How much does a stock photos cost? (2024)

If you want to buy stock photos, it helps to know how stock photo prices vary among the top providers.

While a good first step, image prices don’t tell the whole story, and you should consider things like licensing terms, number of images, integrations and tools, and customer support.

How much do stock photos cost

Royalty-free stock photos cost from $0.20 to $20 per image, depending on the purchase method and stock photo site. Premium royalty-free photos go for $30 to $500 and up, while extended royalty-free licenses cost $50 to $150 per image.

This table shows the cost per image for standard royalty-free photos from subscriptions and packs. It does not include prices for extended licenses, premium photos, or editorial images.

How much do stock photo subscriptions cost?

Stock photo subscriptions are monthly plans that give you a set number of image downloads each month for a fixed monthly fee.

On average, image subscriptions cost from $20 to $200 per month for 10 to 750 monthly downloads. The duration (1 vs. 12 months) and the size (10, 30, 50, 750, etc. monthly downloads) are the main drivers of monthly subscription fees.

For example, Shutterstock’s starter plan comes with 10 images per month. The 1-month plan costs $49/month, the annual plan costs $29/month, and the prepaid annual plan costs $299/year (equivalent to $24.91/month). Larger plans cost more but come with a lower price per image. For example, the starter annual plan with 10 images costs $29/mo, or $2.90 per image, while the largest plan with 750 images costs $199/mo, or $0.27 per image.

Some subscriptions also come with unlimited monthly downloads (usually capped at 40 to 200 per day to prevent scraping). They provide the best value if you want cheap stock photos, but the licensing terms are slightly worse.

How much do extended licenses cost?

Extended licenses are a type of royalty-free license that grants you additional rights over the standard royalty-free license. These rights include the use of images for merchandise (also known as products where the image is the primary value of the end product), the right to use the image in over 500,000 prints and copies, and increased compensation.

As a result, extended licenses cost 5 to 20 times more than standard royalty-free images. Putting this into numbers means that they cost between $50 and $150 on average with a few exceptions.

While the table above gives you a general idea of pricing, not all extended licenses are created equal. For example, Shutterstock’s and iStock’s extended licenses give you an enhanced $250,000 indemnity (compared to $10,000 with the standard license), while Adobe Stock keeps it at $10,000 and Depositphotos at $5,000.

How much do premium photos cost?

The word “premium” here is ambiguous. In essence, it means photos are of better quality and better posed (less stocky) than standard stock photos, but that does not mean that what iStock defines as premium is the same as Shutterstock’s premium.

How much do rights-managed images cost?

All the prices discussed so far were for various royalty-free licenses. The main difference between a rights-managed license and a royalty-free license is that rights-managed licenses are for a single use or project. This means that if you buy a rights-managed image for a news article, for example, you can’t use it in another article or documentary without buying a new rights-managed license.

Rights-managed licenses vary widely from provider to provider. At Shutterstock, it is only available for their editorial collection and costs $199 per image ($99/image if you buy a pack of 25) and $139 per video.

At Getty Images, you can get editorial images with packs that cost $140 to $499, or with rights-managed (called “custom rights”) to reduce the price. The lower price translates into fewer rights, typically limited to certain countries, formats, usage dates, etc. You can get an image for as little as $70.

How can you save money on stock photos?

Even though beautiful photos have their price, you can be smart about it and avoid overpaying. Visit the provider’s website and see if there are any deals, discounts, or coupon codes available to fetch you a better price.

• Deals are one of the easiest ways to save money on photos, and providers present more often than you might think. They announce special deals and discounts on Christmas, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cybersecurity Month, and the anniversaries of their services.
• Annual subscriptions offer the best value, reducing monthly rates and consequently the overall cost per image significantly. Though the upfront cost is higher, the long-term savings are between 20% and 60%.
• Coupon codes help you save on top of other discounts. You can usually get 10% off on providers’ websites or use Photutorial’s codes, which come with 15% off (PHOTUTORIAL15).
• Free photo collections of paid providers, such as Adobe Stock’s free collection, are even better than free stock photo sites because the photos you download come with a better license—typically royalty-free and not public domain.

Why are stock photos so expensive?

My feeling is that stock photos are pretty affordable, although there are some premium images that are a bit more expensive. From my experience as both a contributor and a buyer, I think stock photo pricing is pretty fair overall, if not a bit undervalued.

As a photographer who creates images for stock agencies, there are a lot of upfront costs involved in producing quality photos. These include things like arranging shoots, securing locations, models, props, camera and lens expenses, editing, uploading, and meticulously tagging each photo.

After all that effort, the photographer only earns about $0.02 per image per month, maybe up to $10 or $20 for a really unique and useful photo. The tough standards for most stock agencies mean that many submitted images never make it into the catalogs. Photographers have to shoot a lot to build strong portfolios, and there’s no guarantee they’ll make back what they spent on time and expenses.

Hiring a professional photographer for a custom photo shoot usually costs several hundred dollars or more, depending on what you need. Considering the variety of images, the flexibility of licensing options, and the convenience that stock libraries provide for common business and marketing visual needs, paying $5–20 for an image is quite economical.

Is there an absolutely free stock photo option

Websites like Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay offer free photos that you can use for commercial purposes without attribution. While these are great for certain projects, they often lack the variety and licensing required for professional and client work.

For commercial projects, especially those involving corporate clients, indemnification is crucial—the larger the project, the greater the need for indemnification. Unfortunately, free stock photos do not provide any legal coverage.

Another issue with free providers is their revenue model. You need to consider how they make money. Do they sell your information? More commonly, they mix royalty-free photos with free ones, so when you find a great image, it’s likely a paid one, and clicking on it takes you to Shutterstock or iStock. This can quickly become frustrating.