7 Sites for Free, High-Quality Stock Photos

Do you need stock photos for your blog and marketing materials on a budget?

Dozens of sites offer free stock photos — unfortunately, most of them just don’t live up to your expectations. But you’ll be happy to know there are a handful of sites that offer high-resolution stock photos that don’t look like stock at all.

In this post, I’ll share 7 sites for curated stock images that are free for commercial use.

1.  Pixabay

Best for: Lots of options.

This is the first site I turn to when I’m looking for photos for an article or social media post. You can easily filter the results by type of image, orientation, category, size, and color to find exactly what you’re looking for. Though you’ll have to wade through a few lower-quality images, you’ll find plenty of exceptional shots to fit your needs.

2.  Canva

Best for: Finding photos + creating designs in one place

Canva is a graphic design platform that allows you to create social media graphics, posters, brochures, and more for free. In addition to uploading your own images, Canva has a free image library with millions of photos you can use in your designs. (There are also premium images available for Canva Pro subscribers.)

3. Unsplash

Best for: Blow-your-mind image quality.

Unsplash adds 10 new photos every 10 days. It’s easy to get lost on the endless scroll of landscapes and architecture, but they’ve recently added a useful search feature to help you save time.

4. Startup Stock Photos

Best for: Startups, developers, techies, and creators.

If you need tech or business photos that aren’t cliché (AKA, two men in suits shaking hands) this is the site for you.

5. FoodiesFeed

Best for: Foodies, restaurants, health and fitness experts.

Bright, mouth-watering images of all things food. Choose from individual images, thematic packages, or save time and download all 1,000 photos in one shot.

6. Stocksnap

Best for: Beautiful photos for customarily “boring” industries like medical, financial, and industrial.

Because Stocksnap adds hundreds of photos weekly, you’ll always have new options to choose from. Search their huge library, and sort by date, views, trending, and favorites.

7. SplitShire

Best for: Finding an image fast. Images are sorted by category like fashion, people, or wedding.

What started as a side hobby for Daniel Nanescu turned into a full-time job creating copyright-free photos for SplitShire. These photos have been used on HuffPo, CNN, book covers, magazines, and have been downloaded over 600,000 times.

What sites did I miss? If you know of another great source for free images, please add it in the comments below.