17+ Best Stock Photo Websites For 2024 (Most Are Free)
Pictures are worth a thousand words.
But pictures on your WordPress website are only worth a thousand words if they’re high-quality images that are relevant to your site’s content. Otherwise, they are just cheesy, boring, and visually unappealing.
If you join the masses and use the same stock photos every other website owner is using, your site visitors are going to take notice. And the last thing you want is to blend in with the rest of the crowd.
Luckily, you can find beautiful stock images for your WordPress website all over the internet if you know where to look. And the best part is, many of them are free!
If you’re ready to take your website to the next level and make it more visually appealing than ever, check out this roundup of the best places to source stock images and keep your site visitors engaged from the moment they arrive.
The best stock photography websites
1. Envato Elements
Envato Elements is an unlimited subscription service catering to the digital needs of agencies, marketers, and other professionals who need a lot of stuff – all the time.
With a monthly subscription, not only do you have access to an unlimited number of photo downloads, you can also download themes, plugins, videos, music, graphics, fonts, and more.
Not to mention, subscribers are privy to over 1,200 video courses and eBooks from EnvatoTuts+, which will help educate you on how to make the most of the digital assets you are downloading.
Price: $16.50/month.
2. Shutterstock
Shutterstock is one of the most well-known stock image collection sites, offering users over 250 million high-quality, licensed photos and adding an impressive 200,000 more per day.
In addition to stock photos, Shutterstock provides access to vector images, editorial pieces, music, video footage, and more.
Plus, you can create and share collections, access Shutterstock through popular applications like Adobe and PowerPoint, and even create engaging social media posts with the built-in editing tools.
With plans to meet every budget, whether you’re a solopreneur or a large corporation, Shutterstock has your image needs covered.
Price: Monthly plans start at $29/month for 10 images and increase in price as the number of downloads increase. You can also purchase pre-paid photo packs for one-off projects.
3. Vecteezy
Vecteezy offers millions of free, high-quality stock photos. Their collection also includes vectors, illustrations, and 4K stock videos. While most of the resources are free to download, Vecteezy also offers a collection of Pro resources through a subscription.
Pro subscribers get unlimited downloads of the entire collection of images (vectors and stock photos).
With unlimited downloads and budget-friendly pricing, a Vecteezy Pro subscription is perfect for designers, freelancers, and hobbyists who frequently need beautiful content at the most affordable price.
Price: Free or Pro subscriptions starting at $9/month for exclusive vectors, photos, and videos. Vecteezy also offers pay-as-you-go credits for downloads of Pro resources, starting at $10 for one image.
4. StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io has thousands of high-quality stock photos for all your website needs, all organized into convenient categories for easy access.
With an easy to use search function, you can quickly find the exact type of photo you’re looking for if the categories you see don’t work for you.
And if you want an image that’s not that popular, so you don’t end up using images everyone else is using, you can check each photo’s views, likes, and downloads. To top it off, StockSnap always adds hundreds of new photos weekly.
Price: FREE
5. Fancycrave
Fancycrave is a collection of stock images that claim to be unique, artistic, and full of emotion, making them perfect for creatives wanting to stand out from the crowd.
Browse by category, preview photo packs before buying them, and even learn a little bit about some of the image sets, so you can have some context about them and give them the value they deserve.
If you find yourself on a limited budget, there are plenty of free photos to choose from too.
Need help creating your next big web project? Check out the blog, broken into categories such as Apps and Resources, Photography, SEO, and Social Media.
Price: FREE, or sign up for a membership to access 41 premium collections (and over 2,050 photos) for $9.99/month ($79.99/year for a 33% savings).
6. Pexels
Pexels sets out to empower creators by giving them access to hundreds of thousands of free stock images to suit any need.
Each image is conveniently tagged and searchable, making your life a lot easier when it comes to finding the perfect picture.
They’re also hand-picked from photos uploaded by users or sourced from free image websites like Little Visuals, Gratisography, and Pixabay, so you can trust them to be the best.
When you find a photo you like, choose from several size options when downloading, including a custom size. And if you really like an image you see, you can always like it for others to see.
Price: FREE
7. Unsplash
Unsplash is a unique stock photo site that offers people images not likely to be found elsewhere. And to make things even better, these images are free do-whatever-you-want photos taken by generous photographers willing to let you use their work.
Every ten days, ten fresh new photos are released, so you know you’ll always have the newest stock photos around. And since every photo is published under the Creative Commons Zero license, you’re free to copy, modify, distribute, and use all images without attribution.
Price: FREE
8. Reshot
Reshot is a stock photo resource full of hand-picked images that any freelancer, startup business owner, or marketer can use to add some visual appeal to their website and keep site visitors engaged.
One thing Reshot tries to do is give emerging photographers a platform to share their best work on, while giving creatives in need of beautiful photography an easy and affordable way to get some for their projects.
This free exchange photography platform may not have as many images as some of the other stock photo sites, but you better believe the quality is there.
Price: FREE
9. Pixabay
Pixabay comes with over 1.6 million photos to pick from, giving you the opportunity to find something truly unique for your website.
The interface is simple to use and easy to navigate, so don’t let the sheer number of choices scare you. And if you need some help wading through the images, you can filter based on photographs, illustrations, or vector to narrow your results.
