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Royalty-free (or stock-free) media is an affordable way to get high-quality, professional photos or videos without a big budget for a shoot. Compelling images make your marketing and business stand out from your competitors.
There are dozens of stock photo sites to choose from, but all have slightly different pricing and features. The best stock media website for you depends upon the type of media you are seeking (photos, illustrations, vector art, audio or video) and the type of license you require (where you plan to use it: print, digital, commercial, etc.).
Article Overview
- Stock Photos 101
- Best Stock Photo Sites For Digital Media
- Best Traditional Media Sites
- Comparison Table
- Other Photo Sites
- Basic Terminology
- Stock Photo Clichés (Video)
- How To Choose
Everything You Need To Know About Stock Photos
Before getting started, you’ll want to know the basics of stock photography, so you’re purchasing the right type of media and licensing for your project. We’ll also cover the two options you have when downloading media.
Types Of Media
Stock sites offer several types of media, depending on what you need.
- Photos: Companies that offer photography for use on websites, print or other purposes. These include photos that are taken by others for resale or reuse by others.
- Illustrations (or Vector Images): Illustrations are images that are computer generated or artist-drawn rather than photographed. Illustrations can cost more than regular photographs due to the amount of work that goes into creating them. Vector images are generally utilized for printed projects because you can resize them without distortion. These images are costly to use but often the best choice for printed media or promotional use.
- Video: Not all stock photography companies offer video clips as part of their services. However, the idea is becoming increasingly popular. Video clips can vary in size and quality and generally cost the most of all media forms available on stock photo websites.
- Audio: As with video clips, audio clips are not available on all stock photo websites. Unlike video clips, audio needs are often particular to the intended use, which is why some of the stock photo providers are not pursuing it.
Types Of Usage
It’s critical to understand the license type offered for each media to avoid the potential of a legal case against you or your business. Most large stock photography companies have detailed information available on their websites.
If a company does not offer this information, it is always prudent to contact them directly to find out about usage regulation. We recommend you familiarize yourself with the most common stock photo usage types:
- Public Domain: Free to use without a license for commercial or personal use
- Royalty-Free: A copyright license to use a photo or illustration without restrictions after paying a one-time fee (in some cases, royalty-free photos can be free).
- Rights-Managed: A copyright license to purchase a photo for a specific, one-time use. You will need to but additional licenses if you intend to use it for multiple applications (can be exclusive, meaning no one else can use the photo).
- Creative License: Photos that will be used for selling things. Usually, these photos are staged by a photographer, art director and often time involve people or talent.
- Editorial License: A photo that may be used for anything non-commercial like a blog post or presentation.
- Media Usage Licenses: What a particular photo may or may not be used for (see creative licenses or editorial licenses).
Credits vs. Subscription Plan
Most companies allow two different ways to pay for your media.
Subscription Services allow users to pay a set fee per month or year to receive a designated number of credits, daily downloads or a total number of downloads. Subscription services are generally the best route to go for big companies, advertising agencies, designers or other individuals looking to download large amounts of content.
Note that different companies offer different download options (# of images per week, month, etc.), which you should consider along with the needs of the purchaser.
Many stock photo sites also give you the option to buy credits to purchase a set number of images instead. Depending on the type of photo and license, it will vary. The price per image usually goes down the more credits you get. Also, note the expiration date when you purchase the credits to ensure you will be using the credits in time.
Best Stock Photography Sites For Digital Media
Digital media is any type of media that you use on computers, websites, blogs, etc. The images you see on websites are considered digital media, as well as any audio or video tracks.
Digital media files do not need to be as high-resolution since they will be optimized for the web. You might find yourself needing a lot more digital media files to use throughout your site. In this case, a subscription plan might be best.
Here are our top picks for the best digital media sites. We based our rankings on the following:
- Price and value
- Size of inventory
- Customer service and reputation
- Searchability
Bigstock Review
| #1 |  |
Bigstock is an affordable stock image service that specializes in images and illustrations. Their straightforward, inexpensive pricing model paired with a wide range of images to meet most digital marketing needs makes it the go-to location for the best stock photos for online use.
