Do you use stock photos for your online marketing?
Are the costs starting to pile up?
Here’s a helpful list of the best websites for cheap stock photos that will keep a little coin in your pocket.
In a hurry?
Save it now, Read it later.
Cut the costs of your images with these free resources for cheap stock photos.
Have you ever spent hours searching for the perfect image to use in your blog article or social media post just to find out that it costs an arm and a leg to use?
If you’re anything like me, you know the value of a well-executed photograph, and paying for the perfect photo is totally worth it. But because of the high number of blog and social media posts that we need to create to effectively reach our audiences, spending a lot of money each time we need a photo isn’t financially sustainable.
Fortunately for us, there are very generous photographers that are willing to let us use some of their photos at little to no cost.
Here is a list of the best websites for cheap stock photos:
⭐️ Highly Recommended!
1. UnSplash
Over 300,000 free (do whatever you want) high-resolution photos brought to you by the world’s most generous community of photographers.
Check here for license details
2. Gratisography
High-resolution pictures added weekly by Ryan McGuire. Donate to his Coffee fund to show your appreciation for his generosity.
Check here for license details
💡 Tip:
Pay close attention to the terms of use and licensing for each website. Some of the resources require attribution when using their photos, and some do not.
3. Split Shire
Splitshire is a hobby project by Daniel Nanescu, an Italian photographer, and an all-around nice guy. So far he has generated over 80,000 downloads. Sign up for his newsletter or give him a donation hug.
Check here for license details
4. Little Visuals
Nic, the creator of Little Visuals passed away in 2013, but his family has decided to keep this project up and continue giving away his images for free. They’ve added a few donation links to the Hand of Heart Charity, so if you use any of Nic’s pics, please let his family know.
Check here for license details
Nic, The founder of Little Visuals passed away unexpectedly in 2013 of a cardiac episode. His family decided to keep the site up and running in his memory and have asked that anyone who wishes to give back, do so by donating to the Hand on Heart Charity which supplies schools with portable defibrillators.
5. Lifeofpix
High-resolution photos, added weekly, by Leeroy Ad Agency in Montreal. Pretty awesome, eh? I love my Canadian neighbors.
Check here for license details
6. Stocksnap.io
Stocksnap.io was founded by Marc Chouinard and Christopher Gimmer. It boasts hundreds of high-resolution images added weekly.
Check here for license details
7. Death to the Stock Photo
Death to the Stock Photo was created by Allie and David, two photographers, who decided to share their photos with the internet. They have a newsletter and a podcast and a premium membership. You have to sign up for the newsletter to get the pics, but it’s worth it. Soooo worth it.
Premium: $10/month
Check here for license details
8. Superfamous
Studio of LA-based Dutch designer, Folkert Gorter. There are a lot of gorgeous landscape photos in his collection.
Check here for license details
9. Picjumbo
Over 1 Million downloads since 2013. Picjumbo is the product of Viktor Hanacek, a web designer and shutterbug who’s photos were turned down by other stock houses so he flipped them the bird and created his own service. #boss
Check here for license details
10. IM Creator
A curated collection of free resources which includes many photos. Because it’s a curated collection the license and restrictions will vary depending on the resource.
Check each image for license details
11. New Old Stock
Vintage photos from the public archives. Curated by Cole Townsend, a web and iOS visual designer.
Check here for license details
12. Snapwire Snaps
Snapwire is a paid stock image library, but it curates a list of 7 hand-picked, high-quality free photos every 7 days and shares them on their Tumblr.
Check here for license details
13. Jay Mantri
7 new photos every Thursday. It’s that easy. Jay has a killer Instagram feed too, follow.
Check here for license details
14. The Pattern Library
A project by Tim Holman and Claudio Guglieri who share repeating tileable patterns created by some Uh-mazing designers. The UI is a little unexpected but in a fun way.
15. Reshot
A growing collection of free photos from creatives all around the globe.
Premium: $10/month
Check here for license details
16. Foodies Feed
Personal project of Jakub from Prague who provides free high-resolution food pictures just to make all of us hungry while we browse his collection. His girlfriend cooks most of the food in the photos.Check here for license details
18. Picography
Free high-resolution images provided by Hidden Depth, a web design agency based in Dublin, Ireland.
Check here for license details
19. Iso Republic
ISO Republic provides high-quality free photos. Founded in 2014 by Tom Eversley, a designer, and photographer from England.
Check here for license details
⭐️ Highly Recommended!
20. Pexels
5 new high-quality photos added every day. The image subject matter varies quite a lot but the search and tags make finding what you need on Pexels a breeze.
Check here for license details
21. Free Images
FreeImages was launched in early 2001. It has over 2.5 million registered users and around 400k photos. You must create an account to download images.
Check here for license details
22. Pixabay
Over 300,000 photos, vector images and art illustrations all free for the taking. Pixabay is easily one of the top free image resources that exist today.
Check here for license details
23. Compfight
Compfight is an image search engine. It pulls images from Flickr.
Check here for license details
24. MorgueFile
Created way back in 1996 by Michael Connors, the MorgueFile contains photos contributed by many different photographers and artists.
Check here for license details
25. Good Free Photos
Good Free Photos is a gallery of over 22500 free public domain stock photos. All photos are categorized by location for travel photos, animal and plant photos, and types of objects.
Check here for license details
26. PLiXS
PLiXS is an online photo community for creative people who want to share their fantastic impressions with other enthusiasm artists.
Check here for license details
27. JeShoots
JÉSHOOTS was created in 2014 by web and UI designer, Jan Vasek from Prague, Czech Republic and so far it’s registered more than 800,000 downloads.
Check here for license details
28. Cupcake
Cupcake is the brainchild of the photographer, Jonas Wimmerström from Malmo, Sweden.
Check here for license details
⭐️ Highly Recommended!
29. Kaboom Pics
Every month, over 80,000 people from 209 countries visit Kaboompics, a royalty-free service for stock images created by photographer and designer Karolina.
Check here for license details
29. Albumarium
Created by Vilem Ries, a UI designer at Google from Zurich, Switzerland.
Check here for license details
Last but not least, you.
There is nothing more powerful than an original image. Regardless if you have a smartphone, a point-and-shoot camera, or a powerful DSLR, you have the ability to shoot some pretty stunning photos. And if there is one drawback to using free stock images, it’s that your business competitors might be using the same photos.
🔥 Let’s Discuss!
What’s your favorite cheap stock photo website? What kinds of stock photos (landscapes, people, food) do you use most often? What’s the weirdest stock photo you’ve seen? 😜 Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This Post Has 7 Comments
Hi Ben, thank you for including SplitShire in your awesome list.
My pleasure Daniel. 🙂
I’am the founder of https://plixs.com we serve thousands of high quality images with public domain license cc0. That means, all images on PLiXS are free for personal and commercial use. Maybe you can add PLiXS to your article? Thanks
You caught me on my birthday. I probably won’t add it today, but I’ll try to add it in a few days.
These are great suggestions. Thanks! I had been stuck in a rut with one or two sites, and this post really opens things up.