5 Resources for Beautiful, Free Stock-Photos

With all the emphasis on Pinterest, and how it can bring your website, business, or blog more traffic than any other search engine, you can no longer afford to wait on updating your site with beautiful photos that are highly shareable and resonate with your readers.

While we would ideally all love to be able to take our own photos, time and resource (as well as talent) may be keeping you from committing -- and that's OK.  Stock photos have never been more inspiring or affordable!

The following 5 sites are where we go to get stock photos.  All of them offer freebies on a regular basis, so it's worth signing up for all of their newsletters for updates!  (And by visiting via our referral links, you can be eligible for some great discounts, too!)

1. Deposit Photos. Scroll to bottom of the page and choose “Free Images” to get started.  Want to buy? Pricing starts at $.90 per image, including bundle or pay-as-you-go plans.

2. Graphic Stock.  Try their unlimited download plan free for 7 days. After that, you can get one year of unlimited downloads for $99/yr.

3.  iStockPhoto. Scroll to bottom of home page and look for the Free Image of the Week.  (They also offer free illustrations, video, and audio.) Sign up for their email newsletter to be notified for all free images as they become available.  Feel like buying? Pricing is high for the casual user, but agencies will can pay just $166/mo for 750 images.

4. Creative Market.  Go to the top of the page and look for the "Free Goods” link for complimentary photos, graphics, background, fonts, and more. Buyers will find that photos start at $2 each, but they often offer special deals throughout the year.

5. Snapwire. Scroll to the bottom for Free photos. They release a new zip file of freebies every 7 days; archives are accessible for a total of over 100 free photos! After that, photos start at $5, but you get a free $20 credit when you sign up!

We love what stock photography has done for our business, and we are confident that the above sites will give you a good number of photos to start revamping your look for 2015!