If you like our fun, colourful images on Instagram (shameless self-promotion – check us out at @ohmydigital), you’ll enjoy this blog. We’d spent months of searching Google for stock image sites that would give us the brand look we desired. Being an agency, we also needed to ensure we had a wide collection for our clients too! So our archive couldn’t all about the minimalist pastels, sometimes we needed something real and lifelike. We have together a little list to make your lives a bit easier and save you the painful task yourselves!
30 stock image sites we recommend:
There are a number of quality free & paid sites, we’ve broken them up below for you! (p.s. we have no affiliation with any of these).
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Shutterstock – Expensive, but worth it. That’s where we got most of our images from. They are high quality, you can download them in psd, jpg or png and you can even filter by colour to keep your branding consistent.
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iStock – The best paid stock images for a more natural looking selection. They have a great Australian library too. You can search by colour for this one too.
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Getty Images – Another paid one, but this is colourful, weird and wonderful and lots of video options too.
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Pexels – In my opinion, the best FREE stock image site out. This has a gorgeous mix of natural & high quality images.
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Kaboompics – Not as many as Pexels, but the quality is still really great & it’s FREE. Their theme is a little more dark and moody, but still very realistic.
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Unsplash – Dark, abstract & moody FREE photos. This is up there with Pexels as one of the best!
- Pikwizard – A mixture of high quality, really authentic shots of nature, people and animals.
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Burst – Shopfiy’s own FREE stock image site. They’re a little more modern too.
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Gratisgraphy – Quirky AF & FREE. You’ll look at these and think…what is going on here. BUT you never know when you might need a good laugh, or an image that grabs your audiences attention.
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StockSnap – FREE & great for natural photos of people (spot on for small businesses) and nature.
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Hautestock – Paid membership, but ideal for bloggers who want to keep their brand theme consistent. Gorgeous flat lays.
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Snapwire Snaps – The website is a little chunky to navigate, but again, FREE & these are photos from your everyday photographer and it shows with the nature shots.
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Life of Pix – Quirkier FREE imagery – not as many options though.
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Life of Vids – This is a great source of FREE video content.
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PicJumbo – Lots of FREE high saturation and density photos.
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Pixabay – A great mixture of FREE nature, abstract, fashion and animal photography.
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Splitshare – Not as many photos, but they have fun little niches, and did I mention FREE.
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FlatIcon – Mixture of free and paid icons. Great for Instagram story highlights!
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Foter – I won’t lie, there are some painfully corny photos in this lot, it is FREE, BUT there are also some really colourful nature shots, so it might be worth looking through.
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Free Images – Need I say they’re FREE? But alas super colourful and lots of photos of children in their element.
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Free Photos – Again, FREE. Mostly very earthy photos of food & nature.
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Every Pixel – Stock image library search engine. Mostly amateur model type FREE photos, but sometimes they can give a much more authentic vibe to your brand.
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Visual Hunt – Very similar to Pexels, and also FREE.
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Startup Stock Photos – Basically what it sounds like, FREE images of people who look like they’re working on their startup.
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Death to Stock – Paid membership, but they’re a little different to the usual stock images, more authentic.
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Foodies Feed – A FREE stock image site dedicated to food!
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The Pattern Library – FREE designer patterns for you to use in your graphic design.
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Stokpic – Natural, bright & fun FREE photos, mostly beach and human experience capturing. You can sign up to have 10 new images sent every 2 weeks too!
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Deposit Photos – Paid subscription, but slightly different images to Shutterstock.
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Stocksy – Pay for photos, but they’re very modern and great for fashion & lifestyle brands.
Keep in mind that whilst they might be free, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are free to use without crediting the original owner. Make sure you read the instructions on each image!
🔥 HOT TIP 🔥
If you need a killer tool to edit your graphics. Try Easil. We ADORE the team at Easil and we use it for all of our marketing graphics! They have a free version, as well as paid plans that give you a few more amazing templates.
So there you have it! We hope you found these helpful. Feel free to leave a comment with your feedback or if you have any we should add to the list!
