Are you looking for a website list to download Royalty free stock images for commercial use?
Here I am giving you a stock websites list from which You can download photos, graphic vectors, clip art images, illustrations, and videos.
Free Vs Premium Stock Images
Anyone can download free stock photos from the Internet, and due to this, both quality and uniqueness may suffer.
Stock photo sites like Pexels are an open community of artists. You may feel difficulty finding unique stock images. This is the only major disadvantage with such sites.
If your reader sees the same image on other websites, he may not return to your website. He might have a bad opinion about your blog. That will have a strong psychological impact. Still, if you are a new blogger and don’t have money for premium images, read this article.
Note: If you need unique stock photos for your projects then go with premium images available on websites like Shutterstock.
Don’t upload any free or premium images before activating image compressor plugins like ShortPixel(50% Extra Credits link). It compresses the image up to 80% to improve your website page load speed. I prefer ShortPixel because it is cheaper than other Image Optimizer plugins.
- Related: How I Compress Images (up to 80%) for my WordPress website
- Don’t You Resize Image for a Website? You Must do. Read Why
Save Yourself From Royalty Free Stock Images Copyright Violation
Before using any stock images for your commercial projects, it is necessary to clear the basics of Royalty Free Stock Images and learn how to play safe.
Otherwise, you will be involved in the mess of copyright violations. Similar to Plagiarism Checkers like Originality.ai or CopyScape there are image reverse search tools like TinEye.
To clear the basics, consider reading these important questions:
What is the concept of creative commons?
The creative commons is a nonprofit organization that defined various licenses for the usage of stock photos. Most stock photography websites have followed the licenses defined by creative commons on their stock photo content. However, some of the websites follow their own specified licenses.
So it is important to be aware of the creative commons license types.
All creative commons licenses have included the information related to stock images commercial usage, modification, reselling, editing, and whatnot.
Hint: 95% of the time, you are going to find these 2 popular creative commons licenses:
CC0 (Public Domain License)
Public Domain license is the most common license attached to the royalty-free stock images available on the internet. Under this license, the user can modify, use, and distribute the royalty-free stock images for commercial use. No attribution or credit is required under this license.
CCBY – Popular for Free Royalty Free Stock Images
CCBY is the most preferred license stock websites are using on royalty-free images. Under this license, the creators can use, share, redistribute, modify, transform, and edit the stock photos. The only mandate is to give the author an attribution/credit before using such content for commercial use.
But how would you figure out the license of stock images?
How to know if a stock image is commercial usage friendly or not?
With its license and usage info, You can quickly determine if a stock image is commercial & copyright-friendly or not.
The license information of the stock image is mentioned on its page. On the license page, you don’t have to worry if you see the creative commons license above. Else look for the text which says commercial-friendly, copyright-friendly, modification allowed, no commercial usage restrictions, and whatnot.
Hint: The free stock images on the websites listed in this article are 100% commercial and copyright friendly.
What are Royalty-Free Stock Images? Are Royalty-Free Images Free?
The meaning of Royalty-Free Images is somewhat similar to free stock images. The users don’t have to pay any bounty/fees for using Royalty-free stock images in their commercial projects. However, the attribute or credit to the author may be required.
How to know if a free stock image is safe to use?
Figure out the answers to these questions from the image/stock website license page to learn whether an image is safe to use:
- Is the image licensed under the Public domain license or CCBY license?
- Is the image available for commercial use?
- Are modification and editing allowed?
Top 24 Sites to Download Royalty Free Stock Images for Commercial Use
In this section, you are going to be introduced to 24 popular stock photo sites, where you will find all types of royalty-free images ready to use for commercial purposes.
Finding royalty-free stock photos is not a difficult task. 100s of websites are available in the market. Some of the handpicked royalty stock photos sites you should check are:
1. Pixabay.com
Category: General
Pixabay – The best friend of social media marketers, content creators & bloggers. I am sure you have already been to this website. It doesn’t matter what image requirements you have, this free stock image website will always have your back. No doubts.
The License info: Here, you get 2.2 million + 4k royalty stock images that you can use commercially without giving an attribute or money. You can even modify the pictures. The only reselling and redistribution restriction is there.
There won’t be any copyright problem no matter where you are willing to use these Pixabay stock photos, such as games, social media, films, websites, blogs, etc.
Pixabay has something under all categories, but these are some categories for Pixabay that should be considered first: background, wallpaper, nature, summer, beach, money, flowers, business, food, office, flower, sky, coronavirus.
