10 Best Free Stock Photo Sites for Commercial Use (Curated List)

Look, I've been designing websites and writing blog posts for years and I've made pretty much every mistake you can with stock photos. Downloaded one that looked free but wasn't. Used the same Unsplash image three other sites on page one were already using. Spent forty minutes scrolling through junk.

So here's my actual list. Not a roundup scraped from other roundups. These are the sites I go back to when I need a photo that doesn't scream "I gave up and used the first result."

I started keeping this list after a client flagged a photo I'd used from a "free" site that turned out to have some weird attribution clause buried in page 3 of their terms. That was a fun email to get on a Friday.

Unsplash is the obvious starting point. Something like 5 million photos now, all under their own license that basically says do whatever you want, credit is nice but not required. The search is genuinely good. I needed a photo of a messy desk with coffee rings and sticky notes for a productivity article and Unsplash had about 200 options. Not all good. But enough. One thing I've noticed though is that the popular downloads get used everywhere. If you sort by trending you'll see the same 50 images on every startup blog. Sort by new instead. Or search for weirdly specific stuff like "person writing in a parked car at dusk" and you'll find things nobody else is using.

Pexels is my second stop. They've got around 3.2 million photos and videos, all CC0 which means public domain basically. The killer feature honestly is the color filter. If your brand palette includes a specific shade of orange, you can search for "workspace" and then filter by that exact color range. It's not perfect but it cuts out 70% of irrelevant results instantly. I've used Pexels videos for website backgrounds too. The quality varies. Some 4K clips look like they were shot on a phone from 2017. But the top 20% are genuinely usable.

Pixabay is the messy one. Something like 6 million assets now if you count vectors and illustrations and music. The photo quality is hit or miss. I mean really hit or miss. You'll find a stunning drone shot of Iceland next to a photo of someone's cat that looks like it was uploaded by accident. But for illustrations and vector icons, it's surprisingly good. Their SVG collection saved me from buying a $15 icon pack more than once. They've been around since 2010 so the back catalog is deep.

Burst by Shopify is one I don't see enough people talking about. It's built for e-commerce specifically. Product shots, people unpacking boxes, workspaces, retail environments. The library is smaller. Maybe 10,000 images. But every single one is useful for someone selling something online. I used a Burst photo of a woman holding a coffee mug for a landing page and it converted better than the $30 Shutterstock image the client had bought. No attribution required. Shopify's license lets you use these commercially without any headaches.

Kaboompics is run by a photographer named Karolina Grabowska and honestly the consistency alone makes it worth bookmarking. Every photo comes with a suggested color palette. If you need a set of 5 images that all feel like they belong together on the same website, this is your answer. The style leans warm and cozy. Flat lays, coffee scenes, notebooks, plants. Not great if you need industrial or tech imagery. But for lifestyle blogs and Instagram it's basically a cheat code.

StockSnap.io is CC0 and they add hundreds of new photos every week. I check it on Mondays. The trending sort shows you what's getting downloaded most and sometimes that's useful, sometimes it's just showing you what'll be on every other blog by Tuesday. Their search suggests related terms as you type which is nice when you're stuck on keywords.

Gratisography is the weird one and I love it for that. If you want a photo of someone wearing a dinosaur costume in an office setting, this is your site. The creator has a specific quirky style. Not for corporate decks obviously. But if you run a blog with personality or you're doing something creative where the same old smiling-business-people photo would kill the vibe, Gratisography delivers.

Reshot calls itself "non-stock stock photography" and that's actually accurate. The images feel less polished. More like something a friend took. I've used their photos for startup websites where I wanted to avoid the corporate stock look entirely. They handpick everything. No algorithm just dumping whatever gets uploaded. The downside is the library is smaller than Unsplash and sometimes your specific need just isn't there.

Life of Pix is worth mentioning because their photographers have distinct styles. You can browse by photographer name and once you find someone whose work fits your aesthetic, you can just follow their uploads. High resolution across the board. No weird compression artifacts. They're also an Adobe Stock partner which means some of their contributors are actual working pros. The travel and urban categories are especially strong.

ISO Republic rounds out my list. Focused on business and tech shots. Office setups, devices, coding scenes. CC0 license. If you write about SaaS or do marketing for a tech company, bookmark this one. The library is modest but curated. You won't find 47 nearly identical photos of someone typing on a MacBook because they don't keep the duplicates.

A few things I've learned the hard way. Always check the license page before using an image commercially. Even on sites that say "free" there's sometimes a distinction between editorial use and commercial use. If a photo contains a recognizable person or trademarked product or private property, you want to make sure there's a model release or property release. Most of these sites handle that on their end, but I've been burned once and once was enough. Also, don't use a photo in a way that implies endorsement by the person in it. That's not a stock site rule, it's just basic decency and law.

Do you need to credit the photographer? None of these sites require it. But I do it when the photo is front and center, like a hero image on a homepage. It costs nothing and photographers appreciate it. If the image is just a background element in a blog post, I don't bother.

One more thing. If you can't find what you need after searching three sites, the problem is probably your search terms. Try combining two unrelated nouns. Sound and texture words work surprisingly well. "Crunchy morning" gave me better results than "breakfast" on Unsplash. Don't ask me why.

I update this list every few months as sites change their terms or new ones pop up. But the ones above have been stable for years. They're not going anywhere.