23 Amazing Free Stock Photo Sites – 2022 Guide to Royalty-Free Images 

If you have no photography talent but you are willing to decorate your blog posts or social media with images, Stock Images should be your choice. While the internet is filled with websites that charge a high amount of money for using photographs, some websites allow free access to stock photos.

However, you need to read the license in some cases. In this article, we will talk about some of the best websites to use free stock images. Keep reading till the end to find out.

How Do You Know If A Stock Photo Is Free To Use?

Before you start using or sharing photos from online sites, it’s important to check whether the photo is free to use or not. But how do you determine that?

Well, one simple way for identifying the same is to look for clear descriptions on the stock photo websites stating that the photos are available for “commercial use” or “commercial modifications” and there are “no copyright restrictions”.

The reason why you should be using free stock photos is to avoid any violation of copyright law which could cause some serious trouble to your brand’s image. 

Get Familiar With The Following Terms Before Using Any Free Photo

Creative Commons

 Creative Commons contains free legal tools that let you share and use creativity and knowledge without getting involved in any type of legal issue.

Public Domain

The public domain contains work whose copyrights have been expired, forfeited, or are inapplicable. However, you must know that if you find something on the internet, it does not imply that it is in the public domain.

Royalty-Free

Royalty-free images do not mean the images are free. Mostly, you need to pay a one-time fee to have the right for using the images. And past that, you can use the images as many times as you want.

23 Free Stock Photo Websites

1. Unsplash

With Unsplash, you get 10 new royalty-free images having high resolution every 10 days. The picture posted here is free to use under Creative Commons License CCO. You can also have a glimpse of various projects done by using their images on their website.

Unsplash offers you the feature to register to their mailing list so that you are notified every time they post some new images.

2. Picspree

You can find a large variety of Royalty-free images on Picspree. Since Picspree provides easy searching and downloading of high-quality stock images for free, it has emerged as the best resource for small businesses and web professionals. The best part is that you don’t have to worry about the license. 

3. Gratisography

Gratisography is the online collection of high-resolution photos taken by Ryan McGuire, the founder of Bells Design. The images shared here are royalty-free under creative commons zero.

However, McGuire politely asks for his coffee fund on the website.  

4. Burst

Burst has a collection of free stock photos that are ideal for eCommerce sites, blogs, personal and business websites. You don’t have to stress much while finding the right photo on Burst as the navigation and search options are easy to use.

5. GRALLIM.com

The idea behind launching Grallim.com was to provide royalty-free, high-quality images to bloggers, influencers, writers, and business owners. You can get access to thousands of high-resolution images under various categories including food, animals, people, travel, nature, and more. 

6. Death To The Stock Photo

Death To The Stock Photo is undoubtedly the best amongst all. When you sign up on this website, you receive royalty-free photos and images in your mail every month. Besides, if you are a premium user, this website offers you access to all the past and future images along with the monthly images.

7. Pexels

Pexels has a wide collection of images ranging from sports to landscapes and fashion to abstract images. The photographers here are both professionals and amateurs and therefore you get a mix of different varieties of images.

Most images that are used on Pexels are free for both personal and commercial use.

8. IM Free

IM Free is not just a free stock images website. It is way more than that. IM Free has a collection of free resources including the website templates, button maker, and more. And what makes IM free even more desired is the fact that photographs here are protected under Third Party Intellectual Rights. 

9. Life of Pix

Again, Life of Pix for royalty-free images having creative commons zero. Life of Pix releases new images every week. These images are sourced from Leeroy Advertising Agency located in Montreal. Besides, you can also get free videos, clips, and a loop on this website.

10. Pixabay

Pixabay has a talented community of photographers sharing stunning and visually appealing images. Whatever your need is, you can choose it from 1.6 million royalty-free stock images and videos shared on this website. Be it for blog posts or websites, Pixabay has it all.

11. ScatterJar

Scatter Jar is the best website for people having a food or cookery blog. It is a collection of royalty-free food and drinks photographs having high resolution and every week fresh photographs are being posted here. These photographs can be used for both personal and commercial projects.

12. Snapwire Snaps

With Snapwire, you get seven snaps every seven days. You can also sign up for their mailing list to get the latest photographs through the mail. But still, their website is always available for weekly photographs.

13. Snapographic

Snapographic is the website created by Thomas Muhl for high-resolution, creative commons zero photographs. They charge a donation fee of $15 and in return, you can download all the current photos in a .zip file.

14. New Old Stock

If you are a vintage lover, New Old Stock is your place. They have a collection of distinctive and copyright-free vintage photographs that are available for download. Besides, you can also submit your clicked or found vintage images here.

15. Getrefe

Getrefe is run by Refe, a company that provides clients with modern photos of people dealing with technologies. However, Getrefe offers you more than that. The images vary from food to exotic locations and can be downloaded in high resolution.

16. Picjumbo

One of the largest collections of copyright-free images, Picjumbo can help everyone with the free content they need. They have a premium membership option where you can sign up directly for extra photos. 

17. Little Visuals

Little visuals send you 7 copyright-free images every seven days The photographs are available to be downloaded in a .zip file. 

18. Crello

Similar to Canva, Crello is a free graphic designing tool which contains a lot of images that are free for your use.

19. MorgueFile

The idea behind creating Morgue File was to let people have access to free images for references. The website is simple in design with easy navigation. You can find high-resolution images here under Creative Commons cc0. 

20. SplitShire

Ever since Splitshire came into existence, there have been more than 80,000 downloads of images through it. If you are looking to show support to the website, you can sign up for their premium account and in return, you get additional images too.

21. Superfamous Studios

Superfamous studios is the personal collection of photographs clicked by Folkert Gorter. The images are free to use under the creative commons attribution 3.0. This means you can use the photographs as per your choice but you have to give credits to the owner.

22. Lock & Stock Photos

This website was founded in 2014 and has a huge collection of stock-free photographs. You can subscribe to this website for free and get access to the new pictures uploaded on the website along with pictures that are not seen by the public.

23. StockSnap.io

StockSnap has a wide collection of royalty-free images. These images fall under various categories including fashion, beach, travel, dog photos, lifestyle, and more. The website adds 100 photographs every week for the public to download and use.

The images shared here come under Creative Commons License- CC0 License. This means you can use, share, modify these images as per your need and you don’t have to seek permission for the same.

To Conclude

With so many websites having stock-free images, there is no longer reason to pay lots of money for high-resolution images. Simply, go through the above-mentioned websites and get access to the images required for your purpose.