Best Stock Image Websites for Commercial Use in 2022

This post is for you if you're looking for free photographs to use in your blog posts, YouTube thumbnails, or social media campaigns.

This blog post will go through my top free stock picture sites for bloggers. As a result, you can obtain photographs for free. Some of the websites linked below may require that you credit them.

You must include photos in your blog postings. Including images in your blog entries will make them more visually appealing to viewers.

Plus, adding images to your blog posts will make your blog more successful overall; you’ll attract more readers to your blog, increase your subscribers, and generate more leads.

So, let's get started.

1. PIXABAY

Pixabay launched in 2010 and has since become the most extensive free image website online, offering free stock photography under CC0 licenses.

They offer over two million royalty-free images for almost any category and can be used commercially, with no attribution required.

Search for the image and download. 

You don’t need to register to download the images for the 640×480 size, but you do for the larger sizes and the vector images.

Pixabay is a fantastic resource and should be top of your list when looking for free images.

2. Unsplash

The images on Unsplash are so beautiful, people often wonder, is Unsplash really free? It is!

Unsplash is a great place to find free blog images that are creative commons licensed or public domain. They offer a wide variety of free stunning photos that you can download and use for any project, including your blog.

They have built up a library of over 1 million stock photos and they add 10 new images to the site every day. 

3. Pexels

Pexels is one of the most popular websites for Free stock images and videos. Here also you will get wide categories of images and the best part is that you don't need to give any credit for using the images.

Here you will get High quality, royalty-free images & videos shared by creators across the globe. You can also upload your own images to this website.

Here, you can download the photos in multiple sizes and most of them come with 4k image quality. So, as a blogger, you should definitely use this amazing website.

4. PhotoPin

PhotoPin is an awesome photo download site for bloggers. They have millions of high-quality, creative commons photos that you can add to your blog posts easily.

PhotoPin uses the Flickr API to search the web for creative commons licensed photographs. Simply type a keyword into the image search bar and in an instant, PhotoPin will provide you with a ton of relevant images you can use. Most photos you find on PhotoPin do require attribution.

5. Negative Space

Negative Space offers up new free stock photos every week. All of its photos are shared without copyright restrictions, meaning you're free to use them however you please.

From architecture to technology, Negative Space's continuously growing collection of images is one you'll find yourself tapping into again and again. The best part? It's easy to filter through the gallery of photos, which are sortable by category, copy space position, and color.

6. Freerange

All of the photos on the Freerange website come from a pool of both in-house photographers, as well as a growing community of external contributors.

Not only is there a lot to choose from, but the photos are good quality, too: "Images provided directly (in-house) by Freerange Stock originate one of two ways. They are either digitally photographed on Canon DSLR cameras or they are a high resolution (4000 dpi) Nikon scan of an original 35mm slide," according to the site's 'About Us' section.

7. Stocksnap

Stocksnap is a beautiful image site offering glossy pictures for you to impress your readers. They provide images for business, technology, work, and many more. 

You can hit the trending button to see their most popular high-resolution images or search by category or through the search bar.

To download an image, click the red download button — the download starts immediately. You will be prompted to link to the owner, although this isn’t compulsory.

The standout benefit with Stocksnap, besides the images looking extra sharp, is the ability to edit the image before downloading. You can select the ‘customize with the editor’ option and do basic editing (similar to Instagram) before downloading.

Some more Free stock websites are

  • LibreShot
  • Burst
  • Stock Vault
  • Kaboompics
  • Barnimages
  • Freepik

CAN I USE ROYALTY-FREE PHOTOS FOR BLOGS?

You can use royalty-free photos on your blog if you have the photo license to do so. Don’t get confused by the term ‘free’ as this doesn’t mean the image is free to use.

When using free photos from free image sites, you will typically have a CCO license that informs you what you can do with the image — almost all of them on this list allow commercial use.

But, always read the license before using the image.