10 Best Stock Photo Sites of 2026

Adobe Stock suits buyers who already design in Adobe software, because subscriptions now bundle the library with AI Studio editing and web and mobile access to Adobe Express, Photoshop and Premiere. The catalog covers 900M+ assets across photos, vectors, illustrations, templates, music, 3D and video. The base plan gives 10 standard assets a month for US$29.99 on an annual plan billed monthly, the 40 credit plan costs US$89.99, and Unlimited Stock costs US$129.99 with an Enhanced License and unlimited standard downloads. Metered plans include a Standard License, which allows perpetual use but caps print runs at 500,000 and rules out items for resale. Unused credits roll over for up to 12 months, and every plan carries Adobe indemnification of up to US$10,000. Premium images, 4K video and extended licenses cost extra credits, though subscribers get a 20% discount. Watch the cancellation terms: annual plans charge up to half the remaining commitment after the first 14 days.

Shutterstock remains a default choice for teams that buy a lot of stock imagery, with image subscriptions that scale from 10 to 750 downloads a month. Its strength for commercial work is the license ladder. Most plans default to the Standard License, which Shutterstock's terms cap at US$10,000 of indemnification. The Enhanced License raises that to US$250,000 per image and covers use on merchandise you sell, though it still excludes logos, trademarks and sensitive subjects. Enterprises can move to a Premier license, which Shutterstock describes as carrying unlimited indemnification. That makes it straightforward to match protection to the risk of a campaign, from a blog header to packaging. The limits are cost visibility and print caps: Shutterstock's own pages describe Standard print limits differently, so read the current terms before a large print job. Shutterstock blocked our page checks from this location, so we list its price as pending rather than quote a figure we could not confirm.

Envato Elements works differently from credit-based stock sites: every plan includes unlimited downloads from a catalog of 29+ million assets, and the tiers differ only in how many AI credits you get. Core starts at US$16.50 a month when billed annually with 20 AI credits a month, Plus starts at US$39 with 200 credits, and Ultimate starts at US$109 with 500 to 2,000 credits. The catalog spans stock photos, video, music, sound effects, fonts, graphics and design templates for tools such as Photoshop, Figma and Canva. All assets and AI generations carry a lifetime commercial license, but each license is tied to a single project. Reusing a photo in a new campaign means downloading it again to register a new license, and starting new projects requires an active subscription. Projects licensed while you subscribed stay covered after you cancel. For teams of 50 or more, Envato sells Enterprise plans with broadcasting rights, custom licensing, tailored indemnification and SSO.

iStock is the royalty-free arm of Getty Images, and its pitch is a mix of budget and exclusive imagery. Assets sit in two collections: Basic covers everyday photos, illustrations and vectors, while Premium holds handpicked images that iStock says you can only get there. Subscriptions come in 10, 25, 50 or 750 downloads a month, on annual or month-to-month terms, and the Premium + Video plan adds 4K footage and music and sound effects from Triple Scoop Music. Every download carries a single user standard license with legal protection up to $10,000, and extended licenses add multi-user rights or raise protection to $250,000. Premium plans also include tools to add, swap and remove image elements and to generate images with automatic legal protection. Boards help teams organize and share files, and plugins connect iStock to Dropbox and Sketch. The pricing page showed euros from our location, so we could not verify a USD price for this list.

Depositphotos keeps its offer simple. The image plan gives unlimited downloads from 190M+ photos, vectors, illustrations and PNG files for $29 a month on a month-to-month basis, and an annual commitment saves 25%. All image sizes are included, downloads carry a standard license for commercial use, and rights to downloaded files last for life even after you cancel. The plan also includes unlimited AI image generation. Occasional buyers can skip the subscription and buy prepaid packs of 3, 10, 30 or 100 downloads, starting at $9 per image or $27 for three, valid for one year. Packs can carry a Standard or an Extended License, which is the route for uses the standard license does not cover. The site shows prices in US dollars and offers a money back guarantee. The trade-offs are a smaller library than the largest sites and an image plan that does not include video.

Canva is not a stock agency in the classic sense, but for many marketers it is where stock photos get used. The free plan includes 4.7M+ elements and 1.6M+ templates. Pro costs US$144 a year for one person and opens 141M+ premium photos, videos, graphics and audio plus 3.6M+ templates, with premium AI tools for resizing, translation and background removal. Business costs US$250 a year per person and adds 100 Brand Kits, approvals and team admin tools. The value is speed: you search, place and edit an image in the same editor, then resize it for each channel. The limits matter for commercial licensing. Canva's library is built for use inside Canva designs rather than downloading files for any project, and its pricing page does not publish an indemnification amount the way Adobe Stock and iStock do. Teams that hand images to developers or print vendors should read Canva's license terms first.

Getty Images sits at the top of the market in both content and cost. Its library spans creative images and an editorial archive of news, sport and entertainment, plus video and music. Smaller buyers use UltraPacks: prepaid bundles whose downloaded files never expire and that cover unlimited users within one legal entity, though editorial photos cannot be used commercially through an UltraPack. Larger customers sign Premium Access, an annual capped download agreement that Getty says has no daily or monthly limits and spans royalty-free, rights-managed and rights-ready collections across creative and editorial content. Getty also sells commercially safe AI image generation with indemnification starting at $50,000 per generated image. Single-file purchases can be refunded within seven days if unused, while UltraPacks and subscriptions generally cannot. For most marketing teams the premium is hard to justify for everyday images, which is why iStock exists. Getty blocked our page checks, so we list its price as pending.

Alamy is a large contributor-driven agency, and its Alamy Open subscriptions are built around one unusual feature: unlimited seats on every plan. The Start, Grow and Scale packs give 15, 25 or 50 image downloads a month, and every plan includes the same creative photos, illustrations and vectors, the same Standard licence for commercial and editorial use, and Alamy Smart Search. Unused assets roll over for one month. The catch is that images marked editorial-use only, such as news, sport and celebrity photos, are not part of the subscription and must be licensed separately. For one-off needs, Alamy sells single-image licenses: a Personal license for solo, non-commercial projects and Business licenses for team and company use, with Enhanced options for merchandise, advertising and broadcast. From our location Alamy showed euro and pound prices, so the USD price is pending. Alamy suits larger teams that would otherwise pay per seat on other platforms.

123RF has simplified its offer into one main subscription, 123RF PLUS, which bundles unlimited downloads of stock photos, video, vectors, audio and fonts with an AI Suite and a standard license. The AI tools include image and video generators, upscaling, generative fill, background blur and removal, and a localize tool, and you can apply them to your own uploads or to images from the 123RF collection. The standard license allows unlimited views on social media, web, email and mobile and print runs up to 500,000 copies, but not use on products for sale. An extended license removes the print cap and allows merchandise. Team plans cover up to 5 users and Enterprise plans cover unlimited users, and buyers who prefer not to subscribe can buy credits. The weak point for commercial buyers is legal cover: the standard liability limit on PLUS is US$5,000, half of what Adobe Stock and iStock include. From our location the page showed Polish zloty, so the USD price is pending.

Pexels is the free option on this list, and for many everyday marketing tasks it is enough. Its license says all photos and videos can be downloaded and used for free, attribution is not required, and you can modify the files. The license explicitly allows use on websites, ecommerce shops, newsletters, ads, banners, flyers and social media. The restrictions are short but important for commercial work: identifiable people may not appear in a bad light, you cannot imply that people or brands in the image endorse your product, you cannot sell unaltered copies as posters or prints, and you cannot use the files in a trademark or business name. Unlike the paid sites here, the license page does not offer legal indemnification, and model and property releases are not described there. That makes Pexels a fit for blog headers and social posts rather than packaging, paid ads featuring recognizable people, or anything your legal team would want covered.