Revised September 21, 2020
Revised May 28, 2020
Revised February 9, 2018
There are lots of great reasons to include images with your blog posts and other marketing content. They add visual appeal. They can help with SEO. Visuals increase views on average by 94%. They improve information retention by up to 65%, increase engagement, and generate more likes and shares on social networks.
Can’t find an image that’s quite right to accompany your content on its own? No worries—there are numerous free and low-cost photo editing tools available that enable you to add layers, apply effects, overlay text, and make other enhancements to customize images.
It’s imperative, however, to understand photo licensing alternatives and avoid copyright violations. Don’t risk damaging your brand (and checkbook) by using random photos from a Google or Bing image search.
The sites below keep you safe by providing access to vast image libraries, in most cases free, with clear guidance on acceptable uses and any applicable attribution requirements.
Free Stock Photos
1) Pixabay
Google Review Count: 255
800,000+ free images and videos released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0. Use them royalty-free in any application. Attribution is not required. Registration on the site (free) is required.
Sample review: “Pixabay.com (offers) thousands of copyright-free images that can be used on your blog or even for commercial use.” — BuzzBlogger
Showcase reviews: BuzzBlogger, StoreYa Blog
2) morgueFile
Google Review Count: 233
Over 350,000 searchable free stock photos for commercial use. Attribution is required for unaltered images; registration is recommended though not required.
Sample review: “Finding great images to use is not easy, especially if you want to avoid stock image disaster. (Among) my favorite resources (is) MorgueFile (for) original non-stock-style photography.” — Kathryn Aragon Media
Showcase reviews: Kathryn Aragon Media
3) Unsplash
Google Review Count: 223
A large catalog of images; search or check out the site’s collections. All photos published on Unsplash are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means you can use them for any purpose, for free, without attribution. Registration is optional. This is an excellent source for nature photos (trees, mountains, lakes, and sky photos—lots of sky photos).
Showcase reviews: BuzzBlogger
4) Pexels
Google Review Count: 215
Another large, searchable image collection you can use for any purpose, without attribution. No registration required. Also check out the “popular searches” collections such as Christmas images, beach pictures, landscape pictures, and sunsets.
Sample review: “You should not spend more than the minimum on stock photos and video elements. With all the free stock items available…you are bound to find something valuable 99% of the time..(check out) Pexels (for) free and attention grabbing stock photos.” — StoreYa Blog
Showcase reviews: StoreYa Blog
5) PhotoPin
Google Review Count: 199
On the plus side, you can search across millions of creative commons images here (no cost), and no registration is required. However, attribution is required and some of the photos are not free for commercial use—you need to check the specific license for any image chosen.
Showcase reviews: BuzzBlogger
6) Compfight
Google Review Count: 195
Search for free photos and video clips. No registration required. License requirements (attribution, commercial use) vary, but you can use filters to limit your search, for example, only to “commercial” photos (images that can be used for commercial purposes).
Sample review: “Compfight is a visual locater that searches Flickr for commercial use photos. Make your brand stand out from the crowd with this step up from Google Images.” — Social Media Today
Showcase reviews: Kathryn Aragon Media, Likeable Media, Nikki Woods, Social Media Today
7) Creative Commons
Google Review Count: 170
Enables you to search across multiple sites for creative commons images with no registration required, but attribution requirements or other restrictions may apply—you’ll need to check the specific license for any image chosen.
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
8) StockSnap.io
Google Review Count: 170
Search across a large database of images under the Creative Commons CC0 license. That means you can copy, modify, distribute any photo on the site, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission or requiring attribution. Registration is optional.
Sample review: “Go here (to StockSnap.io) for free beautiful stock photos. I use them when building websites.” — Entrepreneur
Showcase reviews: Entrepreneur
9) Shutterstock
Google Review Count: 158
More than 100 million images and other content–photos, vectors, illustrations, icons, video clips, and music tracks. All content is royalty-free but must be purchased; plans start at $29 per month. No-cost registration provides limited free content each week.
Sample review: “Shutterstock (offers) a seemingly infinite library of stock photography to choose from.” — SnapApp
Showcase reviews: SnapApp
10) 123RF
Google Review Count: 123
Over 70 million searchable, categorized photos, vendors, icons, infographics, video clips, and audio files. All content is royalty free but must be purchased using credits; credits start at about $1 each, with volume discounts. The site also offers more than 45,000 free images. Registration is required.
