1. Adobe Stock
2. 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.
3. IM Free
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.
4. Pixabay
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.
5. Burst
In an effort to combat the issue of diversity and inclusion within media and marketing, Shopify held internal photoshoots to create high-quality images of a diverse group of ethnicities and genders in the workplace. That collection is now open and free for personal and commercial use on a new stock photo site called Burst.
6. Picjumbo
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.)
7. Unsplash
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.”
8. Morguefile
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.
9. 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.
10. Negative Space
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.
11. 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 can plan your visuals accordingly.
12. FancyCrave
Instead of tired old stock photos, FancyCrave aims to provide “emotionally driven images that tell a story.” The easy-to-navigate website releases two new images from professional photographers every day. When looking for free social media images, the colorful and vibrant nature of FancyCrave’s photos are especially eye-catching, which might make your social posts more engaging and shareable.
13. RawPixel
RawPixel prides itself on having the most diverse collection of stock photos around. The online resource is trying to change the face of stock photography and has started the (one) world face project with the ultimate goal of photographing people from every nation in the world. In addition to this excellent initiative, RawPixel provides a dynamic collection of free stock imagery that’s sure to fit your next campaign.
14. StockSnap
The free images here can be filtered by date, what’s trending, a number of views or downloads, as well as the number of keyword searches.
15. Startup Stock Photos
Startup Stock Photos is all about free stock images for “startups, bloggers, publishers, websites, designers, developers, creators, and everyone else.” The photos are especially great when you are sharing links to content such as a professional blog post—where the most fitting visual is of someone on a computer or in a casual business setting.
16. Splitshire
Web designer Daniel Nanescu created Splitshire as a collection of stunning, easy-to-browse images and video. The photos are sorted into helpful categories such as “abstract,” “still life,” and “technology.” Nanescu’s photos which previously lived “on a hard drive gathering dust” are now—for good reason—used books, magazines, and websites like The Huffington Post and CNN.
17. Life of Pix
Life of Pix is a collection of free high-resolution stock images donated to the public domain by the Leeroy Advertising Agency in Montreal. With no copyright restrictions, beautiful photos are free for personal and commercial use. If you need social media images of the moving variety, their sister site Life of Vids offers royalty-free videos, clips, and loops for you to use to your heart’s content.
18. Pexels
The free stock images on Pexels are curated from sites such as Gratisography, Unsplash, and Little Visuals. All of the photos on the site are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero so you can use any of the photos for personal or commercial purposes. The collection currently includes over 3,800 high-resolution photos, with at least 70 new ones added every week.
19. Jay Mantri
Jay Mantri’s photographs are nothing short of breathtaking. While beautiful to scroll through in their large form, if you are needing to quickly find an image for your content or social media posting, I suggest changing to the archive view for an easier browsing experience.
20. ISO Republic
ISO Republic’s main mission is “to provide high-quality images to be used by designers, developers, bloggers, marketers, and social media teams.” The categories these free social media images are sorted into, include architecture, nature, people, textures, urban, and everyone’s favorite, “various”.
21. New Old Stock
New Old Stock provides the ultimate “Throwback Thursday” content with hundreds of vintage photos from public archives. The photos are fascinating and would be a compelling addition to any social media campaign. Offering hundreds of royalty-free stock photos, New Old Stock’s collection showcases a wide variety of situations and subjects.
22. Free Refe
Free Refe has a collection of images known for their clarity, quality, and diverse subject matter. Although there is an emphasis on photos showing “real life,” the images are anything but mundane. As their website states, “using great imagery helps portray emotions, increase sales, and conversions,” the free photos here are a must-bookmark resource.
Barking Social 