Top 10 FREE Stock Image Websites
When you’re starting up a new business, it’s crucial to look the part in order to build trust with your potential customers!
One of the most detrimental things you can do for your business is use low quality or copyrighted images. There really is nothing worse than showing up on someone’s website only to see fuzzy, pixelated, or stretched out images straight from a Google image search. And as website designers, we hate to see people fill up their brand new site with photos that let the rest of their content down.
The thing is, forking out hundreds (or sometimes even thousands) of dollars for professional photography that’s unique to your business just isn’t in the budget for everyone. And we totally understand that!
It takes a ton of time, energy, and money to build a business from the ground up, and it’s not always realistic to assume that you’ll have the resources to hire a professional or even take your own photos all the time, which is why stock images are such an incredible tool.
So, in order to help you utilize this tool to the fullest, we’ve compiled a list of what we believe are the top 10 free (yes, 100% free!) stock image websites. All of these are excellent choices for getting beautiful, high res and brand aligned photos for your website. Plus, we’ve also attached a link to the licensing info for each site to make sure that you’re totally clear on what is and is not allowed.
Let’s dive in!
How to Choose Images That Fit Your Brand
Before we hand over the goods, let’s chat a bit about choosing the best images possible for your website!
Imagery really is just one aspect of the overall visual design of your site. You also need to have a strong brand identity with a cohesive aesthetic (we’re talking logo, illustrations, colors, fonts, etc.). So, before you start searching for stock images, it’s important to nail down your brand design. This will help you feel much more confident moving into the next phase of actually choosing your photos.
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Once you have that sorted, consider these few points as you begin your search for the perfect pictures:
Filters: Do you want photos with heavy filters or any filter at all? Does the natural color of a photo fit your brand aesthetic, or does it need a slight adjustment to mingle better with your other elements? Pay attention to the editing style of photos and try to stick with photos that look like they could have been shot and edited by the same person.
Mood & Emotion: What feeling do you want the photos on your website to evoke? Is your vibe happy, moody, chaotic? If you plan on using a lot of images of people and their faces, this is especially important. You want your pictures to look good, but you also want them to make sense in the context of your brand.
Target Audience: Always make sure to view images through the lens of your target audience. Are you choosing photos that they will like and relate to? Are they going to see themselves reflected in the images on your website?
Cohesiveness: It’s so important that all of your images work well together and look good together. Keep an eye out for sore thumbs or images that stand out (in a bad way) among the others. View your images as a collective bundle rather than individually. Ideally, you’d be able to pluck any image you’ve downloaded and place it on your site without having to worry about whether or not it will fit.
If you want even more tips, we have a full blog post detailing how to find and choose the perfect images for your brand that you can check out!
The Top 10 Best FREE Stock Image Websites
And now, without further ado, here are our favorite websites for finding free stock images:
1. Unsplash
Unsplash has been and always will be a favorite of ours!
They offer over 6 million high res photos and illustrations, free to use on your website, and the platform is super easy to navigate. They even offer “collections” of images so that you can conveniently find photos with the same vibe.
Plus, Squarespace and Unsplash have a partnership that allows you to search directly within your website editor for stock images. To utilize this feature:
Navigate to any image block on your Squarespace site and when prompted to add an image, choose Browse Stock Images
You can then use the search bar to look for totally free images that fit your brand!
Check out Unsplash’s License Deets
2. Pexels
Pexels claims to have “the best free stock photos, royalty free images & videos shared by creators,” and they definitely live up to that!
This is another one of our favorites, simply because they just have SO many photos to choose from. If you come to Pexels and can’t find what you’re looking for, then you might need to revisit your specifications because they truly have everything.
You can browse photos by popular collections, photography topics, color, or simply just type in keywords to search all of their inventory.
Check out Pexels’ License Deets
3. Dupe Photos
Dupe is perfect for anyone looking for photos that feel like they came straight from Pinterest or Instagram.