Our experience with their customer service department has been top-notch. However, if you are looking for vector images, you will likely pay more here.
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Bigstock offers a 7-day free trial that allows you to download up to 35 royalty-free images or stock video clips.
- Image credits start at $35 for 10 images (up to $495 for 500 images).
- Subscriptions start at $79 per month for 5 images per day and go up depending on the number of photos and how frequently you download.
Coupon Code
Read Our Full Review of Bigstock
Depositphotos Review
| #2 |  |
Depositphotos has an affordable pricing structure. Their excellent selection of media is available for one of the lowest per-image costs around.
However, we don’t find their current library robust or easy to search, so it may be challenging to find what you’re seeking. But, if you can find the ideal image, the price will be lower than most other sites. They also have a helpful user-feedback option that allows you to learn more about others’ experiences with a particular artist/photographer before buying. This feature can also guide your image search further.
They offer images and video but no audio. They have a good selection at very competitive prices.
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- Subscriptions start at $29/month for 30 photos ($0.96 per image) or $299/year (30 photos a month)
- On-demand images start at $4.60 per image (15 images for $69)
Coupon Code
Read Our Full Review of Depositphotos
iStock Review
| #3 |  |
iStock is run by the highly reputable Getty Images (our #1 pick for traditional stock photography, see below). Graphic designers and small advertising agencies find iStock to be a great resource due to their fair prices for the quality, affordable subscription plan, image variety and versatility.
iStock is one of the better choices for those in need of lots of online, royalty-free, low-resolution images for websites or e-newsletters. The iStock website can be a bit challenging for users who prefer to browse without a keyword in mind.
Overall the search function via keywords is easy and intuitive for the reader. This is a good service that offers great images at a reasonable price. iStock is one of the most commonly utilized online stock image companies these days for graphic designers and small advertising agencies due to their low prices, affordable subscription plan and versatility.
With millions of pieces for sale, iStock is ideal for those who need large quantities of online royalty-free content, especially if low-resolution is acceptable.
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- Starts at $12 for 1 image/credit
- Subscriptions start at $40/month or $348/year for 10 “Essentials” (low cost) images
Coupon Code
Read Our Full Review of iStock
Best Stock Photography Sites For Traditional Media
Traditional media is media that is printed in publications, used outdoors or on television. You see them every day, from magazine ads to TV commercials.
You must purchase or have the rights to anything that uses visuals or audio in a commercial form. Often, depending on if people or places are involved, there might be a time limit or renewal fees, so the models, artists and creators can continue to get fairly compensated.
You might require higher resolution photos for traditional media, which is why they might cost you more, but the quality is much better.
Here are our top picks for the best traditional media sites. Much like the digital image services, we based our rankings on the following:
- Price and value
- Size of inventory
- Customer service and reputation
- Searchability
Getty Images Review
| #1 |  |
From historical photos to celebrity photobombs. Getty Images offers one of the biggest databases of stock media, especially for premium, conceptual, high-resolution and editorial images.
If you are working in traditional media such as print, TV, billboard or radio, high-resolution creatives will be mandatory in designing high impact campaigns and no one offers more exclusively licensed, high-res art than Getty. Getty offers a wide array of royalty-free media with millions different high-design, conceptual pieces for sale.
It is also a nice option for multinational companies and global advertising campaigns as they have websites in many different languages that will help you navigate usage laws across country borders. The site is easy to search and browse for high-concept imagery, videography and sound.
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Royalty-Free Licenses
Getty Images offers several pre-paid package options. Packs include any combination of royalty-free photos, videos, illustrations, vectors and most editorial images, but exclude all rights-managed images. Packs don’t expire as long as you sign in at least once a year.
| Small Images Web videos | Medium Images SD Videos | Large Images 4K & HD Videos |
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| Single | $175 | $375 | $499 |
| 5 Pack | $800 ($160 each) | $1,625 ($325 each) | $2,250 ($450 each) |
| 10 Pack | $1,500 ($150 each) | $3,000 ($300 each) | $4,250 ($425 each) |
Rights-Managed & Rights-Ready Licenses
Price is based on how you intend to use it (factors include media, size, duration, placement, geographic distribution and exclusivity) and can be calculated on the file’s detailed information page or from the cart.
