been scouring the others for a while.
Picmonkey
I’ve added Picmonkey to my list for newbies, but it is not a stock photo site. It is a free photo editing tool, but the reason I’ve listed it is because it can be a lifesaver if you just can’t find the photo you’re looking for. There is a design option that you can choose that will allow you to design your own canvas. You won’t be able to design a photograph (obviously), but you can do some amazing things with just text and embellishments that will look 1000x better than a bad photo. Some of my most pinned images are actually just text images created on Picmonkey. Nothing is worse than a bad photo! Everything is visual these days, so if you can’t find the right image, just ditch it and create something original.
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17 Comments on 7 Websites with the Best Free Stock Photos
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This is such an awesome list, thank you so much for posting & sharing your knowledge!
I’ve used Pixabay but found that many other writers use it too. In fact, I found people using the same photos I picked. I mostly use Flickr now and have been very pleased with the photos. Just set the license to “free for commercial use” or “free to modify” (not certain of the exact wording). I will check out these other sites! Nice list! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Nikki,
Excellent list. Love it how you made every image into a pinnable visual. Now I can come back and repin it every week 🙂
I’m an avid photographer myself and support the creative community by offering free stock photos on my website. My site Is called OneLeft Media and it’s a thinking-outside-the-box stock photo library that offers professional artwork for free without copyright restrictions.
No nonsense, just quality artwork and easy downloads, the way it’s supposed to be 🙂
I also create new artwork and update the site every other week with 10 original photos.
My project can be visited at http://www.oneleftmedia.com. I Hope you like my work and I would feel honored if you could add me to your list.
Thanks again for the great article!
Lior
This list was incredibly helpful. Thank you so much!
Great article Nikki!
I started http://fancycrave.com/ 1 year ago as a side project. The site consists of completely free stock photos all taken by me and other professional photographers. My aim for these photos is to help designers and creative alike. People can use these images for whatever purpose they please. Each image is licensed under CC0.
I keep things very simple. I list the photo, its tags, the author, and the download link. The site layout is very minimal and straight forward. We strive to publish two new images every single day.
I hope you and others will find it valuable. If you see it fit, I’d be very grateful if you could add it to this list. Cheers!
Thank you for this awesome list 🙂 I have been looking for new sites to add to my bookmarks. I have an especially hard time finding negative space in photos!
Hopefully it will be helpful! I agree, that is the hardest! Try out Gratisography…I swear that photographer knows exactly what he’s doing, so there are a lot of cool ones with negative space.
Oops….meant to leave this reply on this comment thread, sorry about that 🙂
Woohooo – will do! Thanks Nikki!
This is a great list Nikki, thank you so much. I have used Pixaby and know of Pic Monkey, but never heard of the others, can’t wait to check them out. Pinning this now!
Thanks Jane! I’m sure you’ll be as excited as I was when you look some of them over. I thought Pixabay was the greatest thing ever until I really started to dig around for others…now it gets less and less of my attention (but it will always hold a special place in my heart as my first real stock photo site, lol :)). Let me know how it goes!
Great list! I’ll have to check out Stock Snap. I’m always looking for new (free) images that I can edit and use!
I use Pixabay and Librestock, but I didn’t know about some of the others. Pinned this post for reference later.
Thanks for this wonderful resource!
This is a great list of free stock photo sites! I will have to bookmark this so I can use it in the future!
This post is really helpful. I often use pixabay but I will now be checking some of the others out.
Thanks, Rachael.
Pixabay is still one of my favorites 🙂 But as I slowly start to use up all of their best images, I’m finding the others to be such a breath of fresh air!
Woohooo – will do! Thanks Nikki!