Do you use royalty-free images on website and blogs? Well, you must be using sites like Shutterstock.
Shutterstock is one of the best websites with a vast repository of royalty-free images and videos. Despite its best services, you might be looking for the Shutterstock Alternatives.
Before starting out, let’s find out about Shutterstock and why do you need an alternative for it?
About Shutterstock:
Shutterstock is one of the largest repositories for royalty-free images and videos which has a reputation of being the most affordable, high-quality media and vector graphics.
Shutterstock works as a two-way marketplace for both professionals and users. Currently, Shutterstock has 161 mn different image, videos, music tracks in over 150 countries.
The only thing about Shutterstock is that it is not completely free. Users have to register and pay for the licensed images to use on their website.
Some of your favorite images or videos might be a little less affordable and hence, you might want it for free or by paying a little less.
That’s why we have created the list of Best Shutterstock Alternatives for you that offers royalty-free images, videos and vector graphics.
Best Shutterstock Alternatives To Try Out
1. 99Club
99Club is a stock photo agency that is used by various small business and medium business. It offers over 5 million royalty-free stock images at an affordable price which makes it a cheaper Shutterstock alternative.
99Club is also called the Stock Photo Secrets with a library of images, vectors and graphics. Well, the number of stock images it offers is nothing as compared to what others offer.
What is lacks in number compensates in terms of quality and top-notch speed.
99Club lets the user use these images anytime they want. It offers 200 XXL images download each year with a premium membership of $99.
Besides being a small player in the stock image market, it earned the spot in the list of Shutterstock Alternatives because of its various features.
- Everyday 10000 of new images, videos and vector graphics are added to the library so that you can find new data.
- You can renew the subscription at a lower cost.
- Based on the user request and website, users can download the images they want of particular size.
- Once you buy these images, you can use it forever with up to 200 downloads.
2. iStock photo
iStock is one of the best Alternatives of Shutterstock with one of the largest collections of royalty-free images, videos and vector graphics.
iStock was once part of Getty images and still one of the most renowned stock photo agency with millions and millions of images of high-quality divided into two categories; Essential (non-exclusive content) and Signature collection (exclusive files of high quality).
iStock also offers millions of videos and audio files which are downloadable and can be used anywhere or in any format.
What makes it even a better Shutterstock Alternative is that it lets the user download 750 high-quality downloads of media per month and even at a cheaper price.
3. Adobe Stock
Adobe Stock is yet another few of great Shutterstock alternatives because of the myriad of features that no other stock agency site offers.
What I liked about Adobe Stock is that it offers to edit once you purchase the image. Adobe is built on the base of Fotolias stock photo agency and hence all the photos are licensed under it.
The USP of Adobe photo stock is that it integrates directly with the Adobe Creative Cloud which lets the user access, surf, test and edit an image that they have purchased.
This cloud-based platform offers a large collection of copies of images and videos that can help you.
Currently, Adobe Stock has a library of about 60-million royalty-free images and videos.
If you like working with cool tools like Illustrator, then this one is for you.
4. Photocase
Photocase is a Berlin-based stock photo agency that offers various rare and exclusive images which are particularly artistic and aesthetic.
It provides tons of high-quality licensed images, videos, and other graphics that are trending in the market.
One of the best features of Photocase is that the sorting of images and videos is much easier here.
What makes it a better Shutterstock alternative is that it offers relatively low priced images for aesthetic licensed images.
Photocase pricing works on the credit package system and not on a subscription basis. Photocase credits vary from $5 to $15 for up to 30 credits.
However, users can purchase up to 100 credits for just $1,629.
5. Pexels
Pexels is a tiny website when compared to the Shutterstock. However, we would like to include in our list because of the high-quality images which are professionally captured.
However, they are committed to adding ten to a few images each day in their large collection of archives.
Pexels have a library of images that majorly focuses on outdoor images dealing with landscapes, buildings, crowd, beaches, and so on.
It offers mobile apps for Android and iOS. What I love more about Pexels is that it gives various plugins including Chrome Browser extension, Google Slides Add-on, WordPress plugin and Photoshop plugin.
All the images in Pexels are created with Creative Commons Zero (CC0) which means that they can be used for commercial purposes.
6. Unsplash
Unsplash is a vast library of over 200,000 images that just a fraction against Shutterstock. What makes it our top choice is the high-quality images and amazingly captured.
Unsplash has 4x better image quality than what Shutterstock offers. Unsplash is a large community website with over 41000 members that can upload any number of images every day.
Unsplash has royalty-free images which are available in various categories. These categories include Fashion, Business & Work, Architecture, Health & Wellness and others.
All these images come with royalty-free licenses and can be used for commercial and personal purposes.
Unsplash has been in the industry for over 7 years and now they offer an extensive range of wallpapers and background images.
