Top 17 Websites for Free Stock Photos – The Definitive List!

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A photo is worth a thousand words…

Text-heavy headings and bullets, that are common in PowerPoint presentations, bore your audience. When it comes to virtual meetings, you should, again, pay closer attention and use the best meeting backgrounds so that everyone is engaged. CustomShow users spice up their B2B sales pitches with high-resolution free stock photos and images. Check out a few samples below.

Here are a few reasons why you should consider including high resolution photos in your presentations:

  1. Relevant photos help your pitch stand out compared to competitors’ boring headlines and bulleted text heavy presentations!
  2. They capture and retain the audience’s attention
  3. Images help your sales team deliver emotions of pain, joy, caution, achievements and more
  4. Photos are worth a thousand words! These types of photos can be used for different reasons: from making a paystub to creating a website, social media posts and being used by different web design companies.

So why don’t we see high-resolution photos in presentations more frequently?

2 reasons why you hesitate using photos

  1. Creating presentations with PowerPoint, packaging them as PDFs and then sending email attachments – all put severe restrictions on the size of your presentations. Presentations with high resolution photos and other rich media elements can easily get larger in size.
  2. There is a perception that good quality and relevant photos are hard to find and will be expensive.

You can easily overcome the first problem by switching from PowerPoint to CustomShow

To help you overcome the second problem, we surveyed lots of websites that offer free stock photos. You can use them as a great addition to your podcast cover art, social media, a creative billboard design, or even your website blog. or even your website blog. We were pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of the photos available. 

We ranked them by the criteria described below but do try them all out. You never know which one works best for you.

Free Stock Photo Website Ranking Criteria

We have ranked these stock photo sites based on the following four criteria:

  1. How many photos are available on the website? 
  2. Are the photos on the site free? Do they require licensing or royalty payments for sharing or publishing the photos?
  3. How intuitive is the user interface for search, preview and download?
  4. Are the photos on the website culture or location-centric?

Go ahead and build engaging presentations with these free stock photos!

Free Stock Photo Website List

1. Unsplash

Unsplash offers over half a million royalty-free stock photos from contributing artists.

License Details: They have their own custom license that enables free use of photos for commercial projects without any attribution. However, photo compiling is prohibited.

2. Pexels

Pexels offers thousands of royalty-free stock photos in high resolution submitted by various artists and also added from other free photo sites.

License Details: Their photos fall under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) – with no attribution required.

3. Gratosography

Gratosography offers a collection of about 500 high resolution photos for free. The photos are different from the regular commercial stock photos.

License Details: Their photos fall under custom license, similar to CCO with a sensitive use clause due diligence advice regarding extra rights clearance (brands, trademarks, model releases).

4. Pixabay

Pixabay offers a large collection of free stock photos, vectors and art illustrations. 

License Details: Their photos fall under CC0

5. Picjumbo

Picjumbo offers free stock photos, simple backgrounds and free high-resolution photos for personal and commercial use.

License Details: Their photos fall under CC0 but warns about due diligence when using brands and trademarked subjects.

6. Freepik

freepik

Freepik, a renowned platform, boasts an extensive array of free graphic resources like stock photos, vector graphics, AI images, icons, videos, PSD files, 3D assets, and fonts, catering to both commercial and personal/editorial needs. It is regarded as one of the finest online graphic resource libraries.

License Details: Freepik grants users the freedom to use the downloaded content in personal and commercial projects. While free users must provide attribution, opting for a premium or ultimate subscription allows for attribution-free usage.

7. Burst

Burst offers over 1000 free stock photos intended for e-shops and overall commercial use.

License Details: They have two types of licenses: 1. CC0 2. Custom license- quite identical to CCO. Custom license allows the use of photos in products for resale and has a sensitive use clause.

8. Kaboompics

Kaboompics provides over 8000 free high-quality stock photos with multiple themes.

License Details: They have a custom license granting free usage for commercial purposes that includes a sensitive use clause. It’s not allowed to resell these photos just as they are downloaded. Also, redistribution is prohibited without permission. The terms include a warning about the commercial use of photos with brands or trademarked subjects on them.

9. Life of Pics

Life of Pix provides thousands of very artsy and high-quality free photos covering a variety of popular themes.

License Details: Their photos are not subject to copyright. This allows free usage of the photos for commercial purposes with no attribution required, but the site prohibits mass distribution.

10. New Old Stock

New old stock offers about 1500 free stock photos.

License Details: Public Domain (no known copyright) – It’s subject to Flickr Commons terms, and each institution sets their own permissions. Not all photos are allowed for commercial use and some require a link back.

11. Flickr

Flickr offers one of the most convenient online photo libraries with over 3 million high-resolution photos.

License Details: Their photos fall under CC0

12. Stocksnap.io

Flickr offers one of the most convenient online photo libraries with over 3 million high-resolution photos.

License Details: Their photos fall under CC0

13. Picwizard

Picwizard offers high-quality photos portraying multiple themes. They offer thousands of photos coming from various contributors.

License Details: They have a custom license that enables free use in commercial projects with a sensitive use clause. Resale or use in products for resale (custom t-shirts, posters, etc.) is prohibited but no other copyright restrictions are applied.

14. Raw Pixel

Rawpixel provides authentic and high-quality free photos for creatives, sourced from qualified contributors with a restriction of 100 downloads per user per month.

License Details: They have a custom license that enables free use in commercial projects with a sensitive use clause.

15. Stockvault

Stockvault offers over 110,000 free photos on the most varied topics.

License Details: They have three licenses. 1. Commercial license (free usage for commercial purposes). 2. Non-commercial license (free for personal and editorial use only). 3. CCO

16. Reshot

Reshot offers free stock photos samplings of the best works from emerging photographers.

License Details: All photos published on Reshot are free to use, both for commercial and non-commercial purposes.

17. Foca

Foca offers a collection of high-resolution photos specializing in photos of workspaces and nature.

License Details: They use CCO.

We hope this will help you make your presentations engaging and impactful. You can use these 16 remarkable sites for your business and personal requirements.

One more thing!

Our social media team continues to curate free photos with themes relevant to corporate B2B sales presentation on our Pinterest page.  Pins are organized by concepts such as Workspace, Trust, Partnership, etc.  

Curious to learn how other businesses are enabling their sales teams to close more deals faster with rich media presentations? Fill out the form below and we will schedule a 1:1 private briefing.