42 Trending Stock Photographer Businesses [2024]

Updated: January 18th, 2023
Become A Stock Photographer

A stock photographer creates a wide variety of high-quality photos and licenses them out to individuals, businesses, and organizations through stock photo sites. This allows many different customers to use your photos for web content, brochures, advertisements, presentations, and more in exchange for royalty payments.

As a stock photographer, you retain ownership of your photos while selling licenses for their various commercial uses. With each photo download, you get paid a royalty fee. Top stock photographers make a full-time living through licensing fees across their robust galleries of creative, useful images.

To be successful, focus first on building a diverse, striking collection showcasing your best photography. Study top-selling images on leading stock sites to understand what subject matters, styles, and technical executions garner the most demand.

Target popular neglected niches and leverage platforms like Shutterstock, Stock, and Adobe Stock to upload your growing stock library. With abundant high-quality and keyword-optimized images in your portfolio, your work can start getting discovered and driving passive licensing income over time.

Looking for some examples of a stock photographer?

Interested in case studies of a successful stock photographer? Check out our full list of success stories.

1. Adobe

Where they're located: Los Angeles, California, USA
Website traffic: 254M/month

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2. Shutterstock

Download the best royalty free images from Shutterstock, including photos, vectors, and illustrations. Enjoy straightforward pricing and simple licensing.

Where they're located: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Website traffic: 75.6M/month

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Learn more about starting a stock photographer:

Where to start?

-> How much does it cost to start a stock photographer?
-> Pros and cons of a stock photographer

Need inspiration?

-> Other stock photographer success stories
-> Marketing ideas for a stock photographer

Other resources

4. Pixabay

Where they're located: San Roque, Andalusia, Spain
Website traffic: 34M/month

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5. Pexels

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 30.9M/month

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6. iStockPhoto

Explore millions of exclusive, royalty-free, stock photos, images, and videos. Find the perfect image for your project, fast. Search now.

Where they're located: Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Website traffic: 36.1M/month

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7. Shopify

We’re not just an ecommerce software, Shopify is the best ecommerce platform that has everything you need to sell online, on social media, or in person.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 58.9M/month

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8. Depositphotos

The best stock agency with millions of premium high-quality pictures: stock photos, royalty-free images, illustrations and vector art at affordable prices.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 23.3M/month

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9. Envato

Join millions and bring your ideas and projects to life with Envato - the world’s leading marketplace and community for creative assets and creative people.

Where they're located: Oakland, California, USA

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10. Royalty Free Stock Photos, Illustrations, Vector Art, and Video Clips

Find the perfect royalty-free image for your next project from the world’s best photo library of creative stock photos, vector art illustrations, and stock photography.

Where they're located: Los Angeles, California, USA
Website traffic: 18.4M/month

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11. VICE

The definitive guide to enlightening information.

Website traffic: 27.4M/month

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12. SmugMug

Whether you want a photo website that sells prints, secure client galleries or just need unlimited storage, let us be your all-in-one solution.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 6.51M/month

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13. Pond5

Search the world's largest video collection plus millions of music tracks, sound effects, motion graphics and images. Over 20,000 new videos added daily. Find the perfect media for your next creative project. Search now.

Where they're located: Columbus, Ohio, USA
Website traffic: 2.1M/month

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14. twenty20.com

Where they're located: Portland, Oregon, USA
Website traffic: 710K/month

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15. PhotoShelter

PhotoShelter lets you store your images, create your photo website, and much more, empowering photo sales and providing marketing and archiving tools for photographers.

PhotoShelter, founded in 2005 by Allen Murabayashi, Grover Sanschagrin, Jason Burfield, and Jeffrey Arnold, was launched as a cloud-based portfolio site and e-commerce platform for professional photographers.

Where they're located: Manhattan Community Board 1, New York, USA
Website traffic: 2.07M/month

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16. StockSnap

The #1 source for beautiful free photos. High quality and high resolution stock images free from all copyright restrictions (CC0) - no attribution required.

Website traffic: 890K/month

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17. Themeisle

Premium WordPress themes, templates & plugins developed by ThemeIsle. We are the creators of Hestia and Neve top WordPress popular themes.

Website traffic: 1.36M/month

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18. PhotoDune

Discover over 3,009,800 Stock Photos and Royalty-Free Images on PhotoDune. Buy Stock Photos from our global community of Photographers from just $2.