Sample review: “One of the most affordable stock photography sites online. It’s about a dollar per image.” — BuzzBlogger
Showcase reviews: BuzzBlogger
11) FreeImages.com
Google Review Count: 121
Search or browse by category among nearly 400,000 free images. Attribution is not required for photos and registration is optional. The site also offers access to more than two million premium (purchasable) images.
Showcase reviews: Siasat
12) HubSpot Free Stock Photos
Google Review Count: 15
HubSpot’s library of 500+ free stock photos. No cost and no attribution is required, but registration is.
Sample review: “Searching for and buying stock imagery can be a pain in the you-know-what — especially when it comes to deciphering legalese for different use cases…That’s why our team decided to create a library of 550+ free and royalty-free stock photos. Whether it’s a unique image needed for an ebook or that perfect photo you want to add to a blog post, that collection should have you covered. ” — HubSpot
Showcase reviews: HubSpot
13) Smart Photostock
Google Review Count: 4
A collection of more than 3,600 categorized and searchable free images for bloggers. No cost, but registration and attribution are required.
Showcase reviews: Kathryn Aragon Media
More Free Stock Photo Sites
Stockvault.net
Google Review Count: 190
Over 110,000 categorized and searchable free photos. Attribution isn’t required and registration is optional, but the images are free only for “non-commercial use.”
Showcase reviews: WebpageFX
Freerange Stock
Google Review Count: 157
Thousands of categorized and searchable free photos. Attribution isn’t required but (free) registration is.
Showcase reviews: Mashable
Picfair
Google Review Count: 146
Sometimes you want an image more unique than what you’ll find on free sites. Picfair isn’t a free image site, but rather it is to photographers what the fair trade movement is to Central American coffee farmers: a way to sell a quality product at a fair price and reward the producer, rather than a big corporation. Photo prices here range from about $3 to $40, with most in the $15 to $20 range. The licensing could be simplified (one option, not three), but otherwise this is a worthwhile alternative to free sites or overpriced corporate photo collections.
Showcase reviews: The App Times
DreamsTime
Google Review Count: 137
Search from more than 120 million royalty-free images, plus vector graphics, illustrations, video, and audio files. With a monthly plan, per-image costs range from $0.26 to $5. Search by keyword or browse categories such as cool backgrounds, artificial intelligence, food, business photos, snow scenes, and more.
Showcase reviews: Stock Photo Secrets
JumpStory
Google Review Count: 80
In rare cases, free stock photo sites screw up a copyright and you can be left with unwanted legal headaches and expense. For a modest cost ($25 per month, or $195 per year), JumpStory gives you unlimited downloads from a library of 25 million images, backed by global insurance against copyright infringement claims.
Showcase reviews: Stock Photo Advisor
PikWizard
Google Review Count: 77
A searchable library of more than 100,000 images (and growing daily) that can used without attribution. Registration is optional. Unlike many stock photo sites, this one includes quite a few pictures of people.
Showcase reviews: Michael Hartzell
Burst (by Shopify)
Google Review Count: 46
Thousands of free, categorized photos, particularly well-suited for ecommerce sites. Attribution isn’t required but is suggested. Enter your email address to get new free stock photos sent to your inbox every week.
Showcase reviews: Dream Weaver Diaries
Wunderstock
Google Review Count: 34
Wunderstock is a free photo library that provides access to tens of thousands of high quality public domain photos plus extended results for 10+ million Creative Commons images on Flickr. Explore photos based on a dozen popular categories (like People, Business, or Animals) or search and filter by orientation, source, and license type.
Showcase reviews: Dustin Stout
Exposure
Google Review Count: N/A
Exposure is a free tool to search for free stock images across various sites. It’s designed to save time and effort for anyone searching for free images on the web. All the images listed are free for personal and commercial use. The selection is a bit thin in some categories, but the database continues to expand.
Showcase reviews: N/A
Free Stock Videos
1) Videvo
Google Review Count: 160
Free stock video footage—more than 5,000 free stock videos and motion graphics for use in any project. These video clips can be used free of charge, in both personal and commercial productions. Registration is required; attribution is required for footage uploaded under the Creative Commons licence.
Sample review: “If you need video clips to create a video for your brand, (Videco offers) different elements that might help you create something engaging.” — StoreYa Blog
Showcase reviews: StoreYa Blog
2) Coverr
Google Review Count: 154
A large collection of beautiful, free homepage background videos. Just choose and download a video, upload it to your website, then add a few snippets of code to the page. No cost, no attribution required.
