You already know how important images are for your marketing efforts. People pay attention to images, read image captions and are more likely to read your content if it contains compelling pictures.

Images make your content look more professional and help to improve your communication with your audience.

While there are numerous free stock photography sites you can use, here are a few reasons to consider paying a small fee to license the images you want:

Your rights on free images are sometimes confusing and sketchy. Can you use it on for-profit material? Do you need to credit the site or photographer? Have the rights changed since you downloaded it?
Paid photo websites give you clear terms of use on copyright laws, restrictions, and licenses.
Free images are overused and make your site look like everyone else’s. Cheesy, overused and poorly shot images are NOT helping your brand.
With paid photos, you can get professional and sometimes even unique photos. You can get them in bulk, if you so choose, and there are new photos uploaded all the time to choose from.
Paid images are high-quality and not blurry when enlarged or cropped. They help you to build a polished, cohesive online presence.
Paid image subscription sites often offer vector art, illustrations and graphics.
Free image sites are a time-suck. You can search endlessly for that one decent image.

On a whole, paid images just look better than free, and you’ve got so many more to choose from, too.

Are you just starting out and on a strict budget? Then maybe free images are for you. But do consider upgrading to paid images just as soon as you can for that polished, professional look people trust.

Here are my favorite paid stock photo websites:

1: Creative Market

Creative Market is an online marketplace offering photos, graphics, templates, themes, fonts, and more.

All stock photos are created by independent photographers and cover just about anything and everything you can imagine, including animals, architecture, beauty & fashion, business, health, food & drink, nature, sports, etc.

Prices start at $5.

https://creativemarket.com/

2: Deposit Photos

This stock photography website offers high-quality photos, graphics, vectors, music & SFX, and video.

There over 229 million royalty-free assets with thousands added weekly by photographers and musicians. And their stock videos are all HD including 4K videos.

Price: $9.99/month.

https://depositphotos.com/

3: Envato Elements

This is an unlimited creative subscription service best for students, agencies, marketers, etc., boasting unlimited downloads of 57+ million creative assets with lifetime commercial licenses.

Their monthly subscription includes stock photos, themes, plugins, videos, music, graphics, fonts along with 1,200+ courses and tutorials.

Price: $16.50 per month paid yearly or $33 for a single month on the monthly plan, and a discount for students.

https://elements.envato.com/

4: Ivory Mix

Ivory Mix stock images cater to every brand with their myriad of categories including business, parenting, and wellness, to name a few. Best for entrepreneurs or content creators who constantly need fresh content.

What’s included: over 5,000 stock images with 100+ new photos being added each month, monthly Canva templates, Caption templates, workshops & training, and more.

Price: $67 paid quarterly or $167 paid yearly. Be sure to get their freebie package just for joining their list.

https://ivorymix.com/

5: Pixi stock

This stock photo subscription site is geared for women, offering beautiful feminine stock photos, social media graphics, templates and content planners.

Pixi stock membership gives you access to Over 7,000+ stock photos, customizable Canva graphics, 365-day Social Media Content Planner, DFY hashtag strategy, research in over 30 niches, and more.

Price: Monthly plan $47 with a $375 Annual plan.

https://pixistock.com/

6: Social Squares

Beautiful images combined with monthly expert marketing education and high-engagement new content delivered monthly.

Over 6,000 lifestyle, mockup and flat lay images, 30 monthly customizable caption templates, custom curation of images in your brand color palette, keywords, digital marketing courses, mastermind calls with guest experts, monthly social holiday posting ideas and more.

$39 a month, $109 paid quarterly, $420 paid annually.

https://www.socialsquares.com/

7: Stock Unlimited

Stock unlimited membership offers over 1 million downloads of high-quality photos, vectors, clipart, and more.

You can find any photo based on your niche as they offer over 25 categories with thousands of extra images added to their portfolio every week.

Price: $19 monthly subscription, $79 annual subscription or $169 for 3 years.

https://www.stockunlimited.com/

And here are a few stock photography honorable mentions: