The Best Stock Image Websites
So which is the best stock image website? Which one should you use?
We will tell you. 👍
There is just one ‘thing’ we need to know before telling you.
And that is how many images you need. Because the answer will be different whether you need 1, or 500 images.
Actually, there is a second ‘thing’ we would need to know also: To what extent you want these images to be exclusive.
If you want your images to be relatively exclusive (meaning not used on thousands of other websites, blogs and social media), we recommend using the paid stock image sites.
If you don’t care about this ‘exclusivity’, you can use the truly free stock image sites.
So how many images do you need?


You Need Between 1 And 35 Images
If you need 1 image, or up to 35 images, we recommend using Dreamstime, Shutterstock and (or) Adobe Stock.
Why? Because these stock image websites offer up to 15 FREE images.
- Dreamstime = 15 FREE images
- Shutterstock = 10 FREE images
- Adobe Stock = 10 FREE images
So if you need one image, pick one of them. If you need 15, go with Dreamstime. If you need up to 20, pick two of them, etc.
These stock images you find on these sites are of premium quality. Top notch!
And you can also chose from hundreds of millions of images. You will therefore in all likelihood find what you need. 👍
The best part? You don’t have to pay anything. 👍
You Need Between 35 And 100 Images
If you need up to 100 stock images, go with Dreamstime. 👍
Because Dreamstime has an exclusive special offer:
You Need Between 100 and 750 Images
If you need up to 750 images, we recommend choosing Dreamstime, and also taking advantage of their 25% discount.
Normally, 750 Dreamstime images cost $219. But with the 25% offer, this comes out to $164, or $0.22 per image.
This is the best offer available for a large image pack. 👍


If You Want An Easy Image..
Let’s say you need an image every now and then, and you want it quickly. Meaning no need for logging in anywhere.
You just want ‘click and go’.
AND you don’t care too much whether this image has been used several times on other blogs, etc.
Then there some good options: The truly FREE stock image websites.
The downside (other than being very frequently used) is that you can’t be too picky. Because these free sites only have a few million images at most, compared to hundreds of millions for the paid sites.
So you may have to settle on something not entirely ideal.
But with luck you may still get what you want. 👍
Stock Video (Or Stock Footage)
Let’s not forget about videos!
Because in the future, the use of video will become more and more important.
In the future, your users are likely to expect videos where you today use images.
And this has not gone unnoticed by the large stock image websites. Many of them also have a large collection of stock videos.
The agencies that are furthest ahead with stock footage are Shutterstock and Pond5. Both agencies have more than 20 million stock videos. Pond5 by the way specializes in stock footage rather than images.
If you need videos for your project, we would recommend both Pond5 and Shutterstock as both have large collections of stock footage as well as very good quality.
You can find high quality videos for around $50 a piece both places.


Other agencies to consider for your videos are Dreamstime, Depositphotos, 123RF, Adobe Stock, Getty Images, and Alamy, as these agencies all have more than 2 million videos each.
Stock Audio (Music And Sound Effects)
Music and sound effects are also becoming increasingly more popular in on websites, ads, social media and other digital content.
I you want stock audio or sound effects, we would recommend Pond5 as it has more than one million audio files, has great quality and is reasonably priced.
The other agencies that carry music and audio files are Shutterstock, Dreamstime, 123RF, Getty Images, and Envato.
We hope this review was helpful,
The Topimagesites Team