Enterprise Options
Getty Images offers flexible pricing for agencies and several subscription options for teams. Subscriptions include no daily or monthly download limits, no seat licenses required, custom content and special commissions.
They also offer Premium Access agreements that are annual, capped download agreements that let entire teams download files, with no daily or monthly download limits. Check out this video to learn more about Premium Access.
Coupon Code
Read Our Full Review Of Getty Images
123RF Review
| #2 |  |
123RF offers one of the most affordable subscription programs, with low-resolution photos starting as low as $0.85 per photo.
It’s a great alternative to many of the big stock photo services, and they have a wide selection of millions of images video, audio and vector files. You can expect high-quality photos for the price too. 123RF has beautiful lifestyle, editorial and non-cheesy photos, making them an even better value. They have live chat and phone support should you need it and an easy-to-use checkout process.
The one downside we found with 123RF is that the search results didn’t have many filtering options, which isn’t ideal if you have something specific in mind, but their photos are all so great you might not need them.
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- Per-credit pricing ranges from $0.85 to $4.00, depending on the number of credits you purchase at one time
- Subscriptions start at $29/month for 10 images per month. You can save 31% if you pay annually.
Coupon
Shutterstock Review
| #3 |  |
Shutterstock is a good resource for high-resolution images, especially for large-format designs (billboards and other print media).
They offer a variety of subscription plans to meet various user needs, making their pricing model more flexible than some other high-res photo options. With Shutterstock’s huge library images and files, you won’t be disappointed in the selection.
They carry stock photos, videos, illustrations, vector and audio files. Shutterstock is a great choice for agencies, publications and companies with the frequent need to use high-quality photos and illustrations.
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Prepaid Image Packs
- $29 for 2 images
- $49 for 5 images
- $229 for 25 images
Subscription Plans For Individuals
All subscription plans start at $29/month for 10 images and include Shutterstock Editor Pro. Save up to 40% with an annual plan that bills monthly — but you’ll incur a cancellation fee if you cancel before the year is up.
| Number Of Images Per Month | Price Per Month | Annual Price |
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| 10 | $49 | $348 |
| 50 | $125 | $1,188 |
| 350 | $199 | $2,028 |
| 750 | $249 | $2,388 |
Enterprise
Must contact Shutterstock for pricing.
Coupon Code
Read Our Full Review of Shutterstock
Comparison Table
This table is a resource that compares the most popular stock photo websites. Use it to help you make an informed decision when deciding on a stock photography resource.
| Name | Winner Digital Media: Bigstock | 2nd Place Digital Media: Depositphotos | 3rd Place Digital Media: iStock | Winner Traditional Media: Getty Images | 2nd Place Traditional Media: 123RF | 3rd Place Traditional Media: Shutterstock | Adobe Stock | Alamy | Can Stock Photo | DreamsTime | Foap | PhotoSpin | Yay Images |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Images |  | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Video | | | | | | | | | | ||||
| Audio | | | | | |||||||||
| Illustrations | | | | | | | | | | | | ||
| Vector Images | | | | | | | | | | | | ||
| Royalty Free Images | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| Lowest Price Per Single Image | $3.50 | $4.60 | $12 | $175 | $8.00 (for 2) | $29 for 2 | $49.95 (for 5 images) | $19.99 | $9 (for 12 credits) | $14.99 for 11 credits | $10 | $2-30 | N/A |
| Subscription Plan Starting Price | $79/month (for 5 images per day) | $29/month (for 30 photos per month) | $40/month (for 10 essential images per month) | Must contact | $29 (10 images per month) | $49 (10 images per month) | $29.99 (for 10 images per month) | N/A (Individual Image Only) | $39.00 (for 10 images per day) | $39.00 (for 10 images per day) | None | $429 (500/Month) | N/A |
| Subscription Service | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| User Submissions Accepted | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Total Number of Stock Items | 88 Million+ | 130 Million+ | 88 Million+ | 80 Million+ | 110 Million+ | 302 Million+ | 50+ million | 180 Million+ | 20 Million+ | 42 Million+ | Millions | Millions | 11 Million+ |
| Name | Winner Digital Media: Bigstock | 2nd Place Digital Media: Depositphotos | 3rd Place Digital Media: iStock | Winner Traditional Media: Getty Images | 2nd Place Traditional Media: 123RF | 3rd Place Traditional Media: Shutterstock | Adobe Stock | Alamy | Can Stock Photo | DreamsTime | Foap | PhotoSpin | Yay Images |
Other Stock Photography Sites
The other stock photography services we reviewed are listed below. Learn more about what each of these services offers as well as pros and cons.
