High quality, eye-catching images are absolutely key to a professional looking website. But professional stock photos can be expensive!
Sometimes for our clients’ projects, we need to help keep costs down as much as possible, and one great way to do that is by using free stock image sites. Websites like Shutterstock and iStock have amazing photos (and if you can plan it into your budget, please do!) but if you have a limited budget and are prepared to spend a bit longer looking around, you can often find some very comparable images for free (or for a small donation if you desire.)
Here is our list of our favourite FREE stock image websites:
1. Pixabay
This is my absolute favourite source of free images. There is a wide range of shots, ranging from quite ammature to very high quality. This is always my first stop when sourcing free stock images.
2. Pikwizard
A newer site, Pikwizard has over 100,000 completely free images on the site, with over 20,000 exclusive images – this is refreshing as you do start to see the same images over and over again when searching for high-quality free stock images. They also have A LOT of pictures of people, which tend to be rare in free stock photo sites. If you check out their site search for “office” or “meeting” and you’ll see the quality of the pics on the site. All of which are free to use without attribution. (The image for this post is from Pikwizard)
This one is subscription based, so a bit different. But if you sign up to their emails (you can choose either a free or paid plan with varying benefits) then they email you free monthly photos. The photos are usually taken around a theme, and have a modern, muted (dare I say hipster) look to them. They are really high quality.
4. FindA.Photo
This site has stunning images, and an amazing tool for designers – the ability to search using tags/keywords and/or attributes. This means if I am looking for images along a certain colour palette, I can enter the hex code and see all relevant images in one place. Amazing!
5. Pexels
Another website with stunning, modern imagery. A great mix of nature, art, abstract and technology related photography.
6. Splitshire
Created by a photographer wanting to give people access to photos that were just sittin gon his harddrive, this is a great resource for extremely high quality stock images. Free for commercial use, but there are paid for options on his site.
7. Free Images
This website has upped its game in recent times. Backed by Getty Images, this is now a really good place for stock photos.
Premium stock images FREE TRIAL
We recently also discovered this article from Stock Photo Secrets which give you a Complete List of Stock Photo Free Trials. Check it out if you are considering subscribing to a paid stock image service, or if you just want access to a few high-quality images for a particular project.
**This post is updated with more great FREE stock image sites as we discover them! Last updated February 2024.
