Top 5 Image Sites for Commercial Use (Free and/or Paid)
The first step in creating a successful ad is finding the right image.
It’s the first thing people see and it’s what makes people decide to stop and read the rest of your ad.
That’s why we spend about 40% of our time looking for the right image when it comes to creating a web page or ad.
It’s that important.
One of the most time consuming parts of finding the right image is finding the right website that hosts great images.
And by great images I mean the kind that don’t look like those terrible stock photos with bad actors in it that are later turned into memes.
Below are 5 of our favorite image hosting sites that we use for our ads and webpages.
Pexels
Free or Paid: FREE
Videos: YES
Vector Graphics: NO
Okay for Commercial Use: YES
Pexels is more than just a clever play on the word pixels.
It’s got a great inventory of stock images that don’t look too “stocky” or cheesy, that stock images are known for.
According to their site they have hundreds of thousands free stock photos and add new high resolution photos every day.
They also say that, “ All photos are hand-picked from photos uploaded by our users or sourced from free image websites.”
Those photo sources include: Pixabay, Gratisography, Little Visuals, and more.
The license for use is very straightforward:
The are a few restrictions that basically boils down to:
- Do not use the identifiable people in images in an offensive way or to imply endorsement
- Do not resell the photo as a stock photo or as part of a physical product
You can read the full photo license here: Pexels Photo License
Depositphotos
Free or Paid: PAID
Videos: YES
Vector Graphics: YES
Okay for Commercial Use: YES
The main advantage to using Depositphotos is their huge supply of images; 113+ million files according to their site.
Being one of the larger, well-known image resources, they’ll have images for a wider range of topics and unique images that you won’t find on other image sites?
Besides photos they also have videos files (3+ million) and vector images, which makes them unique from most free image websites.
They also have a file search AI that provides fast and accurate results — one of the biggest headaches when trying to finding an image that will work for your topic — and a platform for team collaboration.
You can pay for images in packs or by subscription.
When it comes to licenses, Depositphotos has two different types of licenses: Standard and Extended.
The Standard license is very similar to other sites:
Do note the 500,000 limit on copies or impressions and the prohibition on “Creation of Items for Resale or Items for Free Distribution where the File plays a major role in the item and adds value to it.”
The Extended License removes those two restrictions.
You can read about Depositphotos Standard and Extended photo licenses here: Depositphotos Photo License
Pixabay
Free or Paid: FREE
Videos: YES
Vector Graphics: YES
Okay for Commercial Use: YES
Pixabay is very similar to the Pexels and Unsplash in that you get free high quality photos for commercial use.
Although their library seems a bit smaller than the other sites listed in this article, the reason we like to use Pixabay is that they seem to have a unique library of photos and videos that you don’t see anywhere else.
Plus they also have vector images and illustrations — something that many other free sites do not have.
As for the terms of use for the images, it’s very much the same as Pexels and Unsplash’s:
You can read all the details about the photo license here: Pixabay License
Stock Unlimited
Free or Paid: PAID
Videos: YES
Vector Graphics: YES
Okay for Commercial Use: YES
Stock Unlimited is a site that we just started using recently but is quickly becoming our favorite.
The best part about it is the user-friendliness of the site.
It’s real easy to drill down into the types of files your looking for:
And you have the ability to refine your search based on display format (landscape or portrait), file type, and even by colour:
You can also find audio files, fonts, document templates…PLUS you can edit any images you select with the photo editor built right onto their site!
Their site says they have 1 Million+ visuals and are “adding thousands of new files every week.”
Their pricing has two different models:
- Subscription based pricing (unlimited downloads)
- Download packs
The difference with their subscription model versus other paid sites is that it’s unlimited — so there is no cap on the number of downloads you do per month.
The user license is again similar to other sites which you can read about here: Stock Unlimited Photo License
Unsplash
Free or Paid: FREE
Videos: NO
Vector Images: NO
Okay for Commercial Use: YES
Finally, we come to Unsplash, one of the best known free image sites on the internet.
No they don’t have videos or vector images or audio files, but what they do have are high quality images.
The images I see on Unsplash tend to be more on the artsy side which means you won’t find many cheesy stock photo meme-worthy images here.
These are images that would look great on an Instagram feed or as part of an ad campaign from a major brand.
For this reason Unsplash is still one of the first sites we check; it’s just simpler and easier to find quality, ad-worthy images there.
They say that they have 850,000 free high-resolution photos which is less than many other sites, but I think that’s because they are a little more strict when curating images they put up.
Same as with the other free sites, the license for use is straightforward with their images.
You can read more about it here: Unsplash Photo License
