A bundle of relevant and catching images can help to highlight your content , and engage your readers. You’ve probably heard the term royalty-free if you spent any time searching for these images. What is the difference between free and royalty-free? This article will explain what royalty-free images look like and the 13+ websites that allow you to download any royalty-free photos.
What are Royalty-Free Images?
A royalty is an amount paid to the creator/author of work for each copy sold or used. An author typically receives a percentage from each book he sells. You will need to pay a fee to the author if you use copyrighted images on your website. High demand for images can lead to royalty fees becoming a financial burden for businesses. This problem can be solved by the royalty-free images website.
You only need to pay one fee for a royalty-free image. It can be used in any number of places and at any time you want. However, the “free” part of royalty-free does NOT mean that you will not have to pay a single royalty fee.
You may be wondering if royalty-free images are worth the effort. These are the main benefits of royalty-free images that may be overlooked by a novice photographer:
- Avoid any legal disputes related to copyright materials
- You can save time and money by searching for, finding, and using the best images for your purposes.
- Membership programs offer many benefits.
- You can freely use stock photos for multiple commercial campaigns, designs or other purposes, without additional costs.
There are many websites that offer royalty-free images, but not all of them will provide the right images. We have compiled a list of the top 13 sites that offer royalty-free images to save you time. We are confident that you will find the right one for you with the help of this impressive collection. Do not be alarmed if high-quality images slow down your site’s loading speed. To optimize your site images quickly, you can use no cost tools.
This list contains 13+ top royalty-free image websites that you can download
1. Shutterstock – Royalty-free stock images and photos, videos, and other resources
Website: https://www.shutterstock.com/
Shutterstock has over 290 million royalty free images, with more being added each day. The entire collection is royalty-free. This means that you don’t have to pay any royalties for using the image. These images can be divided into the most popular categories, such as Animals/Wildlife and Buildings/Landmarks. You can also search for keywords using the search bar at top of the homepage. After you have found the image you are looking for, you will need to create an account to view a watermarked and royalty-free image before purchasing it. Shutterstock is the best website to find stunning images at affordable prices.
2. Depositphotos – Royalty-Free Stock Photos and Videos
Website: https://depositphotos.com/
Depositphotos is a platform for commercial use that offers 129+ million royalty-free stock photos, graphics, vectors and videos to clients in 192 countries. Depositphotos has a team of highly skilled professionals around the globe and offers world-class technical solutions. This makes it a great platform to search for royalty-free images and high resolution images for your projects. Flexible subscriptions are available that can be tailored to meet your needs and come at an affordable price.
3. Picjumbo – Beautiful stock photos for free
Website: https://picjumbo.com/
Picjumbo was founded by Viktor Hanacek, in 2013. It is an online resource for high-resolution and attractive stock photos. Use the search bar at the header or the Categories menu to find all royalty-free images. Although you don’t have to credit the author of the image, it is appreciated. You can simply download your favorite photo and use it freely for web design, backgrounds, apps, or other projects. Picjumbo offers premium membership that gives you super-exclusive access and unpublished photos collections.
4. Pixabay – Amazing royalty-free stock
Website: https://pixabay.com/
Pixabay is another great tool to get high-quality, royalty-free images. Pixabay’s search box is located on the homepage header. This allows you to quickly find the photos that you want. Pixabay stock photos are all free to use commercially without any attribution. If you wish to donate to the artist, you can click on the donation button. The site allows you to easily browse through all the illustrations and photos. There are many sponsored images from Shutterstock that can confuse you, including some for Pixabay to finance.
5. Pexels – 1+ million Royalty Free Images
Website: https://www.pexels.com/royalty-free-images/
Pexels offers a large collection of royalty-free images you can use, even for commercial purposes. How is this possible? All photos are licensed under Creative Commons Zero. You can use them in any way you like, including blogs, websites, apps, and commercial projects. Images are sourced from our free image site or photos that users have uploaded. They are high-quality images, well-tagged, searchable, easy to find, and easily discoverable. Pexels is constantly adding new photos to make it easier for you to create stunning products and designs.
