» The 8 best stock photo sites in 2025

Indemnification is legal protection against legal liability, specifically the misuse of stock assets, in this case. Indemnification does not protect you, however, if you breach the terms of the image’s license. Legally, any copyrighted work must be attributed to its copyright holder whenever it is used. However, attribution rules can vary greatly depending on the type of license applied.

What’s the deal with model releases in stock photos?

Contributors can sell illustration and video as well as still photos.
With no licensing fees or attribution required, Pixabay is a convenient option for anyone looking to add visuals to their project.
If it seems too good to be true, you may end up paying a higher price later.
This online editor allows you to modify and adjust the image according to your requirements.

BigStock is owned by Shutterstock, and runs a fairly similar service. Both offer good quality images and a range of payment options, including subscriptions and credit packs. The main difference between them is that Shutterstock’s library is larger – although BigStock does have over 125 million royalty-free photos, vectors and illustrations, so it is not small. Also, its free trial offer comes with 35 free images, by far the most generous on our list. DepositPhotos has a solid reputation as a go-to choice for an array of creative professionals, including website owners, television production teams, social media publishers, and newsrooms.

You can choose an individual subscription, a Pro subscription if you want to add other members to your plan, and a one-time fee option. Both the Individual plan and the Pro plan can be billed yearly or monthly. For the individual subscription, you get access to JumpStory’s entire library and your own online archive to store the images. Envato Elements is the largest all-in-one creative subscription, offering access to millions of assets, from stock photos and videos to fonts, music, templates, and motion graphics. An Elements subscription gives you and your team unlimited downloads of over 11 million assets for one low cost.

Can we use stock images without paying for them?

However, it can be a bit overwhelming to sift through such a large collection. What’s more, not all of Shutterstock’s content is created equally – some content is more desirable than other content. Extended License is a license that gives you, as the name gives away, bonus rights added to the standard Royalty-Free agreement. For a higher cost, this adds perks like unlimited copies, extra seats, and more importantly, the right to use photos in products that you can resell for a direct profit. If you’re looking for the prestigious photos of Getty Images, Getty Images Ultrapacks are very convenient, saving you up to 15% off regular price and making premium photos more affordable.

Moreover, if you regularly take photos of delicious dishes from different restaurants, you can also contribute to Foodiesfeed. As a food/recipe blogger, you can bring some tasty creations to Foodiesfeed for others to indulge in. With hundreds of thousands best stock photography sites of photos, you will probably find something interesting while browsing Unsplash.

Attribution

There’s everything from stylized shots to more playful and simple images. They also provide royalty-free videos, music, templates, and special effects. Yay Images provides over 12 million stock images, vectors, and videos, sourced directly from 18,000 photographers from over 145+ countries.

Unsplash: The Free-spirited Hipster 🆓

And you will be downloading high definition stock photos for as little as $0,22 each!
Jay mantri is a small, free stock photo depository run by a single person.
All the photos are released as CC0 so you’re free to use them in commercial projects.
All pictures are licensed under a CC0 license so you can use them for any personal or commercial purpose.

These images are created by experienced photographers using high-end cameras, proper lighting setups, and professional editing techniques. I’ve found that premium stock photo platforms carefully curate their collections, ensuring technically flawless images with proper composition, lighting, and focus. This professional quality extends to specialized categories like food photography, architecture, or business settings—areas that require particular expertise to photograph effectively.

The site also offers free vectors, web templates, PSDs, font, video foot, wallpapers, brushes, and patterns. Barnimages is a collection of free images offered by two Latvian photographers. You’ll find unique photos here that aren’t on other sites, and new images are added weekly.

Best Practices to Use Free Stock Images

This clarity can be helpful for people who don’t know the details about copyright. Commercial and editorial are the two main types of images licenses available to Dreamstime contributors. Dreamstime has model release form templates and info on how to fill them out. But audio files earn 34% on Level 1 and 42% on Level 5, so it pays to have a bit of musical ability.

Startup Stock Photos

Adobe has dived headfirst into the digital imaging industry, so it makes sense that they’d try their hand at stock photography. Some time ago, Adobe Stock absorbed Fotolia, a prominent stock image source. Therefore, Adobe started out with a large, developed catalog for customers to choose between.

There are other plans for 25, 40, or 750 assets (or 3, 6, or 25 HD videos) a month. For 750 standard assets, shell out $199.99 monthly on a yearly commitment (otherwise, $249.99 monthly). Beyond the first tier, you get savings if you opt for yearly rather than monthly payments. It has the most eclectic media library, with videos, illustrations, graphic art, and 3D models.

But over five million high-resolution images for free isn’t bad at all. It’s the most extensive stock photo site, with over one billion images to search through. This is because they were one of the first stock photo sites around. Stocksy is one of the best paid stock photo websites, but at the same time, they’re highly selective about choosing contributing photographers.