Pixabay Important Links:
| Points | Pixabay.com |
|---|---|
| Free Stock Images | ✓ |
| Unlimited Downloads | ✓ |
| Royalty-Free Images | ✓ |
| Credit/Attribution Required | X |
| Copyright Free Images | ✓ |
| Commercial Purpose Allowance | ✓ |
| Publishing Areas | Anywhere |
| Website/Social Media Friendly | ✓ |
| Watermark | X |
| Images Resolution | Up to 4k |
| Other Stock Assets | Videos, Audios, Illustrations, Music, Vector Graphics, etc |
| Login/Registration Required | Required only to download 4k images |
| Uploads Allowed for Photographers | ✓ |
How to Download Royalty Free Stock Images from Pixabay
Video Tutorial:
In this tutorial, you will learn how to download royalty free stock images
Total Time: 9 minutes
Step 1: Navigate to Pixabay.com
Open up the browser and visit the Pixabay.com website
Step 2: Search for Royalty Free Stock Images
Insert the keyword in the search box, select images, and hit enter.
Step 3: Download Royalty Free Stock Images
Choose a desired image from the search results. Then you will see the free download button. Tap on it, select the resolution, and hit the download button. You have to log in first to download royalty stock images in high resolution (1920 or 4k). That’s it.
Supply:
- Royalty Image Stock Website
Tools:
- Pixabay.com
Materials: Pixabay.com
Bonus Site: Shutterstock (Premium)
Shutterstock is the world’s leading website for royalty images. It has more than 134 Million high clarity photos and images. It has not only has photos, but also Vectors, icons, illustrations, videos, and music tracks. The World’s leading bloggers and famous website owners use photos from Shutterstock.
It is not free to use. It is the expensive one. Certainly, new bloggers can not use this service. It has many pricing options. It would help if you bought yearly or monthly plans, or you can also buy images individually. Shutterstock gave a 20% discount when choosing the yearly option in the professional plan.
10% OFF – Shutterstock Promo Code
Our readers get a special 10% discount on all Shutterstock plans. Visit our Shutterstock discount coupon page for the coupon code.
2. Pexels.com
Category: General
Pexels.com – A popular royalty-free stock images platform owned by canva.com offering a vast collection of 4k images and stock videos ready for commercial usage. Unlike Pixabay, you don’t have to log in before downloading 4k royalty-free stock images.
All stock media on this site are licensed under the creative commons CC0 (public domain license). In other words, the same Pixabay license terms are applied here.
The Pexels unique features are download history, a private collection folder to curate images & videos, a mobile app, and the option to follow your favorite artist.
The most popular categories of this stock image website are:
Cat, Computer, Ocean, Space, City, House, Summer, Mountain, Office, Sunset. Coffee, Nature, Beach, Food, Sky, Abstract, Forest, Dark, Texture, Flowers.
Pexels Important Links:
| Points | Pexels.com |
|---|---|
| Unlimited downloads | ✓ |
| Royalty-free images | ✓ |
| Free stock images | ✓ |
| Copyright issues | X |
| Attribution required | X |
| Commercial Purpose allowance | ✓ |
| Social Media friendly | ✓ |
| Publishing areas | Anywhere |
| Watermark | X |
| Uploads allowed for creators | ✓ |
| Image resolution | Up to 4k |
| Other Stock assets | Stock Videos |
| Login/Registration required | X |
3. Unsplash
Category: General
Unsplash – Another popular stock photography website gives tough competition to websites like Pixabay or Pexels. Here you got 3 million + 4k stock images only. Nothing else.
The unique thing about this site is its homepage, the more you scroll the homepage the more stock images will be added up to the stack. These aren’t random images. They are editorial pics handpicked by the Unsplash team. In other words, the quality of these stock images is top-notch.
The story of the Unsplash stock images license is the same as we have seen earlier – Commercial usage allowance & No attribution requirement.
It covered almost all popular categories, including Current events, wallpapers, 3D renders, Texture & Patterns, Experimental, Architecture, Nature, Business & work, etc.
When writing this article, these are the few image categories trending on Linkedin: Flower, Wallpapers, Backgrounds, Happy, Love.
Unsplash Important Links:
4. Openclipart
Category: Clipart
Openclipart has over 80000 clip art images. Every image is completely free for commercial use. You can use them as you like. You can easily search for clip art images with the keyword. You can download images in big, medium, and small sizes.
The great thing is clipart on this stock image site is available in both vector and pixel-based formats. Openclipart follows the public domain license of Creative commons, so there won’t be any license trouble here.
Openclipart Important Links
5. Wikimedia Commons
Category: General
Wikimedia Commons contains a massive collection of media files. It has more than 29,622,642 freely usable media files. You can use all images free of cost. This non-profit organization follows the Creative Commons 3.0 license, which states the attribute is required for commercial usage.
