A few years ago, Social Media Today, a Washington, USA, based website specialising in the social media industry, produced a list of websites where you can obtain free stock images for commercial use. Many of the sites still offer the same arrangement, whereby free stock images can be accessed under the Creative Commons Zero licence or similar. This mean you can copy, modify, and use any photo you find, even for commercial purposes, without having to ask permission or provide attribution.
All sites below have links to their terms and licences. Make sure you read each site carefully, as terms may change over time. It is recommended that you always do your own research when using an image to ensure that its license allows for what you plan to do with the photo.
Here’s a list of 10 sites where free stock images are available for commercial use:
1. Unsplash
License: Creative Commons Zero. See Licence. They add 10 new photos every 10 days.
2. Realistic Shots
License: Creative Commons Zero. See Licence. They add 7 new photos every week.
3. Pixabay
License: Creative Commons Zero. See Licence. Over 320,000 free photos, vectors and art illustrations.
4. Life of Pix
License: Creative Commons Zero. See Licence (at top of homepage). Photos are broken down by category in their gallery.
5. Gratisography
License: Creative Commons Zero. See Licence. High-resolution and high-contrast photos, with new photos added weekly.
6. Free Nature Stock
License: Creative Commons Zero. See Licence. Stock photos of nature only, updated daily.
7. Magdeleine
License: Creative Commons Zero (on the link provided above). See Licence (each photo is marked as CC0 – Public Domain). Sort photos based on colours and tags, updated daily.
8. Snapwire Snaps
Licence: Creative Commons Zero. Look under each photo to see the licence. 7 hand-picked snaps every 7 days, completely free.
9. StockSnap
License: Creative Commons Zero. See Licence. Great search function with hundreds of hi-res images added weekly.
10. Kaboompics
License: You can use the images nearly any way you want, commercial or not. See Licence. Several different categories of photos, updated daily.
We’ve posted a few images from the sites listed above. The original source of this item was USA based site Social Media Today. If you’re interested in finding out more about Social Media Today, you can sign up to receive their online newsletter at this LINK.
Image from Unsplash
Image from Free Nature Stock.
Image from Stocksnap.