7 Best Stock Free Image Sites to use photos Commercially (2020) (2024)

Last Updated on June 3, 2023

Having high-quality images that capture the imagination of your readers and that really help to drive home the message you are trying to portray in your web posts and pages, is vital.

Low-quality images will reflect low-quality content and can be off-putting. So where can you find the best stock-free images?

What Is a Stock Image

Stock photos are professional photos or designed images that are licensed for you to use.

Alternatively, stock free images and photos are ones that can be used commercially free and normally with no attribution.

There are numerous sites that offer stock photos and many of them you have to pay for. In this post, the focus is on sites that offer FREE stock images!

Why Your Online Business Needs Stock Photos

Unless photography is your niche and expertise, then finding dazzling quality photos that are colorful, clear and professional enough for your site, will be incredibly tough.

You can pay for stock photos and some sites include iStock and Shutterstock. But why pay when there are so many fantastic free stock photos you can use?

Not only can you get fantastic quality stock-free photos and images, but they, in most instances, can also be used for commercial use.

In other words, there are no limits or constraints for how and what you use the images for.

1. Pixabay

Pixabay is my personal favourite and offers over one million (yes you read that number correctly) great quality images.

The site is extremely easy to use. Just enter the term you are looking for images for.

If I enter the word ‘cake’ for example (I love cakes) then immediately I have a choice of 65 pages of results for my cakes search.

Avoid Clicking on the ‘Sponsored Images’ though as these are not free (see example below).

Before using stock-free images, there are a couple of things that it is well worth pointing out to you.

On some of the stock free images and photos sites (and including (Pixabay), they sometimes have a block of photos (usually with a different background colour) at the very top or bottom of the page, that are listed as sponsored images.

The ‘sponsored images by Shutterstock’ as you see on the top of Pixabay are photos you have to pay for.

Do not worry, as the majority of photos are free stock images and, even if you click on a sponsored image, you will know they want you to pay for it because they’ll make you create an account.

How to Download a Free Stock Image

Once you have found an image you would like to use on a site such as Pixabay, the process for downloading your image is extremely easy.

If I want to download this photo of what looks to me like some Black Forest cake, you click on the image and will then see the photo information.

On Pixabay (and this is similar on most stock-free images sites) the photographer’s information is on the top right of the photo page.

You can click the photographer’s information to see how many photos they have uploaded and how many hits those photos have had.

You also have the chance to buy them a ‘Coffee’ with the coffee button.

In essence, this means that you can make a contribution to them as a thank you for using their image. You do NOT have to do this and most people don’t.

Underneath the photographer’s information, you will then see the 2 most important pieces of information, that is the licensing information and the download button.

The fact that it says “Free for commercial use” and “No Attrition Required” is important.

No attribution means that you do not have to cite or mention where you got the photograph from. You can if you want to, but you do not need to.

And the ‘Free for commercial use’ is important to so many of us bloggers because this means that we can use the images on logos, on our websites, on our downloadable freebies and so on.

After Confirming that this is an image that you can freely use, click the download button and choose the size of the image you want to download.

2. Pexels.com

The site I use almost as much as Pixabay and that also has a great array of stock free photos for you to use and easily download, is Pexels.com.

I bet you’ve seen a picture just like this if you are a blogger, as this type of classic laptop and desk image is used by many bloggers on their downloadable freebies

Pexels have hundreds of thousands of images and just about every niche is covered, whether you are building a blog on fitness, wayfinding, travel, fashion or food.

You cannot go too far wrong with pexels.com in terms of finding a suitable image.

3. StockSnap

StockSnap is not as big as Pexels or Pixabay in terms of the number of images and photos they have available, but, if there is a particular photo you cannot find on other sites, definitely try StockSnap.

The one thing you need to be aware of with StockSnap is that the first 8 images they often list, are sponsored images. You will see the words “Shutterstock’ emblazoned over the sponsored images.

If I type in the word Hawaii (I really want to go there) then the results were 10 images, the first 8 of which are sponsored images.

For certain niches though, StockSnap seems to be very good, such as for food bloggers and travel bloggers.

So the trick with StockSnap is to use it but be more aware of the sponsored images.

4. Reshot Images

I did a search on ‘Reshot Images‘ by the term “Hawaii” and this time there are far more images than what I found on StockSnap.

What I really love about the ‘Reshot’ images site is that they tend to have many photos that you will often not see on other sites.

In other words, photographers do sometimes add their free-to-use photos onto several stock-free image sites.

With the ‘Reshot’ site though, they seem to have a niche following and thus many unique images.

Another thing I absolutely love about the ‘Reshot’ images site is that their usage policy for the stock free image is very clear. Here it is:

Not only do ‘Reshot’ images provide commercially free images, but they encourage you to use them, regards “Go Crazy”.

5. Picography

Picography is a lesser-known but still brilliant resource for you if you are keen on using superb photos and images on your site and for free.

Picography has far fewer photos than other sites, around 500 images in fact.

So this is definitely a site to use if you need a very specific photo or image, and could not find it on Pexels.com or Pixabay.com

This site is especially useful for scenic, technology, and nature images.

Their photos also are mostly taken with an artistic photographic style.

Being British, I was delighted to see a lovely photo of clotted cream, jam, and scones on their site. Looks delicious.

6. Shopify Burst

One of the newer introductions to the free stock images market is Shopify with their ‘Shopify Burst‘ site.

As one of the biggest platforms online and that makes it very easy for you and me to sell anything we want, online, I can see why Shopify has got involved with stock images.

Shopify is, in essence, making it easy for their shop owners (and for the rest of us bloggers) to easily find great and stunning quality images for free.

What I like a lot when using the Shopify Burst site to find images is the ‘Collections’.

The images are displayed a little bit like the way you find them on Pinterest in that, within each category, you can go a level or two deeper.

7. FreePik (Ideal for Free Vector Images)

Freepik is a little bit different from the other sites we have mentioned so far because the emphasis with Freepik is vector images.

If you are new to the concept of vector images, do not stress 🙂

What Is a Vector Image

Vector images are really images rather than photos and they are 2-dimensional images that use a mathematical formula and often using lines and curves, and other shapes.

In web design and blogging, vector images often use repeated graphics to create good backgrounds.

You can learn about vector images here if you so desire.

There are literally thousands of free vector images on Freepik, in addition also to a great selection of stock-free images and photos.

If you use Canva to design Pinterest images or for blog banners, you will likely already be familiar with using backgrounds to create images.

With Freepik though, along with the background images you have on Canva, you will never be short of background to use!

Worth Considering: Uploading Your Own Images for Others to Use for Free and Why

If you saw our video on getting your first 10 links on our post about link building for beginners, you might also be interested in using these stock free photos sites to create a profile link.

Now, as we mentioned in that post on link building for beginners, you do want to build links to your own site, from high-quality sites and preferably ones from your own niche.

If you have a number of great quality images though, that you are happy to share, and that relate to your niche, there are some benefits to uploading your own images and creating your own profile and they are that you can:

• Drive traffic to your site, attracting people who search for and find images related to your niche. It can be great for brand awareness.
• Add a link to your website.
• Make a little money from contributions (the ‘buy a coffee’ feature) if you add enough good quality images and people make a donation.

Final Thoughts

If you are serious about blogging and building your own business online, you really need to use high-standard images. You need to make an impression and to smell of quality.

There are many stock free image and photos sites and the ones above are the ones we use.

There really is no need to pay for the images you use on your site, but if you use one person’s images a lot then why not make a donation of a dollar or two.

Why not show some love!

It’s a win-win for everyone involved.