Best Paid Stock Image Sites in 2022

Images communicate better than words. Whether you’d like to add images either to your social media, promotional campaigns or for other commercial purposes, paid stock photos are an ideal choice.

Paid stock photo sites are a great resource for personal and professional use. If you can’t afford a pro photographer or want to get creative in your marketing campaigns, the paid stock is the way to go.

And with the low subscription price, it’s easy on your wallet too. You can use the same photos in your social media marketing and print ads, saving money on multiple photoshoots.

What Exactly Are Stock Photos?

Stock photos are used in several ways but are most commonly associated with social media and web designing. With the right photos, you can enhance the user experience.

The fact is that stock photos are widely used on social media, web designing, and other digital marketing campaigns. They’re so popular that some companies have decided to use stock photos as their marketing strategies.

However, it’s important to note that if you want to make money from your stock photo business, you will need to create a few of your images and sell them at a premium price.

Why Do You Use Stock Photos For Digital Marketing?

Most people don’t use stock images for various reasons. They think stock photos are boring and old-fashioned, but they are very popular and effective. 91% of top brands use stock photos in their marketing, including Starbucks, Nike, and Best Buy.

With millions of users on websites like Shutterstock and Unsplash, there is no shortage of high-quality stock images available for free. Creating your custom stock photo site is a good way to get your name out there and establish yourself as an expert in your field.

You can either go the free route and use Canva or PicMonkey to create high-quality images that are free to use. The best thing is you can even edit effortlessly as you please. Or else, you can pay for a premium image editing app like Photoshop or Affinity Photo.

There are many reasons you may need to use stock photos for your digital marketing. You can use them as a backdrop for product shots, lifestyle images, or even as part of your copy and headlines on your landing pages.

However, the best reason to use stock images is to add context to your content. For example, suppose you were writing a blog post about how the latest update affects your business. In that case, it might be useful to feature an image of a person using the product in question that makes the article more engaging and fascinating.

How To Find the Best Stock Image?

Whenever you’ve heard the cliche “a picture is worth a thousand words,” a piece of stock photography was probably the primary image in mind. That’s because stock images are everywhere.

There has been an explosion of sites dedicated to providing free photos and videos to users in the past decade. Content generators like blogs need visuals to make their ideas take shape.

When it comes to finding high-quality stock images or other media for your blog posts and social media marketing, you have two choices. You can either buy them from a site like Shutterstock or iStockphoto or use a service like Fotolia.

If you go with a site like Shutterstock, it will be more expensive, but they usually give you a full-size version of the image so that you can put it on your web page without having to shrink it down and distort it in the image.

Your goal is to have an image that is big enough to look good on your website but small enough not to take up too much space.

Paid Stock Photos Sites

Stock photos are a huge market, and it’s growing all the time. It is expected that by 2020 the stock photo market will be worth $8 billion. That’s huge. Right? The bad news is that many people are getting burned by low-quality stock photos, and they are turning to paid stock photo websites.

The good news is that there are a lot of great paid stock photo sites out there that deliver high-quality images for reasonable prices. These sites are very credible, and it’s very easy to join. We will take a look at the top paid stock photo sites to find the best ones to sell your photos. This will help you make money online fast and free PayPal a lot of money with little effort.

A few best-paid stock photos sites include the following.

Canva

Canva is one of the common and important sites for stock photos. This site contains many paid stock images as well, but the majority of them are very high quality. The images on this site are $0.25 each, but you can get them for free if you refer your friends. Just have them click on your link and purchase an image, then you will get it for free.

Freerange Stock

The second site is Free-range Stock. It’s another stock photo site that offers some free images and many paid ones. They offer images in all sizes and resolutions, which is nice because not all sites do that. Images here cost about $1 each, or you can get a monthly subscription for $20 per month. The price is higher than other sites, but the images are larger and of better quality.

If you are a professional photographer or want the best possible quality, this is a great site to consider.

Adobe Stock

Adobe Stock is a best friend to graphic designers. If you’re a designer or have little knowledge about it, you can play around with the multiple features of Adobe Stock. It has over 80m of stock photos. It has multiple plans ranging from $29.99 to $79.99 per month. You can also opt for annual prices to enjoy a few discounts.

Getty Images

Getty Images is one of the most reputed and oldest stock images agencies. This agency was set up long ago, even before the existence of the internet. It usually costs higher charges. Usually, it costs from $125 to $499. But don’t fret; it ensures the best quality you get from no other paid stock images platforms. You can use these images for any of your digital marketing campaigns.

Gratisography

This site offers high-quality free photos for commercial use under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. Ryan McGuire runs it from Bellingham, Washington, who started it in 2009 and still owns it. It has two restaurants, one in Bellingham and one in Lynden, near the Canadian border. The website lists dozens of locations across the U.S., but they’re all franchisees and not owned by McGuire.

What To Look For In A Stock Photo Website?

When you’re looking for stock photo websites, there are a few things that you should look out for. The first thing is the price per image. You want to make sure that the site offers great value for money regarding their stock photos. It should be easy to find your desired images, and if you want to find a specific image, you can also use the search function.

Benefits of Paid Stock Images

There are many benefits of paid stock images as well. Some people don’t have the time to take their photos, or they don’t have a good camera. It isn’t a piece of cake to find the right stock images that fit your website design and brand.

So, it’s best to go with someone who specializes in finding high-quality stock images. This can help you get better results for your website and social media marketing. Paid stock images also make sure that the rights are in the hands of the right person.

For example, if you are an amateur photographer and want to make money from your work, you will need to get a license that will permit you to use your images commercially. This is where stock image agencies come in handy.

The best thing about stock image websites is that they usually pay for images based on what people actually buy. They have license agreements that allow their contributors to sell their work online or through other outlets. This means that even if your stock photo collection is small, you can still do a lot with it. You don’t need to worry about having thousands of images at your disposal.


The internet is filled with images, and it can be hard to find the right ones for your marketing needs. Fortunately, we have done all of the research for you! We have curated a list of high-quality stock images that you can use in any marketing content today. Use them now with our free trial offer and later buy the subscription. The paid stock images work like magic, whether you’re into the web designing industry or any other digital marketing business. If you aren’t sure how to use them like a pro, head over to DAN Institute and learn from experts.