10 Best Free Stock-Photo Sites For Social Media Ads

If you manage ad campaigns on your own without the help of a Facebook advertising agency, then you know the difficulties of obtaining HD creatives. To obtain original HD creatives, you will need to either hire a graphic designer and photographer or purchase licensed photos online (unless you can photograph and edit photos, in which case, that will be more time consuming for you).

Of course, there are easier, cost-free ways of obtaining photos for your ads by searching for images on Google. However, this method can be costly to you because, although those photos are accessible and downloadable online, you can’t legally use many of them. This means if you downloaded a photo online that a photographer or graphic designer has full rights to, the person who has the full rights can sue you for copyright infringement or plagiarism.

Fortunately, you can avoid this predicament by downloading free stock photos instead. Stock photos are professional, high-quality images of common places, landmarks, nature events, or people. The list provided below are free stock photos, photos that are licensed under the Creative Common Zero, or CC0. Photos licensed under CC0 can be used for any legal purpose. These photos, which you can edit, copy, and distribute, are free for personal and professional use without the need for attribution (asking for permission from the photographer or giving credit to the source).

The list below contains the 10 best free stock photo websites that exist online. These are the best websites because of the following criteria they met:

quality of photos
ease of search
diversity of photo collections
the size of photo gallery

From among the plethora of other stock photo sites, these are the 10 best.

1. Unsplash

Unsplash contains free, HD photos, from images of couples to nature to workplace, Unsplash has it all. Not a single low quality photo exists in its gallery.

2. Pexels

Currently, Pexels contains over 25,000 free stock photos and releases 3,000 new ones every month. All photos are hand-picked from photos uploaded by Pexels’ users or sourced from free image websites.

All of Pexels’ images are under the CC0 license—they’re free to use. However, the site creators ask that you don’t portray identifiable people in the images in a negative or offensive light without their consent.

3. Pixabay

Pixabay currently contains over 850,000 free stock photos, art illustrations, videos, and vectors. All of Pixabay’s photos can be depicted on social media sites, including Facebook. Note, however, that some of the photos here are photos sponsored by Shutterstock. These photos, which are still free to use, are watermarked with Shutterstock’s logo.

4. Stocksnap

Stocksnap adds hundreds of stock photos weekly, photos which are free from copyright restrictions. When searching, you can sort the images by trending, date, views, downloads, and favorites, making it easier for you to find the image that you need.

5. Negative Space

Negative space provides HD stock photos for free. Hundreds of new images are added each week.

6. MMT Stock

MMT photo categories include flowers, New York City, Macro, Workspace, Technology, Landscapes, Sunset, Textures, among numerous others. Although you don’t need attribution to use these images, it is always appreciated to credit the source. MMT, founded by Jeffrey Betts, has been featured in Canva and Shopify.

7. Life of Pix

Although Life of Pix contains hundreds of free photos for you to use, note that some of these photos are sponsored by Adobe Stock. Adobe Stock photos are still free to use; however, they are watermarked with the brand’s logo.

8. Picjumbo

When using Picjumbo’s images, consider adding attribution or linking back to Picjumbo’s website as it is greatly appreciated by the owner. Adding attribution is, of course, optional.

9. Free Stocks

Although all photos are free for personal and commercial use, when using Free Stocks’ photos, remember to respect registered trademarks and intellectual and private property. Your are not allowed to redistribute these photos to other free stock photo websites (such as the websites listed in this article).