6. StockSnap – Beautiful free stock photos – CC0
Website: https://stocksnap.io/
StockSnap provides beautiful, high-resolution images that can be used for any purpose, even commercial. StockSnap images can be used for any purpose under the Creative Commons COO license. There is no trick and no watermark. All you need are attention-grabbing images to use in your creative projects. You can quickly browse the tag-bases categories system to find the perfect photo for you. You can search for images that accurately depict a topic by entering it in the search bar. You will be presented with thousands of visually appealing images to choose from.
7. Unsplash – The internet’s largest source of freely-useable images
Website: https://unsplash.com/
Over one million high-resolution, free photos are available for download. Each image is released under Creative Commons Zero license, which allows users to modify, copy, distribute, and reuse all photos without attribution. You can get ten new photos every ten days by signing up for the Unsplash mailing list. These images can automatically be synced with your Dropbox using Splashbox. Unsplash’s intuitive search bar offers many related suggestions that will help you find what you are looking for.
8. KaboomPics
Website: https://kaboompics.com/
KaboomPics was created by Karolina, who is a talented photographer and graphic designer as well as a web developer. It provides high quality images that can be used for many purposes. KaboomPics receives over 70,000 unique visitors each month from 209 different countries. This website lets you choose any image, from fashion to landscape to interior design. Users can use images without payment for personal or commercial purposes. The license is similar to Creative Commons, with one exception: the rules for redistribution. All Kaboompics photos are free, so don’t sell or redistribute them.
9. NegativeSpace – High-Resolution royalty-free stock
Website: https://negativespace.co/
NegativeSpace is an ever-growing collection of high-resolution, beautiful photos. Each week new photos are added to the site. These images were taken by members of NegativeSpace who wanted to share their work with others. All images are free of royalty and are available under the Creative Commons CCO license. They are free for personal and commercial use, and therefore they are completely free. NegativeSpace’s best feature is the ability to filter through photos. These can be sorted into tags, categories, and colors.
10. Bigstock
Website: https://www.bigstockphoto.com/
Bigstock is a trademark of Shutterstock and offers more than 86 million royalty-free vectors and illustrations from talented artists and photographers around the globe. You can quickly find the right images for your project on this fast-growing marketplace. Bigstock’s pricing model is affordable for all budgets. You can cancel or change your Bigstock plan at any time. You can download five images per day for free as part of the 7-day trial. You can use Bigstock images in almost any way that you like, thanks to the royalty-free license.
11. Beautiful Pictures of Burst, Copyright-Free
Website: https://burst.shopify.com/free-images
Burst is a popular collection of royalty-free stock photographs. Burst images can be used to help build your brand, no matter if you’re just starting your business or you have hired your 1000th employee. You can download all high-resolution photos from this website under Creative Commons and Royalty-free licenses. You are free to edit and use any image for personal or commercial purposes. To show your appreciation, you can credit the photographer wherever possible.
12. IStock
Website: https://www.istockphoto.com/gb
iStock has proudly offered millions of unique stock images and videos for nearly 20 years. Although there is no way to know exactly how many images they have, a search for the term “book” returned over 265,000,000 results. This suggests that they have quite a few. You can filter results by quality or price, and browse related searches to find even more. You can also refine your search using the refine tab. You will need an account to download the image. You can choose from single images or a flexible pricing plan that suits your needs. You can download any image from iStock and get a standard license which allows you to use it in any way you like.
13. Dreamstime
Website: https://www.dreamstime.com/
Dreamstime boasts the largest stock community with 112 million stock photos and 26 million members. All Dreamstime images come with no restrictions and are available for download starting at USD 0.02. Dreamstime images are affordable for any size business, no matter how niche it is. You can also get free photos without having to spend a lot, though you must attribute them. You can use all images from this site under a royalty-free license. This means that you only pay a one-time fee and you can reuse it as many times you wish.
Last words
This is our huge list of websites that offer royalty-free images. You can download royalty-free images you can use in commercial projects. You can also visit the 30 top websites that offer high-resolution, free images. Did we miss any royalty-free image sites? Which tools are you most comfortable using to create and find images? Do not hesitate to comment below and share your thoughts!