Lastly, take advantage of the fact that Pixabay offers free video content to people too, which you can include on your website as an added bonus for site visitors.
Price: FREE
10. Foodiesfeed
Foodiesfeed is the perfect stock photo site for anyone with a food blog. The delicious images you’ll find here are so detailed, you might forget they aren’t real when you view them.
Choose from over 1,300 photos, filter according to food types (pizza, cake, or coffee anyone?!), and check out the popular tags too, such as top viewed, healthy, and vegan.
As you scroll through images you like, you’ll also be shown related images to help you finalize your project. Trust us, no matter what kind of food blog you run, these yummy photos will only enhance the user experience.
Price: FREE
11. Getty Images
Getty Images is a high-profile photo site that has over 200 million creative, editorial, video, and music assets for advertisements, graphic design, print, in-house design, marketing, and online use.
Just search for an image you like and click on it. You’ll then see multiple image dimensions (extra small, small, medium, and large) that you can purchase, each of them varying in price according to size.
There’s also a wide range of tools, content, and services available to help you with your project and make it just right.
Price: Single images start at $375 or $499/download, with discounts for purchasing photo packs. If you have a team in need of images, there are solutions that include no download limits and collaboration tools.
12. Gratisography
Gratisography is another amazing stock photo site that serves up new high-resolution images each week, all of which are covered under the Creative Commons Zero license.
All photos are taken by experienced photographer Ryan McGuire. He boasts having the “quirkiest collection of free high-resolution pictures” that you just can’t find anywhere else.
In fact, if you’re looking for the status quo, Gratisograhy is not for you. If you are looking for a refined collection of beautiful and unique images, however, this is the place to be. Search for photos using the search, browse the categories, or just take a peek at the homepage and see what’s trending.
Price: FREE
13. New Old Stock
New Old Stock is comprised of old, vintage photos that come from the public archive via Flickr Commons.
Some of these images are old school, some are in black and white, and some are just throwbacks to earlier times that are intended to spark up a feeling of nostalgia.
If you need to add a little bit of history to your site’s content, and want to pull at the heartstrings of your site visitors, hop on over to New Old Stock and see what’s in store for you today.
Price: FREE
14. Kaboompics
Kaboompics, created by the talented Karolina, is a royalty-free service of stock images for lifestyle, interior design, and specialty blogging sites. There are over 12,000 photos on the site and counting.
And to make things even better, all images come with several size options, a downloadable color palette to complement each photo, and additional photographs that match the photoshoot that you can view and download too, so you have more beautiful images to choose from for your website’s content.
Price: FREE
15. Death to Stock
Death to Stock creators know how complicated it can be to find the right images for projects that aren’t the same old boring stock photos. That’s why they created a photo library membership filled with carefully curated photographs.
Every single picture on the site is meticulously chosen and tagged so users like you can find what you’re looking for with ease.
All you have to do is subscribe to Death to Stock to access over 3,500 photos and hours of video content. And, to keep things fresh, they release a new media pack each month for subscribers to take advantage of.
Price: $12/month for small businesses, $21/month for agencies, and $399/year for partners.
16. NegativeSpace
NegativeSpace is a great website that offers up new and free stock photos every week for use on personal or commercial projects.
Aiming to create a community made up of photographers wanting to share their work, and creatives looking for stunning imagery without restrictions, NegativeSpace wants everyone to shine.
One of the coolest things about the filtering system on NegativeSpace is that you can filter images based on a color, which is perfect for those needing images that match their brand. And if you want the latest images delivered straight to your inbox, all you have to do is sign up for their email list.
Price: FREE
17. Picography
Picography is a sleek stock photo site that makes funding the perfect photo for your website a cinch, so you can focus on other parts of your website or online business.
Check out the most popular search terms of the day, enter your own search query, or even check out one of the many categories organizing photographs for you, so you don’t have to do all the work.
And to refine your search further, just click on the available tags so you know when you download the image of your choice, it’s the right one.
Price: FREE
18. StockUnlimited
StockUnlimited has a portfolio of over 1 million stock photos, vectors, icons, fonts and templates at your disposal with their subscription plan.
Broken down into over 25 categories such as wildlife, beauty and retro, you’ll find something suitable regardless of your niche.
Subscribers have unlimited royalty-free access to the portfolio, along with unlimited downloads. In addition, StockUnlimited adds thousands of extra images to their portfolio every week.
Price: $19/month, $79/year or $169/3 years. They also have a Download Pack plan, where you can download a set number of assets for a fixed fee, this starts at $9 for 10 assets.
Stock photo sites: honorable mentions
It would be impossible to link to every amazing stock photo site on the internet. That said, it is worth adding a few more to the mix, just in case the ones above aren’t quite what you’re looking for:
Wrapping up
And there you have it! Over 17 of the best stock photo sites on the internet today.
Don’t let your website, social media posts, marketing campaigns, or email newsletters fall victim to cheesy, boring stock photos.
Instead, take it upon yourself to find the perfect photos to match you brand, engage site visitors, and encourage further site exploration or sales.
Looking for more design resources? Be sure to check out our article on the best free websites for vector illustrations.
And if you’d like to make money from your photos, check out our article on how to sell photos online.
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