7. PixaBay
Pixabay offers 1.9 mn+ stunning royalty-free images, videos and music shared by an experienced community. It is certainly one of the most popular stock photo websites and lets user download images with a click.
Just like the Pexels, Pixabay also offers images with Creative Common Xero license which means these images can be used for personal and commercial purposes.
Pixabay also offers royalty-free videos, vector graphics and other illustrations. Most images are high-quality even when downloaded for free. Users can also choose the resolutions of images to download.
What makes it a great alternative to Shutterstock is that it is completely free.
8. Freepik
Freepik is a stock photo website accustomed to small to medium-sized business.
It currently offers 10 million images, vectors, and videos in the repository. This website offers high-resolution images, vectors and PSDs.
Also, it offers various other media which Shutterstock lacks. Freepik lets you download Free customizable icons or Flaticons. It also offers various slides presentation templates and various editable illustrations.
One thing that I loved most about Freepik is that most images can be downloaded for free without any watermark.
Freepik has three pricing plans which is a great fit for small, and medium-sized business.
With just a monthly payment of 9.99 Euro/month or a yearly subscription using which you can get access to the premium library of images.
9. Deposit Photos
Deposit is a tremendous Shutterstock alternative noot because of its collection but because of the top-quality images and videos.
Deposit Photos is an easy to navigate website with wide categories and latest trends, upcoming events. While writing the article, I found a category on Valentine’s Day, Super Bowl, Chineses New Year or others.
However, you cannot download the images without watermark for free. You need a premium subscription for that.
Deposit photos have currently 10 million images and 5 million videos in its repository. It offers several templates and graphics for Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms.
Users can either get subscription packages or choose to purchase the images on-demand.
10. Alamy
Alamy is a stock-photo image agency that offers tons of other media such as images, videos, audios, vectors, illustrations and 360-degree images.
Alamy hosts over 150 millions of pieces of content out of which 100,000 stock images are added to the library every day. What I loved about Alamy is that it has no monthly subscriptions, no credits or even the need to register.
If you find an image on the web, you can upload and search a similar image on Alamy.com or an image close to it.
Users can find images by browsing them based on different categories such as Abstract, Architecture, Fashion, Sports & Fitness and many others.
11. Stockvault
Stockvault is not as popular as Shutterstock but an amazing scall scale alternative to it.
It hosts 300 million royalty-free images in the repository.
Stockvault gives access to the latest photos, most popular photos and users can also search for the images using popular keywords.
I was astonished to see the categories that it offers. Stockvault hosts a large collection of images in different categories including Animals, Constructions, Nature and wide range of Texture images.
When compared to Shutterstock, Stockvault costs nothing more than a dime without compromising with the image quality. The website uses an enhanced filter to handpick images that are only high quality.
12. Flickr
If you are looking for a reliable and most diverse stock image website, then Flickr is for you. Flickr is a top-notch Shutterstock alternative with tens of billions of images and videos.
Flickr offers an advanced search engine for photos, people and groups of photographers. It boasts itself as one of the largest community in the world of photographers.
Hence, users will get to download only the authentic and original capture images available in different categories. Based on the needs, users can type a keyword and download these images for free.
13. Shot Stash
ShotStash is a vast library and top Shutterstock alternative with royalty-free licensed images. ShotStash is known for its three notable features. First one is the vast library of images divided into different categories.
Similar to Shutterstock, it adds images and videos every day. ShotStash has a separate section for the trending and most popular images along with videos and illustrations.
You can even download the attractive mobile wallpapers for your smartphone lock screen.
14. Foca Stock
Foca Stock is an amazing Shutterstock alternative with an immense library of images, videos and vector graphics.
Foca Stock offers high-resolution images, free videos and templates to be used in themes and projects for commercial use.
Like Shutterstock, Foca lets you edit images using various tools and download the images in the preferred resolution and size. It helps to create stunning graphics for social media including Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
Not to forget the vast collection of beautifully designed wallpapers that will get every user’s attention.
15. Freeimages
The last one on our list is Freeimages. This one boasts a large library of 400,000 stock free images. You don’t need an account to start with.
Here, images can be downloaded for both commercial and personal use at no cost. After login, you can download as many images as you can for free. You do not necessarily need to credit the owner after downloading.
Freeimages also offers some elegant illustrations and vector graphics. It has various categories in its arsenal such as Animal & Wildlife, Architecture, Food & Drink, Celebrities, Sports, Business, Science & Technology and others.
Also Read: 23 Best Websites to Find Free Stock Photos
Final Thoughts
Here it is!
This was our updated and best list of the Shutterstock alternatives. Considering the features that Shutterstock offers, we handpicked the stock photo sites that offer features better or equivalent to Shutterstock at low pricing.
Hope you will find the best images, videos or illustrations by navigating to the above-given libraries. In case we have missed something, let us know in the comments.