Website traffic: 400K/month

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19. EyeEm

Connect with more than 25 million photographers and videographers from over 150 countries. We are driven by authentic, real and diverse storytelling.

Where they're located: Batha, Chad
Website traffic: 860K/month

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20. EzineArticles

EzineArticles is a website that allows entrepreneurs to publish their articles on various topics. It generates revenue through advertising and subscriptions. It serves a wide range of customers looking for informative content. The site was founded by Christopher Knight. They have a team of employees who curate and manage the content on the site.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 1.05M/month

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21. Gratisography

The world's quirkiest collection of free high-resolution pictures you can use on your personal and commercial projects. All completely free of copyright restrictions. New photos added every week!

Where they're located: Eugene, Oregon, USA
Website traffic: 400K/month

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22. Stock Photo Secrets

Explore millions of stock photos and royalty-free stock images. Find the best stock photo sites and stock photography. Learn how to use the photo and license.

Where they're located: Oakland, California, USA
Website traffic: 230K/month

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23. Home

Where they're located: San Roque, Andalusia, Spain
Website traffic: 360K/month

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24. Freerange Stock

Free stock photography at freerangestock.com. High-resolution stock images and textures for free with photographer ad revenue sharing system.

Website traffic: 130K/month

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25. Please Wait...

Website traffic: 640K/month

26. Free stock photos

Find the best free stock images. Download all images and use them in your projects.

Website traffic: 180K/month

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27. Stock Photography, images, videos and vectors

Where they're located: Dulce Nombre de Jesús, San Jose Province, Costa Rica
Website traffic: 550K/month

28. Fotolia is now Adobe Stock

Search 236 million royalty-free stock photos, EPS vector art illustrations and HD video footage. Download creative files from $0.74! The best creative source for presentations and marketing projects!

Where they're located: Cape Coral, Florida, USA
Website traffic: 250K/month

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29. Free Stock Images

The largest collection of high quality free stock photos. Thousands of images added daily!

Where they're located: Brentwood, TN, USA
How much did it cost to start: $0
Current team size: 25
Website traffic: 170K/month

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How I Started A Royalty Free Stock Photo Platform

Stockfreeimages is a royalty-free stock photo platform with 1.3 million registered members and over 2 million free stock images and illustrations from 56,303 photographers, featuring content from Dreamstime's contributors who donate their files in exchange for exposure and royalties without risking any copyright infringement.

About
Serban started Free Stock Images about 12 years ago
Revenue
Serban grew the business to $0/month
Read by 7,889 founders

30. FREE Stock Photos from Pik Wizard

Free stock photos for commercial and editorial use. Huge library of stunning, high quality, royalty free stock images. No attribution required.

Where they're located: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 110K/month

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31. OffSet

A high-end imagery resource from Shutterstock. Authentic, captivating stock photography and illustrations. All royalty-free.

Website traffic: 240K/month

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32. Haute Stock

Styled stock photography for women business owners, bloggers & creative entrepreneurs. Get feminine stock photos with a stock photo subscription for your branding needs.

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33. Dissolve

Extraordinary stock footage and photography from Dissolve.

Website traffic: 270K/month

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34. CartoonStock

Cartoon library, fully catalogued and searchable, instant downloads.

Website traffic: 310K/month

35. FreePhotos.cc

Find free beautiful stock photos with Creative Commons (CC) licensing. Download royalty free images and use them on your website or print!

Website traffic: 70K/month

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36. NegativeSpace

Beautiful free images for personal and commercial use. All business, food, people and technology photos are free, high-resolution, and no attribution is required. CC0.

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37. Magnum Photos

Magnum Photos has visually documented most of the world’s major events and personalities since the 1930s covering society, politics, events and conflict

Website traffic: 460K/month

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38. Styled Stock Society

Beautiful feminine-styled stock photography for online business owners. Library includes curated stock photos, desktop flatlays, bundles, templates, and more!

39. Stockphoto

Start Your Story Here. Discover over 50 million Stock Photos and Illustrations.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 60K/month

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40. AllTheFreeStock.com

AllTheFreeStock.com is a curated list of free stock 📷 images, 🎼 audio and 📹 videos. Find all the best free stock images and videos in one place.

Website traffic: 110K/month

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41. nappy

nappy is a website dedicated to providing free, beautiful, high-res photography of black and brown people to creatives, startups, brands, and agencies. nappy makes it easy for companies to be purposeful about representation in their designs, presentations, and advertisements.

Where they're located: Memphis, Tennessee, USA

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