Adobe Stock | Alamy | Can Stock Photo | Corbis | Dreamstime | Foap | PhotoSpin | Yay Images
Adobe Stock Review
Adobe Stock was previously known as Fotolia by Adobe. In 2015 Adobe, the popular graphic design software company, released its own version of a stock photography library with millions of photos, illustrations and vector images available.
You can also submit your images to sell, which makes sense and is convenient since they cater to the creative community and have a built-in network of graphic design and photographer customers already.
They recently added video files to their library but still don’t offer audio files. Adobe Stock is still in the early stages, so we will have to give them more time to see where they fit in our rankings.
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- Credit packs start at $49.95 for 5 credits (good for 1 image)
- Subscriptions start at $29 for 10 assets a month (and first month free with annual plan)
Alamy Review
Alamy has one of the largest selection of images, with more than 80,000 new stock images added daily and sourced from around the world from 173 countries.
The result is a wide range of culturally diverse photos from all geographic landscapes and areas, giving you millions of high-quality images from which to choose.
Alamy only sells per image, so no subscription plans are available, and the price varies depending on the size and the rights of the photo. You can choose to have it licensed, which can get expensive depending on what you are using it for. Or, you can select the rights-managed option, which allows for limited-use and limited-time for a photo.
Much like other online shopping sites, it’s easy to check out without an account, but the number of options can be a bit overwhelming if you are new to stock photography.
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- $19.99 per image (for personal use). No subscriptions offered.
Coupon Code
Can Stock Photo Review
Can Stock Photo adds 25,000 pieces of stock media to their site every day and offers a good value for low-resolution photos. They also have videos.
However, they do not have audio files, and their library is much smaller than many of their competitors. But if you can find what you’re looking for, this could be a great option.
With one-click downloading and easy checkout without creating an account, it’s a great choice for quick and easy purchases.
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- Photo credits start at $9 for 12 credits
- Subscriptions start at $39/week for 10 images per day
Corbis Review
Corbis is no longer operating under its brand name. Acquired by Visual China Group (VCG), all content was migrated to Getty Images in May 2016. This is good news for you since Getty is our #1 pick.
Dreamstime Review
Since 2000, Dreamstime has been providing a vast selection of high-quality digital images at affordable prices to connect image sellers with buyers.
Their community-based site gives more than 13,000,000+ registered members access to photos submitted from 200,000+ photographers from around the world. All images are reviewed and approved by experienced editors to ensure quality control.
In addition to photos, they have a library of free images, clip art and vectors and have multiple incentives for photographers and users alike. They also offer monthly plans or pay-per-photo credit packages.
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- Photo credit packages start at $14.99 for 11 credits
- Subscriptions start at $39 a month for 10 images
Foap Review
Foap is a relatively new service (and concept) that allows anyone the ability to sell photos taken from their iPhone. Users can download the app, take a picture, upload it to the Foap market and list it for sale.
New to Foap is a Brand Brief which allows marketers to submit their needs for lifestyle and product photos, then task the Foap community to create content for them based on the guidelines. Then you get to pick your favorites and use them for your business.
Before listing your photo in the marketplace, it must receive an average rating of 2.6 or higher from 5 other users. Photographers earn $5 per sold photo. For users looking to purchase photos, they start at $10 per photo.