Showcase reviews: StoreYa Blog
3) Mazwai
Google Review Count: 99
Another large collection of beautiful, free homepage background videos you can download and use elsewhere.
Showcase reviews: StoreYa Blog
4) ProVideoFactory
Google Review Count: 63
Not free but not expensive, ProVideoFactory offers access to 150,000+ HD video clips starting at $149 per year; for a little more, you can upgrade to 4K video downloads. Popular categories include Aerials, Nature, Medical, Timelapse, Business, Wildlife, Slow Motion, Sports, and Lifestyle video clips.
Showcase reviews: Reddit
Showcase Reviews
BuzzBlogger
Dream Weaver Diaries
Dustin Stout
Entrepreneur
HubSpot
Kathryn Aragon Media (link no longer worked; a rare fail on Kathryn’s part)
Likeable Media
Mashable
Michael Hartzell
Nikki Woods (wow, Nikki too!)
Reddit
Siasat
SnapApp
Social Media Today
Stock Photo Advisor
Stock Photo Secrets
StoreYa Blog
The App Times
WebpageFX
This was the 42nd post in the Best Online Business Tools series.
#1: Best Online Business Tools Series Kicks Off Today
#2: The 12 Best Competitive Intelligence and Benchmarking Tools
#3: The Nine Best Facebook Marketing Tools
#4: The 14 Best Content Planning and Research Tools
#5: The 23 Best Content Ideation Tools
#6: The 24 Best Online Writing Tools and Apps
#7: The Six Best Google+ Marketing Tools
#8: The Four Best Online Education Tools For Business Pros
#9: The 14 Best Marketing Automation Tools
#10: The 17 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO and SEM
#11: The Seven Best File Sharing Tools
#12: The Five Best Infographic Creation Tools and Services
#13: The 28 Best Influencer Marketing Tools
#14: The Five Best Pinterest and Instagram Marketing Tools
#15: The 24 Best Visual Content Creation Tools
#16: The Six Best Online HR, Payroll, and Employee Scheduling Tools
#17: The 20 Best SEO Rank Tracker Tools
#18: The Six Best Screen Capture Tools
#19: The 15 Best Special-Purpose SEO Tools
#20: The Four Best Online Survey Tools
#21: The 26 Best All-in-One SEO Tool Suites
#22: The 32 Best Twitter Marketing Tools
#23: The 29 Best Web Analytics Tools
#24: The 24 Best Email Marketing Tools
#25: The 28 Best Web Design Tools
#26: The 29 Best Social Media Monitoring Tools
#27: The 17 Best Project Management Tools
#28: The 21 Best Content Curation Tools
#29: The 26 Best WordPress Plugins
#30: The 14 Best Personal Productivity Tools
#31: The 11 Best Social Media Campaign Builders and Ad Monitoring Tools
#32: The 12 Best Landing Page and Form Builders for Conversion Rate Optimization
#33: The 17 Best Photo Editing Tools
#34: The Six Best Accounting and Finance Tools for Small Business
#35: The 15 Best Content Distribution and Amplification Tools
#36: The 17 Best Social Media Management Tools
#37: The 23 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Digital Marketers
#38: The 15 Best Audio and Video Editing Tools
#39: The Eight Best Social CRM Tools
#40: The Nine Best Reputation Management, RSS, and Social Search Tools
#41: The 15 Best Screencasting and Online Presentation Tools
#42: The 16 Best Sites for Free Stock Photos and Videos
Grace Davis says
Shutterstock is not a free site in any way. It’s a great site, but not free.
I’d say replace it with https://freerangestock.com, which offers many thousands of great images, totally free for commercial use, no attribution required.
(Yes, I’m clearly affiliated!)
Tom Pick says
Hi Grace, thanks for the feedback! True, Shutterstock photos aren’t free (though account registration is). I debated whether to include them, but the site is often included in these roundups for bloggers and writers looking beyond what free sites offer. And I noticed they are a Freerange Stock partner. 🙂 So – I’ve kept Shutterstock, but added Freerange Stock as well. Looks like a great resource!
Monika says
Try also http://monisphoto.com/ – free photos available for personal or commercial use.
Tom Pick says
Thanks Monika, I will check that out!
Amada Chan says
Hi Tom, thanks for sharing this content… lots of options here 🙂
Tom Pick says
You’re welcome Amada. There are indeed – lots of good options! 🙂