what stock photo sites are you using?

[tobefirst ⚽️]

My company has a subscription to iStockPhoto right now, but that will be ending at the end of this month. I'm positive that when I call and inquire about renewing, the price per month will have gone up. We started using iStock back when it was $1, $3, $5 per image (I think that's right), and now the costs are 10x that.

So, what site(s) are you using? Is there a less expensive site out there that has a great collection of images my company should be using instead?

 

[autumnsong]

I like Pixabay. I'm not sure if on the terms of use for companies, but the photos are creative commons zero, so they should probably work.

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

I use pixabay, unstream, and pexels for personal projects, but their catalog is not nearly big enough for the stuff I do at work. I appreciate the suggestion, but I'm needing a stock photo site the approximate size of the one we're using. Thanks!

 

[laurim]

I use Pond 5 the most because the prices are the most reasonable I have found. And often when I find an image or movie on another site I can find the exact same thing being sold by the same person cheaper there. The items are sold individually with actual prices so you don't have to do a "buy credits" or subscription package calculation dance like with others.

I also use iStockphoto, 123rf, Shutterstock, BigStock and Adobe Stock (they have excellent high res images for only $9.99).

 

[sarge]

I use Pond 5 the most because the prices are the most reasonable I have found. And often when I find an image or movie on another site I can find the exact same thing being sold by the same person cheaper there. The items are sold individually with actual prices so you don't have to do a "buy credits" or subscription package calculation dance like with others.

I also use iStockphoto, 123rf, Shutterstock, BigStock and Adobe Stock (they have excellent high res images for only $9.99).

The reason it's cheaper at Pond5 is because the revenue share is split 50/50 whereas on other platforms the photographer doesn't make half the selling price and so has to charge a higher rate to make the percentage worth their while. Photoshelter is being utilized by a lot of independent photographers and I believe there is an option for them to participate in bulk package sales for clients so maybe that is an option as well.

 

[spacedcadet]

shutterstock.com alamy.com and dreamstime.com are good royalty free sites.

 

[MacGizmo]

Shutterstock and ThinkStock are about the only truly large-scale, low-cost alternatives I can think of. Everyone else suffers from low quality, low resolutions, or low volume of image selection.