Despite the old Wikipedia-based user interface, the quality of royalty-free stock images available on this website is exceptional. The majority of images uploaded by creators on this website are captured from
Though it has a huge collection, searching for the image is not easy for newbies. You can download the image in many resolutions.
Wikimedia Commons Important Links:
6. Vecteezy
Category: Vector
Vecteezy is the hub of vector images where you will get various types of SVG format images, including vector backgrounds, illustrations, patterns, etc. Though Vecteezy offers pixels-based royalty stock images, it is mainly known for its vector content.
Once you land on the Vecteezy homepage, you will be introduced to both free and premium images. For free images, the attribute is required. However, you can always purchase the pro license of any particular image that you want to use without giving attribution.
Plus, you can always ask Vecteezy for image signed models & property releases. Because of this advantage, the risk of getting into legal trouble with Vecteezy is lowest.
Another reason to go for Vecteezy is its powerful search filters. You can narrow down the search results by style, age, color, orientation, and many other filters.
Vecteezy Important Links
7. Burst
Category: Business
Burst – The perfect royalty-free stock images site for business minds. This site has been developed by none other than Shopify. Here you will get royalty-free public licensed (CC0) images for various business niches. You can use these images on your product pages, product ads, etc.
Some of the popular image categories on this website are: Around the world, work from home, office, products, etc.
Apart from the images, free information related to business ideas, and business growth can also be found here. These are the perks of this business stock photo website.
Burst Important Links
8. Foodiesfeed
Category: Food
Foodiesfeed is the dedicated stock photography site in the food & beverage category. Thousands of images available on this site are CC0 public domain licensed and very high in quality. This site is not that popular compared with Pixabay or Pexels, hence choosing images from this site will be more likely to be unique to the customers.
Foodiesfeed Important Links:
9. Stockvault
Category: General
Stockvault is another great site for finding high-quality, user-submitted photos. Also, like Unsplash, this site organizes photos into nice categories so you can quickly find what you’re looking for. The collection size isn’t as huge as the one from Unsplash but the search engine works well, and new pictures are added daily.
10. Rawpixel
Category: General
RawPixel claims to have one of the most diverse stock photo collections on the Internet, and they may be right. But you will need an account to see just how many photos they truly have.
The Free membership gives you access to their Public Domain collection, but if you are serious about finding good photos then it is worth signing up for a paid plan that contributes towards Hope for Children.
RawPixel Important Links:
11. Reshot
Category: General
Reshot has created a massive collection of handpicked, high-resolution stock photography that is optimized for the web. Their library contains tens of thousands of photographs, vectors, and illustrations for commercial use with no attribution required and no monthly subscription fees.
Reshot Important Links:
12. Gratisography
Category: General
Gratisography offers high-resolution photos for free that people like you and us can use on your websites and other online commercial projects. They are all taken by the talented Ryan McGuire, who started Bells Design, which has quickly become a go-to med for free images for bloggers around the globe.
Gratisography Important Links:
13. Flickr
Category: General
Flickr is a photo-sharing platform and social network where you can find images that can be used and modified for commercial purposes.
To search for Creative Commons images, select the “Licenses” tab on top of your screen to filter by “Any license,” then select the “Commercial use & mods allowed” option.
Once you have found a picture you would like to use, read over the attached license before you download or print it.
You may even want to save yourself some time and head to Flickr Commons first! This is an archive of photographs all around the world that one can easily peruse through and search for photography that has been labeled with free licenses (such as “Creative Commons Attribution”).
14.Createher Stock
Category: Women/Feminism/Women Creators
Createher Stock has more than 200 images of women of color who have been hand-picked and curated by their team. All these images are free to use for personal use, but you can also get more images delivered right to your inbox each month by signing up for their newsletter.
Here the license and usage of royalty stock images are a bit complicated, so keep an eye on the license each time you use the stock image from this website.
CreateHer Stock Important Links:
15. MorgueFile
MorgueFile – It isn’t dead yet.
This is the place where you will get royalty-free stock images of daily life situations, everyday objects, etc. For example a stock photo of a woman brushing her teeth. Yes, you may not find any professional images as curated on other stock image websites. This is what makes MorgueFile a unique stock photo site of all time.
Morguefile has been operating for over 18 years as a free image exchange site. As of today, images are available to be used by everyone and every business, organization, or individual is guaranteed the right to use any object they see fit.
The license allows you to use the images for commercial purposes, but the attribution is mandatory.
