42 Trending Stock Photography Businesses [2024]

Pat Walls

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Updated: January 18th, 2023

Start A Stock Photography Business

Stock photography is typically sold on an exclusive basis to one buyer for a single usage fee. Stock photos are often available in different sizes, resolutions, and file formats. Businesses most commonly use stock photos for marketing purposes.

Stock photography is the supply of photographs often licensed for specific uses. Stock photos are the perfect marketing and advertising resource for website owners and bloggers.

You can build an impressive portfolio and earn a passive income by uploading high-quality stock photos.

To start a stock photography business , invest in some good photography gear and learn how to take stock photos. An excellent online presence can help you sell your stock photos faster and at profitable margins.

Looking for some examples of a stock photography business?

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

1. 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

2. Pixabay

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

Learn more about starting a stock photography business:

Where to start?

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

Need inspiration?

-> Other stock photography business success stories
-> Marketing ideas for a stock photography business

Other resources

-> Stock photography business tips

4. Pexels

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

5. 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

6. 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

7. Dreamstime

Find the perfect stock photos, images and vectors for your project. Quickly search over 141 million images including free and public domain images.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 27.8M/month

8. 123RF Stock Photos

Search and download from millions of HD stock photos, royalty free images, cliparts, vectors and illustrations

Where they're located: Chesapeake, Virginia, USA
Website traffic: 19.7M/month

9. 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

10. Alamy

212.80 million stock images, vectors and videos. Greater choice from Alamy, the world’s most diverse stock photo collection.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 16.1M/month

11. Bigstock

Find millions of awesome royalty-free stock photos, images and vectors. Download affordable high-res stock photography and high quality stock footage videos.

Where they're located: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Website traffic: 1.83M/month

12. Explore over 300,000 free stock photos and royalty free images

Browse over 300,000 free stock photos and find the perfect royalty-free image quickly. Download free, high quality stock images, for every day or commercial use. No purchase required.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 1.43M/month

13. Stock Photography Images Royalty Free at Can Stock Photo

Affordable Royalty Free Stock Photography. Downloads for just $2.50, with thousands of images added daily. Subscriptions available for just $39.00. Our stock photo image search engine contains royalty free photos, vector clip art images, clipart illustrations.

Where they're located: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 2.29M/month

14. Online Proofing Galleries for Photographers

Share & sell your photos in beautiful client galleries & simplify your workflow with integrated contracts, invoicing & commission free sales. Free 14 day trial.

Where they're located: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Website traffic: 2.74M/month

15. 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

16. Build a Website using Format

Build an online photography website that showcases your work the way you want with Format. Start your free trial today. No credit card and no strings.

Where they're located: Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

17. Getty Images

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.

Website traffic: 3.42M/month

18. picjumbo

Free stock photos and images for your projects and websites.️ Beautiful 100% free high-resolution stock images with no watermark.

How much they make: $120K/year
Where they're located: Brno, Czechia
How much did it cost to start: $0
Current team size: 0
Website traffic: 360K/month

How This Solo Founder Built A $120K/Year Stock Photographs Website

Picjumbo is a free stock photo site created by solo founder Viktor Hanacek that has amassed 150,000 monthly visitors, 5,000 free photos, over 10,000 premium photos, and brings in over $10,000/month in revenue through advertising and premium membership.

About

Viktor started picjumbo over 10 years ago

Revenue

Viktor grew the business to $10K/month

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Read by 3,994 founders

19. Stocksy United

Inspiring stock photos + videos driven by creative integrity. Browse our exclusive, hand-curated collection of beautiful content today and get the VIP...

Where they're located: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Website traffic: 620K/month

20. 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

21. Stockvault

133.680 free stock photos, textures, backgrounds and graphics for your next project. No attribution required.

Website traffic: 250K/month

22. 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

23. Ivory Mix

Smart Visual Marketing Strategies for Busy Entrepreneurs

Website traffic: 70K/month

24. 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

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 over 12 years ago

Revenue

Serban grew the business to $0/month

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25. unknown

What would you do if you had amazing royalty free photos? Download free stock photos with no copyright restrictions and real look.

26. 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.

27. Megapixl

Browse thousands of hand selected & curated premium stock photos, vectors and videos.

28. 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

29. 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.

30. Stockphoto

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

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

31. freestocks.org

Free stock photos for both personal and commercial use. High quality images for your website and blog free of charge. No attribution required.

32. Freestock

Explore Freestock’s expansive library of free photos, vectors, icons, videos and creative assets. Curated with care and FREE forever.

Where they're located: Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

33. 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

34. Image Source

Image Source offers a huge selection of premium royalty free stock photos. High quality royalty free images available on a royalty free license.

35. Free Images

Search Millions Public Domain/CC0 stock images, clip-art, historical photos and more. Commercial use OK. No attribution required. No login required.

Where they're located: Baltimore, Maryland, USA

36. Cowbelly Media

An agency for pet brands offering commercial pet photography, graphic and branding design, web design, custom pet videos, stock dog & cat photos & more.

Where they're located: San Diego, California, USA

37. CreateHER Stock

CreateHER Stock is a free stock photo gallery and subscription-platform catering to the creation of stock photos for black women, melanated women, women of color and more.

38. PhotographySites.com

A photographer website directory and photography sharing site. Fine art photography, landscape, nature, black & white, nude photography and more photography galleries.

Where they're located: Eugene, Oregon, USA

39. Product Photography Studio

Miami based nationwide product photography studio. Product photography is a specialized branch of commercial photography. Call 877-303-6124

How much they make: $540K/year
Where they're located: Miami, FL, USA
How much did it cost to start: $5K
Current team size: 6

How I Started A Commercial Product Photography Business

Pro Photo Studio founder Tsour Lee Adato shares how she turned a $5k investment into a business that services over 500 clients annually and makes approximately $350k per year with plans to expand and become a 7-figure business while offering advice to fellow entrepreneurs to always be innovating, learning and growing, and not to undervalue themselves.

Revenue

Tsour grew the business to $45K/month

Costs

It cost Tsour $5000 to start the business

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Read by 14,614 founders