This is a photo-only site with no vector, audio or video. The company’s pricing is very straightforward: $10 per image (or down to $7.50 each if you buy in bulk).
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- $10 per photo
- Credit packages start at $180 for 20 photos up to $750 for 100 photos
- Pricing varies for custom services for briefs and photo or video missions
PhotoSpin Review
PhotoSpin started in 1996 and believed that all creatives should have quick access to good content at an affordable price. This company went out of business due to financial issues in August 2018.
Yay Images Review
“Created for and by online people,” Yay Images is a relatively newer company and provides unlimited streaming of online images. Streaming, meaning you can use them on your site, but you can’t download them to save for offline use (or to make modifications to).
There is no downloading or uploading for Yay Images. Instead, you receive a link that you put wherever you want the image to appear. They do, however, allow you to make simple edits to photos within their site and will even host them for you forever (even if you cancel).
Their visual search allows you to drag and drop a photo you are looking for, and it will search for something similar (like Google image search). We tested it but did not find it all that accurate.
One of the other downsides to Yay is that they only offer subscriptions (no single image purchases are available, unfortunately). Yay Images was acquired by Doublesix LLC in February 2019, so we will see how that affects customers.
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- Mini: $19/month for 20 images/month
- More: $29/month for 35 images/month
- Mighty: $49/month for 70 images/month
Terminology
As you are shopping around, you might come across some new jargon. Here are some basic definitions to help you gain a better understanding of this world.
- Pixel: A unit of measurement that is commonly used in digital photos.
- DPI (Dots Per Inch): The number of pixels per square inch for a file or graphic. It helps determine the resolution.
- Resolution: How many DPI a photo has. (Usually, 72dpi for Web and 300dpi for print is standard).
Video: Stock Photo Clichés
From time to time, you might stumble upon the silly stock photo that makes you laugh (at least we do). Here’s a compilation of some stock photo clichés along with a song (almost as cheesy as the photos).
Which Stock Photo Company Is Right For You?
Finding a stock photography company to suit your needs can be difficult, depending on what use you have in mind for your downloaded media. Aside from ensuring that you find a company that will fit within your budget, it is also essential to find a legitimate company that detailed licensing requirements for each image or piece of media they provide.
Learn more about stock photos in our royalty-free images article. And if you need help editing your photos, check out our photo editing software review.
What is your favorite stock media provider and why?
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I would be very skeptical of Yay Images as far as becoming a contributor.
I can see that they are now under new ownership but back when I was a contributor they had non-existent contributor support and never responded to emails.
I spent 6 months trying to get them to take down my images and close my account. It was only when I threatened to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against the company hosting Yay’s website that action was finally taken and my images removed.
I do not know how they are at this moment in time, but I would advise any artists thinking of becoming a Yay contributor to be very cautious.
I have had good results with ShutterStock, BigStock, EyeEm, Adobe Stock, and RooM.
FeaturePics is also one of the original micro-stock photo banks, online since 2007.
You need to put in your “cons” section for Shutterstock….that they have a sleazy and unethical “auto-renewal” feature that no one ever notices when they sign up…the onus is on the customer to find this little button and turn it off. The minute you download the last of the images you paid for in your plan, they automatically bill you for an additional plan. And many online customer reviews state that even when they DID notice the button and turn it off…they were still billed.
Have been using adobe stock, depositphotos, istock….and many others. The worst one is adobe stock. The search engine…user friendliness, bugs, speed…customer service are terrible. I find it weird as they have actually bought fotolia and Dollar Stock Photos which were great. The biggest issue is the never helpful Adobe customer service (robots from India).
The best I think would be shutterstock and Istock. I always find what I am looking for using their search engine. Problem is they are quite expensive.
Depositphotos will be a big player sooner or later. At the moment they have got great pricing and usually the same photos as Adobe Stock.
Peter thanks for sharing your personal experience with us!
Great post, some of the stocks are way too expensive. Theses firms should have bit normal fees with single domain use, so small business can avail stock images services.
