14 Best Sites for High-Quality Free Stock Photos
Finding the Perfect Free Stock Photo
Visuals have become one of the most important components of digital marketing and advertising – whether that’s creating eye-catching infographics, viral YouTube videos, or simply finding the perfect free stock photos for a social media post or email.
When it comes to that third option, the process may not actually be so simple thanks to copyright law. Not all photos can be used freely, so make sure to source images from the public domain and avoid accidentally “stealing” images to which you do not have the rights.
Creative Commons Zero and the Public Domain
Under the Creative Commons Zero license, bloggers, web designers, and social media marketers alike do not need to give credit to the photographer or the site you download the image from. You can use the free stock photos from the sites in this list for any reason, commercial or personal.
Here are Frozen Fire’s 14 Best Websites for Free High-Quality Stock Photos
These sites offer a consistent stream of unique, high-quality images that are a welcome departure from poorly made and edited stock photos. They all fall under the Creative Commons Zero license – use them however you want!
1. Vecteezy
Vecteezy is the most affordable stock photography marketplace with a library of over 50 million creative photos, vectors, and video from a contributor base of over 40,000 global artists. They offer over a million free stock photos that are safe for commercial use, and you can subscribe for a nominal fee to gain unlimited access to their entire library.
2. Pixabay
With over 930,000 stock photos, vectors, videos, and art illustrations to choose from, Pixabay is a massive free resource of which all marketers need to be aware.
3. Pexels
Pexels has a wide collection of imagery featuring plants and animals, people, travel, technology, and more. All pictures from this site are free to be used for any legal purpose.
4. Unsplash
The Unsplash team releases 10 new, beautiful high-resolution photos each week. Subscribe to their emailing list so you never miss out on these “do whatever you want” photos.
5. Gratisography
All the free high-resolution photos on Gratisography were captured by Photographer Ryan McGuire. He clearly has an artistic eye. You can use his photographs for any of your personal or commercial projects.
6. Negative Space
Every week, Negative Space releases 20 brand new photos under the Creative Commons Zero license. Follow their Instagram for a steady stream of attractive imagery.
7. Free Stocks
Free Stocks has a wide collection of free stock photos, with special emphasis on cities and architecture, fashion, and people.
8. Picography
The Picography stock photo collection offers a wide selection and the images downloaded from this site can be used for any personal or commercial project.
9. MMT
Jeffrey Betts founded MMT in 2014 to share his love of photography with the world. Check out his collections, featuring nature, cities, workspaces, and macro photography.
10. Skitterphoto
All photos from Skitterphoto are in the public domain. You can use them however you like! Check out their “Admin picks” on the home page for their latest favorite photos.
11. Life of Pix
The Life of Pix gallery is still growing, but offers some great image choices that consumers will not have seen anywhere else.
12. Foodies Feed
This site is your go-to for anything and everything food related. Download these pics for free from Foodies Feed and use them however and wherever you want.
13. Stocksnap
Stocksnap adds hundreds of new high-resolution images every single week, all from copyright restrictions. Use their popular searches page to quickly find the photo you need.
14. Burst
Use all the royalty-free photos from Burst by Shopify however you want. This site organizes photos by category and by the business you are trying to market.
We hope you use these awesome, free resources to save time and money. Thanks to this list, you can finally be free from cheap-looking stock photos. Happy marketing!
Have any questions about digital marketing? Contact Frozen Fire today.