MorgueFile Important Links:
16. Canva
Canva is not a dedicated stock photo site, but a world-famous online graphic design tool where stock images can also be found.
One advantage of Canva is that you can turn an image into a customized graphic to use on social media or your blog.
17. The Gender Spectrum Collection
Category: Transgender Models
If your need is related to trans and binary model images, then this is the website you should consider first.
18. Little Visuals
Little Visuals – A unique free stock photography website started by the late Nic Jackson. He left the world in November 2013, but people still appreciate his photography skills.
His website now belongs to his family and all images remain valid for commercial usage. 3.4 million users, 15.5 million image views & 130 thousand subscribers are enough to justify the quality of the stock images available on this website.
19. Death to Stock
Death to Stock doesn‘t have a gallery of images like most sites you might find on the web. It just sends you 20 new photos every month when you sign up for its newsletter, but the good news is it’s free and allows us to use the images for commercial purposes.
Death to Stock Important Links:
20. Adobe Stock (Free)
Adobe Stock Free gives you an option to Find royalty-free stock photos, vectors, and videos courtesy of Adobe Stock. These offer the same licensing terms as the company’s paid content. Some shots look a little more posed than others, but that might give you exactly what you want.
P.S You have to sign in before saving images on your device.
Adobe Stock Important Links:
21. SkitterPhoto
Explore the world of the public domain through SkitterPhoto’s library. You’ll be able to see how many downloads a photo has had by swiping right on its cover page and it will show you. This is helpful, especially in discouraging copycat situations.
SkitterPhoto Important Links:
22. Nappy
Another creative idea to empower photographers and people of color, Nappy stocks its library only with black and brown models who have agreed to be associated with the ‘CC0’ license (Creative Commons Zero).
Nappy Important Links:
23. Foca Stock
Category: Workspaces & Nature
Foca is a collection of photos of workspaces and nature that are licensed under Creative Commons CC0. The collection features photos from Jeffrey Betts, who is a famous photographer specializing in collecting photos of workspaces and nature.
Foca Stock Important Links:
24. New Old Stock
Need vintage black & white royalty stock images? Well, explore the New Old Stock website.
Bonus Site: Google Advanced Image Search
Did you know Google itself helps you in finding royalty stock images? Well here is a detailed step-by-step instruction for this.
Conclusion
If you are new to blogging and can not spend money, you can go with Pixabay. If you earn a handsome income from blogging and want your own identity, I suggest you go with Shutterstock.
I also suggest you use offline photo editor tools like Photoshop or online graphic designing tools like PicMonkey or Stencil to edit the downloaded images or create beautiful featured images. You can also use Canva when you need a free one.
Bonus: If you need the stock video and audio, we suggest Videvo, which is an excellent source of stock videos and audio. They have both free and premium plans. Our readers get a special 15% discount on the annual plus and pro plans. Visit Our Videvo coupon page for the coupon code.
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I hope you like my tutorial about websites to download Royalty free stock images. If you like it, please share it with your friends. Share in the comment section if you want to add other points. Want more blogging tips, follow BlogVwant on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
FAQs: Royalty Free Stock Images
Which royalty-free stock photo sites don’t ask for attribution?
Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash, Openclipart, Burst, FoodiesFeed, Stockvault, RawPixel, Reshot, Gratisography, Canva, Adobe Stock, etc.
Where can I get free royalty-free images?
Most of the stock media websites are offering free royalty-free images. Example Pexels.com, Pixabay.com, Shutterstock, etc.
Are Stock images royalty-free?
Not every stock images are royalty-free. One should check its license and usage agreement to know whether royalty stack images are free.
What does the free stock image mean?
The free stock images are copyright-friendly and can be used for any purpose. Most free stock images are licensed under Creative common CC0 and are free from attribution hassle.
Can I use stock images for free?
Yes.
Are google stock images free to use?
The guide to using google stock images carefully is mentioned here.
Where can I download free images without copyright?
All websites mentioned in this article have 100% copyright-free images.
What are the best free stock photo sites?
Pixabay & Pexels are the best stock photo websites out there in the market.
How to download stock images from Canva?
First, you have to open up the Canva editor (blank canvas), and from the left elements window, you can search for the stock photos. Once you find the desired photo, you can simply drag and drop it onto the canvas. Now hit the download button to save a stock image to your Pc.
Can we use free stock images from the above sites on YouTube?
Yes.
this is very interested as I really needed first to learn how to do my own clipart if anyone know where I can learn please
Can I use some of these free clipart, worksheets, and pictures for commercial use in my activity book?
Yvette
Stumbled on your wonderful blog. Obtaining vectors for free, helps much. I’ll follow you.