In any solid digital strategy, it is always essential to pay close attention to the content we publish on our blog, website, or social media channels. The images we use to support our posts and designs should be the highest quality possible and quickly convey the essence of the content. That is why, over time, many paid and free image banks have emerged where you can buy or download all the photos you need for your project.
Today I want to talk specifically about royalty-free images—photos taken by professional and amateur photographers and later made available for anyone to use freely and at no cost, without having to pay for them or provide attribution to the original creator. There are many platforms available for this.
The Best Free Stock Image Websites [Updated 2022]
If what you are looking for is royalty-free images to use on your website, blog, social media, or any other platform, the first thing you need to keep in mind is what type of photos you can legally use without violating any license terms. To do that, you should make sure that all the images and photographs you use carry a Creative Commons license. This type of license will allow you to use a photo without running into legal issues, but even so, I recommend checking whether the image has any restrictions, since sometimes commercial use may be limited, even if you can still use it in a blog post or a social media post.
For that reason, I’ve selected the image banks listed below, since you can use their photos without any need to credit the author, no matter how you plan to use them. So take note—here we go:
Pixabay
Pixabay is one of the image banks I use the most, since it offers hundreds of thousands of royalty-free images organized by category and an intuitive search engine. You can also download videos, vectors, and illustrations.
Free Images
Free images is another image bank I use frequently, along with many other users who need high-quality photos for their projects. It has a wide range of categories that make it easy to find exactly what you are looking for, along with a powerful search tool that lets you filter by things like resolution or horizontal vs. vertical orientation.
Unsplash
Unsplash is a photo bank where you can find thousands of completely free, royalty-free images in different resolutions. Its search engine also makes it easy to locate the photo you need, and if you sign up for its subscriber list, you’ll regularly receive new high-resolution images on a variety of topics.
Gratisography
Gratisography is another image bank you should keep on your radar if you are looking for high-quality and highly original images. The photos are organized into nine main categories (Animals, Business, Fashion, Food, Nature, Objects, People, Urban, Whimsical), and there are also eight collections full of creative photos that stand out from what you typically find on other stock image websites.
Pickup Image
Pickup image is a free high-quality photo bank with an excellent search engine that lets you enter keywords to find the right image for your needs. It also includes a feature that lets you browse the best photos from thousands of destinations around the world through a dedicated “destinations” section, as well as view the top images for the most popular tags.
Stocksnap
StockSnap is an image bank with more than 80 main categories, which are in turn organized by hundreds of tags so you can find your photos in a simple and efficient way. All images are royalty-free and can be downloaded in high resolution without any registration required.
Splitshire
Splitshire is also a completely royalty-free photo bank with images approved for commercial use. You’ll find them organized into nearly 20 different categories, and it also offers free downloadable video content.
FOCA Stock
FOCA Stock is an image bank made up of 15 main categories where you can find photos, videos, and templates for commercial use completely free of charge for your website, blog, or social media. It also includes predefined collections that can be a good source of inspiration when choosing the right images, as well as a very efficient keyword search engine.
Snapwire Snaps
Snapwire Snaps is a small Tumblr blog that functions as a royalty-free image bank you can use completely free of charge, featuring work created by more than 200,000 professional or semi-professional photographers. The images are organized into different collections and categories, and every seven days they add seven new free photos.
Free Nature Stock
Free Nature Stock offers thousands of photographs related to nature and landscapes. You can find the image you need through its simple search engine and download it in high resolution.
Kaboompics
Kaboompics makes all of its photos available with no restrictions and no attribution required. It is another one of those free image banks you should save as a go-to resource, especially for themes like food or abstract imagery, since you can find photos that look very different from what you see on other stock photo sites.
Barn Images
Barn Images is a free stock photo site with no licensing restrictions and no attribution required. The photos can even be edited or combined with a logo or any other image, since the license allows it. They can also be used for any commercial purpose, and the site includes a search engine so you can find and download images in high resolution.
Life of Pix
Life of Pix is one of my favorite free image banks, especially for large-format photography. All photos are high resolution and can be downloaded with a simple click on the button next to each image, with no registration required. In addition to its search tool and many tags that make it easy to find your photos, it also has a complete collection of free videos on different topics.
Pexels
Pexels describes itself as a stock image site with “the best free stock photos and videos shared by talented creators.” It has a large collection of high-quality images across many different topics for all kinds of uses. It also offers a powerful search engine, a trending section, and a free video download section.
Skitter Photo
Skitter Photo offers hundreds of public domain photos, meaning they are completely free and available for any use. It has a wide variety of images that can be easily found through its search engine, and they are also organized into more than 15 categories ranging from architecture and interior design to food, travel, and business.
Stockpic
Stockpic automatically sends you 10 new free photos every 15 days just for subscribing to its newsletter. It is an image bank with a wide variety of categories and a very simple search engine for finding the photo you need for your project. It also includes a section where you can view the latest 100 free photos uploaded to the platform.
Fancycrave
Fancycrave is much more than just an image bank, since it also features a full blog with updates and advice on SEO, social media, web design, and more that may be useful for your projects. You can find a complete collection of both free and paid high-resolution photos to download.
Shutteroo
Shutteroo is the personal image bank of photographer and designer Klaye Morrison. There you can find dozens of high-quality images available for free download and for any kind of use. If you also subscribe to the newsletter, you’ll periodically receive exclusive photos in your email.
Other Great Free Stock Image Websites
In addition to the ones mentioned above, which are among my regular go-to image banks, I also use some paid stock photo sites such as Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, and Creative Market, among others. However, there are also other free stock image websites that can complement the list above and help you find all the high-quality visual resources you need for your project without having to rely on paid images. Below is a list of some additional recommendations:
- https://startupstockphotos.com/
- https://jeshoots.com/
- https://picjumbo.com/
- https://www.howtostartanllc.org/free-stock-photos/
- https://magdeleine.co/
- https://travelcoffeebook.com/
- https://picography.co/
- https://www.stockvault.net/
- https://picjumbo.com/
- http://photopin.com/
- https://es.freeimages.com/
- https://freerangestock.com/
- https://www.rgbstock.com/
The Best Paid Stock Image Websites
As I mentioned earlier, in addition to the free image banks you’ve seen in this post, I often use certain paid stock image sites to get the best photographic resources for my projects. Here’s a short list so you can try them too whenever you need them:
Shutterstock
Shutterstock is one of those stock image sites where you will almost always find what you couldn’t find anywhere else. It offers subscription packages that let you purchase bundles of images at a very good price considering their quality and the fact that, in many cases, you won’t find them anywhere else.
Creative Market
Creative Market is a marketplace for photos, graphic resources, templates, icons, and much more that can give your project an incredibly professional look. You can also buy resource bundles, which makes it more affordable.
iStockPhoto
iStockPhoto is the right place to find high-quality, original images for your project. You can also find other resources such as vectors and videos, which can be purchased through credits or monthly subscriptions.
123rf
123rf is another go-to stock site for many designers and content creators. It allows you to download thousands of photos, vectors, and audio files, among other resources that can help your project stand out. It also gives you the option to purchase resources either through credits or monthly subscription plans.
Graphic River
Graphic River helps you find all the resources you might need for your project—not just images, but also logos, videos, presentations, audio files, ebook covers, and many other elements for your website.
As we’ve seen, there are hundreds of free and paid stock image websites on the internet offering different types of resources, but I hope this post helps you start building your own list of go-to sites where you can find the best photos and images for your project.
If you know of a stock photo site you use often to give your content a more professional look and it isn’t on this list, feel free to leave it in the comments!
