60 Sites To Get Free Images For Commercial Use

Free Images For Commercial Use

One of the biggest struggles with content creation is finding a great source of free images for commercial use. Digital marketers are always looking for high-quality pictures for their articles or website, but they need to be careful they don’t take someone’s image without permission. The following list is a collection of sites that serve as a free source of commercial images. Each site is a little different but is essentially gallery websites with search features to allow you to search for the niche or image you are needing a photo for.

Creating the Image List

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well what’s 60 websites of thousands upon thousands of free images worth to a content creator? – Hopefully something.

When compiling this list, I tried my best to create categories for each site to help the reader find a specific niche faster, but what I found when building this list was that just about every site caters to all categories. I even tried to grade each site in some way of making the list more simplified or refined, but each free photo site has its strengths.

However, that being said, I do have a few favorites. The following are my top 5 sites for free images for commercial use:

1. Pexels.com – I really like this site. It’s fast-loading with an excellent search bar that allows you to explore options thanks to its auto-suggest feature. All photos on Pexels are free to use, Attribution is not required. Giving credit to the photographer is not necessary but always appreciated. Their license is very straightforward also.
2. Pixabay.com – I like the full-width gallery for fast scrolling of images. They also have Illustrations, Vectors, Videos, and even Music
3. Splitshire.com – On the surface, this site appears to be all the same, but the images are amazing. These aren’t so much as stock images, as they are a collection of just amazing photos.
4. Unsplash.com – Probably the most well-known site in the list, the first click for a lot of people. Thousands of great pictures, great overall site.
5. Lifeofpix.com – These photos are breathtaking. This site does an excellent job showcasing the photographers, allowing hard-working people a chance to shine.

If you have a high-quality gallery site you think needs to be added to the list, please leave me a comment in the comment section below. Or contact me on Twitter: @EthicalChamp. Also, sites die all the time, if you click on any of the websites in the list and you are redirected to something shady or a stock image site that charges for images, please let me know and I’ll update the list.

What Are Free Images For Commercial Use?

Let’s use the first site on the list as an example. Unsplash is a platform powered by an amazing community that has gifted hundreds of thousands of their own photos to fuel creativity around the world. So sign up for free, or don’t. Either way, you’ve got access to over a million photos under the Unsplash license—which makes them free to do-whatever-you-want with. Read more about Unsplash’s license here

What are Royalty-Free Images?

An image, photograph or drawing, is typically protected by copyright. If you want to use an image that you did not create, you generally must obtain specific permission from the copyright holder and agree on the terms of use. One common commercial agreement is known as a royalty-free license to use an image. The “free” in royalty-free does not mean there is no cost for the license but instead refers to being able to freely use the image without paying additional royalties.

Thanks for reading!