If you’re a social media marketer, you know how difficult it can be to find the perfect image to accompany a post. We all know that photos are one of the most important components for boosting engagement, but unless you’re willing to pay for it, finding a great one can be seriously time-consuming.
That’s why we put together this handy collection of free stock photo websites. Bookmark it for quick reference.
Bonus: Download a free cheat sheet to quickly find the best image sizes for every social network and learn how you can use Hootsuite to easily add them to any post.
20 of the best resources for free stock photos
Every image site in the list below falls under Creative Commons—so you don’t need to worry about getting sued. If you’d like to learn more about how image copyright works on social media, check out our post Can I Use This Photo on Social Media? Understanding Image Copyright.
1. Gratisography
Gratisography is one of the most interesting of the free stock photo sites due to the quirky style of photographer Ryan McGuire. All of the photos are high-resolution and royalty-free—ready for your use wherever you please. The photos are organized in a number of categories—animals, nature, objects, people, urban, and whimsical—and new ones are added every week, which McGuire shares Twitter and Facebook.
IM Free is a “curated collection of free web design resources, all for commercial use.” The royalty-free stock photos are organized by themes such as technology, education, and nature. On the site you’ll also find free templates, icons, button makers, and more.
Pixabay offers over 490,000 free images and videos for both personal and commercial use. All images on the site are royalty-free and covered under Creative Commons CC0, which means they can be modified and used commercially online and in print.
With over 5,427,891 downloads since it launched in 2013, Picjumbo is a popular free resource for social media images. Users can click through the different categories of over 600 free high resolution photos, or download a pack that includes all images as well as three Photoshop mockups (in exchange for a donation of $10 or more.)
Unsplash offers 10 new photos every 10 days via an email subscription and on their website. All photos are licensed under Creative Commons Zero, “which means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash.” You can navigate the site by viewing the photos in their larger versions, but when browsing I usually find it easier to switch to the grid format.
Morguefile was created in 1996 and offers photographs available free for the use in creative projects. The website does ask that photographers or artists are credited when using their free stock images as they aren’t in the public domain. This is a great resource for free social media images that can be used as backgrounds for text-based graphics.
7. Stockvault
Stockvault hosts over 35,000 royalty-free images, graphics, and designs from photographers, designers, and students around the world. As long as you stay on the “Free Stock Photos” rather than the “Premium Stock Photos” tab, you have access to a huge library of photos to use on social media.
This site adds new free CC0 stock photos every week. These images are searchable by category, position, and color. Follow Negative Space on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for updates on when new images are added.
9. Kaboompics
KaboomPics offers free, high-quality images that are available for personal and commercial use. The images you’ll find here are bright, modern, and aesthetically pleasing. And each comes with a helpful color palette so you…
