Good stock photography can really enhance a site, and it doesn’t always have to be expensive. Today we’re going to have a quick look at some of my favourite stock photography sites. Whilst nothing may be able to provide the unique custom content of your own photo shoot, these come pretty close for just a fraction of the cost!

Just another note: we use all of these sites for our client’s and our own projects. If you’re interested in purchasing some stock photography then we really suggest checking them all out to see what images they each have that might suit you.

 
iStockphoto.com may be slightly more expensive than most, but it makes up for that with often overwhelming quantity and quality. If you want some decent yet still affordable stock photography, vector illustrations, Flash animations or even video clips then you should definitely check out iStock.

Royalty Free Images 
Dreamstime.com is by far one of the most affordable stock photography sites around. Most images can be purchased for $1USD or less, with some now available entirely free of charge. It was one of the first sites we stumbled across when embarking on our journey to find clients low-cost stock photography and it has remained a useful asset to have. Worth a look, especially for those after the really low-cost (or free) options.

 
fotolia.com is another great site to check out. They have a heap of photos and flexible pricing schemes so you don’t have to pay for more than you need. We’ve found some delightfully good pics here, just the same as the other sites suggested so again have a look and see if anything catches your eye.


Probably the original source for royalty-free stock photography that we used as a fledgling business. sxc.hu is a site where you can upload and share your own photographs for people to use. It’s fairly well run, so quality doesn’t suffer like it might in some open slather photo websites and it does provide a lot of worthwhile (and legally useable) photos. Note though that some authors request to be contacted before you use their work publicly so pay attention to any details for specific files.

Have a look around at these sites. Shoot us an email or leave a comment if you have any favourites of your own, we’d love to hear about them - remember this isn’t an exhaustive list!