Their main goal is to provide photos that actually look like you could have taken them yourself, while still keeping things high quality and no fuss. The platform is very reminiscent of Pinterest, which makes it fun to browse, and they also make it easy to connect with the photo creators themselves so that you can continue to follow and support them.
Check out Dupe’s License Deets
4. KaboomPics
KaboomPics offers a large library of curated free stock images that have a very editorial vibe.
The platform is super user friendly and you can search by keyword, category, or color. They also have “photoshoots” that you can browse which are basically just collections of images that have come from the same photoshoot, so you know that they will all look great together!
Check out KaboomPics’ License Deets
5. Pixabay
With over 5 million stock images, Pixabay is another massive library of stunning, royalty free photos for you to use.
In addition to photos, you can also explore other items in Pixabay like vector graphics, videos, and even sound effects. Cool, right?! They have an easy to use search feature, tags to filter through trending photos or picks from the editor, and categories so that you can quickly find what you’re looking for.
Check out Pixabay’s License Deets
6. Magdeleine
Magdeleine is all about quality over quantity! This platform won’t have the most photos of the bunch, but they do carry images of the highest standard, so you can be confident that your visitors will be impressed.
This platform also offers a super unique way of searching for photos by using color. You can choose a dominant color to search by and they will provide you with photos that feature various shades of your choice. Once you’ve clicked on a photo, they will then provide that photo’s “color palette” and you can click the different colors of the palette to filter through even more photos. So fun and creative!
Magdeleine offers some photos that fall under public domain (meaning you can use them without any restriction) and some that require attribution. You can filter the different license types in their sidebar and then double check each individual photo to make sure you understand the terms.
7. Picjumbo
Picjumbo is great because it’s straightforward, no fuss, and full of really vibrant imagery!
They highlight the best free images of the day, just in case you need a little inspiration, and allow you to search using your own keywords or by clicking through their various categories. You really can’t go wrong with a platform like this.
Check out Picjumbo’s License Deets
8. Life of Pix
Life of Pix is perfect for those who are looking for an edgier type of stock image! They offer free high resolution photography that looks like it’s straight out of a coffee table book.
None of the pictures you’ll find on this platform look like they come from a stock website. They all offer unique perspectives and would fit in great on a website that is looking to stun visually. You can search the site via keywords or browse their various collections of photo galleries and photographers.
Check out Life of Pix’s License Deets
9. Negative Space
Negative Space is simply just a classic! They have a ton of beautiful, high res stock photos that are perfect for any type of business.
Some of their images are a bit more “stock” feeling, but they’re great quality and won’t let you down. And if you have the time, a more extensive search of the platform will allow you to find some hidden gems and unique shots.
Check out Negative Space’s License Deets
10. The Noun Project
The Noun Project is a solid choice when looking for artistic and inclusive stock images for any vibe or aesthetic. They also offer free icons and symbols if you really want to get fancy and allow you to search via keywords or pre-made collections.
The Noun Project does offer a paid subscription plan or a one-time purchase option, but you can also use their photos for completely free if you agree to give attribution to the photographer! You can view license information on each photo individually, or view their full license agreement HERE
11. Bonus! Canva
That’s right, Canva is actually a great resource for free stock images, so we had to throw it on the list! Once you're in the Canva editor, you can navigate to Elements > Photos and search through hundreds of free images to add to your design.
You can search by keywords, use their pre-set categories, or take into consideration the magic recommendations the platform gives based on what you’ve already chosen or designed. Images that can only be used on the Canva Pro plan will be labeled with a little crown, otherwise, they’re completely free to use.
Check out Canva’s License Deets
And there you have it, all of our favorite websites for finding free stock images! We hope this list of resources will help you and your business as much as it’s helped us.
Sourcing and using high quality images is so important to the success of your website. Even though it’s an additional step and might cost you a bit of extra time, it will most definitely pay off in the long run!
Love free stuff? Check out the posts below!
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