Hi,
Great post! Have you checked out Raw Pixel yet? We are one of the leading stock photography contributors, and now we’re giving away lots of images for free. It would be amazing if you could add us to your list. 🙂
Thank you,
Jen
Thanks for sharing about your company! I’ll be using your site for work 🙂
Hi Jen, we will add Raw Pixel to our list of companies for potential addition in our next audit. Thank you!
I have been posting photos with Dreamstime for about four years and have 1338 images on file. For some reason, car photos seem to sell better than others. I attend several regional car shows each year so obtaining pictures is no problem. I take my time and carefully edit each photo using Adobe Photoshop elements 14. Their web site has improved substantially and I believe it is easy to navigate. Uploading is a snap. They are easy to start with because they have no test unlike some others. All they insist on is acceptable images. I would recommend them to anyone who wants to start in stock photography.
Shutterstock are thieves – I signed up and upon billing removed their auto-renewal feature – they turned it back on and drilled my account for as much cash as they could get.
f*** shutterstock biggest ripoff ever
My best images find their buyers at dreamstime and istockphoto. Shutterstock in particular seems to be very incompetent or random on approving photographer’s images for sale. Sometimes they would approve my most residue garbage microstock and reject best-sellers, while at times they would get it right. I don’t know. I stopped offering my production on shutterstock and generally enjoy selling with istock and dreamstime.
istock and own satellites (subscription type) is in the process of lowering (visibly after 2014) and will soon become a world unknown, shifted from stocksy, dreamstime, depositphotos, pixta! and other lowcost microstock banks.
Currently ranking is following a number of number of the sales (downloads) and profitability for photographers:
MacroStock:
Getty
Corbis
Alamу
MicroStock:
Shutterstosk
Istock
Fotolia
I’m profiling in this business since 2002 and the top ranking is not correct.
Our top ranking is correct in our eyes. We reviewed the companies and we chosen who we think is the best. It’s ok if you disagree and we respect that. We believe these are the best and we stand by our rankings. Thank you for your understanding.
Incorrect/Wrong information! Only in Shutterstock are 75 million and not 28 million/15.Dec.2015
My apologies for our numbers being off for Shutterstock. I have updated accordingly. On their website it says over 70 million, not 75 million. So I have put that in the table and article.
I think that these 2500% is a huge mistake to be true and other statistics
I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure I understand what you are saying.
Watch out! While ShutterStock offers good deals sometimes, their website is super slow and full with “errors”. Which means, you won’t be able to download the amount of images you were hoping for (unless you have nothing else to do, and can spend most of your time just searching and downloading very slowly.) Most of the “error” messages are beautifully predesigned screens (which means they are well aware of them). I actually think these “errors” are part of their business strategy to make more profit, yet it is very unfair for both the photographers and image buyers. When you evaluate a deal, just calculate it with about 100-150 images, instead of the 750 is in the offer. The most common errors you will experience: you won’t be able to save an image in your lightbox on the thumbnail page, or on the image page, only at the preview page. This way you waste a lot of time (instead of being productive.) The other “error” you will see all the time when it says “Your image should begin downloading immediately”, but the little circle icon will just spinning and spinning “forever”. Also very common is the “Sorry, something went wrong” screen. All of these will drastically slow you down. The result is less images for you, more profit for ShutterStock. The customer service will promise you they call you back, but they never will. As for the image quality, my evaluation is 90% weak, 9% OK, 0.99% good, 0.01% agency (or designer) quality.
Hi Sadie and Kimberly,
Thanks for comparisons, very comprehensive. Have you tried GraphicStock? Any tips for it?
We have not tried GraphicStock, sorry. Let us know if you try it and how you like/dislike it!
Hey Sadie and Kimberly,
Thanks for the post! It’s one of the most comprehensive reviews of stock photo websites I have seen.
A few months ago we started Dashmote to try and fix the problem of always choosing between different stock image providers, by aggregating multiple providers in one search. We currently have on our platform content from Depositphoto, IngImage, YAY and Panther Media.
Instead of using a subscription model, we tried to make purchasing as transparent as possible and negotiated with each of the providers so that you are able to buy images on-demand with no subscription or credits system.
