30 Stock Image Sites for Startups That Don’t Cost the Earth

They’re free so they won’t break your budget

Finding great image sites is hard, especially when you’re a startup and have a lean budget. So I’ve put together this list of 30 free stock image sites for startups and bloggers who need good quality images on a budget.

Why you need good quality images

When I first started blogging I had no idea what a stock photo was. Nor was I aware of the power that an image has in getting people to click through to your article. An eye-catching headline helps too, but that’s for another blog.

With so much noise in the online world, it’s important to pick images that reflect your brand, reflect your article and entice people to stop and read. So that’s why I put together this resource list of free images as I know not everyone has a huge budget for images.

Note: all images and stock image sites have copyright information that needs to be read carefully before downloading.

While you may find images that are free to use from one site, this might change the next time you visit that site. 

Always check the copyright and the attribution required before downloading.

Stock image sites

1. Pixabay – Pixabay boasts 720,000 images, graphics and illustrations. You can browse by category, or search.

2. My Stock Photos – these images are accessed via search or scrolling through the list. There’s animals, scenic images, buildings, flowers and a host of others.

3. Startup Stock Photos – this site comprises technical and business images. There’s no search function so you just need to scroll.

4. Stocksnap.io – a searchable range of business, nature, animals and more with new images added weekly.

5. IM Creator – advertising as an image site for commercial use it’s important to note that each image has different copyright arrangements. The site has a range of business, health, sports, food and other categories.

6. Life of Pix is a library of images and even videos at Life of Vid. The images range from the outdoors, mountains, flowers, buildings and animals. Subscribe to be notified of new additions to the library.

7. Pexels is a mix of business, people, cities, adventure, food, flowers and more. There’s also an option to browse photos by colour, which is great for branding.

8. Iso republic contains free plus premium photos. The photos come under the categories of nature, architecture, people, urban and various.

9. Splitshire images are categorised by nature, animals, fashion, automotive, street, abstract, technology and food.

10. Lock and Stock as well as animals and flowers this site also includes additional categories of furniture, art, black and white, family, coffee and boats.

11. Fancycrave is a collection of photos with two new photos added each day. The abstract category has some photos that are a little different and worth a look.

12. Death to stock photos provides free photos each month via email signup.

13. Negativespace provides new photos each week and which are searchable by category, colour and copy space position.

14. Streetwill provides some nice images but they aren’t able to be viewed by category. They do have their most recent photos and a search function though.

15. Gratisography provides free images that have been taken by the one photographer. Find images by scrolling through the website.

16. Picjumbo contains photos, vectors and videos that are all searchable. There’s also a business section as well as animals, food, fashion, love, holidays and people.

17. Shutteroo is a small image library of travel photos with the option to subscribe to get additional photos.

18. Splitshire features some abstract, food, nature, technology and mosaic categories.

19. Kaboompics fashion, food, abstract, landscapes and city and architecture categories

20. Foodie contains 65 pages of food images including baking, coffee, healthy, meat and fish and lots of other food categories. There’s also a premium option available.

21. New Old Stock is a collection of vintage and historic photos.

22. Barn Images is not as the name suggests, but is a set of free images categorised as abstract, landscape, industry, lifestyle, nature, sport, travel, concepts and ideas.

23. Designers Pics contains a range of categories such as architecture, business, concepts, food and drink, nature, people, technology and things.

24. Good Stock Photos includes a collection of nature, people, activities, buildings, transport, things and landscape photos.

25. Helene in Between allows you to get 15 free travel stock photos that you can download as a pack.

26. Rekita Nicole provides free access to a stock library of 99 images, all available when you sign up to the newsletter.

27. A Prettier Web a beautiful but small collection of stock images, only available by sign up.

28. Wonerfelle Media – downloadable pack of feminine styled stock photos.

29. Gold and Berry– a pretty set of styled stock photos that are themed in pink, gold, black and a mix of these.

30. Unsplash provides collections of images such as food and vegetables, miniatures, dreamers, restaurants and lots of others.

I hope you’ve found some different stock image sites that you can use for your next blog. If you have, please share this article so that others can benefit too.

Let’s connect on social