Try us out.
Ps: Be gentle we are still in beta 🙂
Thanks for mentioning your site to us. We’ll consider adding Dashmote in our next audit for this article!
Have you ever reviewed stockafe?
No we have not. Have you used it before? What did you like/dislike?
Stockafe is a newer stock agency (November 2014). I’m a contributor who eventually joined the Stockafe team (full disclosure). I signed up originally in large part because of their goal of trying to change the “race to the bottom” philosophy that has taken over the industry, with an emphasis on treating both buyers and artists better. The site manager puts a lot of emphasis on keeping things as easy as possible for buyers. One thing that’s different than many sites is that when buyers purchase prepaid bulk discount packages, if the full balance isn’t spent within the discount period, the discount pricing expires but the balance never does, and can be used for individual purchases or rolled over to a new bulk discount purchase even after expiration. Some of the artists also participate in an opt-in “pay what you want” pricing option on exclusive content. Pre-isolated images with transparent backgrounds (PNG) are available, and video content will be coming soon, as well.
Thank you for your honesty. Perhaps we can look into Stockafe in our next audit for this article! 🙂
I have 600+ downloads left on my subscription. Is it of use to anybody? I can share the details for $40.
Say more 🙂
This table seems to be an older version. The columns referenced are not visible.
For the table you must scroll to the right for the columns to appear. The table was so large that we had to put it this way on the page. Sorry for the confusion. Let me know if you need any further help!
Don’t come near Deposit Photos!
I had very bad experience with them as to automatic subscription renewal. They scam their customers where they don’t tell you in your order confirmation and in the process of paying that they’ll charge you again automatically the following month. Then, when you find out about that they’re saying that there’s no way they can cancel this charge and refer you to the website to remove the automatic charge for the following month. There’s no place where you can cancel it but only when asking support to do this.
Just think about all the money they’re doing for this scam where they’re getting thousands of new customers money every month automatically renewing their subscription without knowing about this.
ImgBundle is also worth mentioning. They sell royalty free stock images with extended license in big, cheap bundles (for only $ 9 per bundle).
Looks like ImgBundle is still fairly new since they only have one bundle available. We will consider adding them once they have more bundles. Thank you for mentioning them to us.
What about the number of audience/viewers allowed? What about geographical limitations? There are many hidden clauses that you don’t address. What about sharing the stock within the various media departments of a corporate?
Those are all very good suggestions. It’s difficult to cover every single aspect of stock photography companies and what they offer. This article gives our readers a starting point on where to look since what is included in this article are some of the main features and key points for the companies.
Thanks for comparisons – very helpful 🙂
I am thinking of subscribing to iStockphoto Essentials, as their annual sub giving 750 pics a month suits my needs. To spread the cost, I was looking to do the pay monthly option – £99 or so. What’s to stop me from subscribing to the annual scheme, pay for a few months until I’ve got all the pics I need and then canceling the monthly payment? Am I tied into the 12 months once I start it? I couldn’t find anything in the small print saying it would be against any rules and they’d come after me! If I were to subscribe just on a month by month basis, I only get 250 pics a month and it’s about 30% more expensive. Any thoughts or advice?
That’s a valid question and if you are not seeing anything in the fine print about doing this then I don’t see why not. As long as you can get a refund for the annual subscription pro-rated for what you do not use. I think they probably assume that most people will use the subscription on an ongoing basis and not need to download more than 250 photos per month. Hope that helps and let us know if you have any other questions!
Thanks Sadie. I wouldn’t even need to apply for a pro-rated refund as I can pay monthly over twelve months (12 x £99.92). I could just stop the payment going out of my bank account after a few months. iStockPhoto support have told me that once I’ve started the annual contract I can’t pull out of it, but whether they’d actually chase me for breaking the contract if I stopped paying, I don’t know. As I said, can’t see anything about that in the small print but will take another look before making the decision.
What about Newscom? Any tips for them?
Hi Jennifer, we haven’t done any research on Newscom. Perhaps we can consider adding them in our next audit.
Which of the sites pays the highest royalties to contributors?