Stockphotos.com Review 2023: A Budget-Friendly Stock Photo Service

Stockphotos.com is a stock photo agency designed for small and medium-sized businesses. As a result, all its offers are tailored to fit this type of business' budget and image needs, bringing the best value in stock images and videos and additional creative resources for the lowest possible price. 

In this comprehensive review, we will explore the various aspects of the Stockphotos.com platform that make it a go-to stock media resource for professionals of all avenues, including its affordable pricing options –such as annual subscription plans and single purchase prices– and bonus perks,  their vast media library which offers millions of royalty-free images catering to multiple industries and niches, their user-friendly design tools for image upscaling and editing, and world-class customer service. 

Before diving in, know that we have a special Stockphotos.com coupon code, which gives you 10 free additional images with your subscription! Do not miss it!

TL; DR: Stockphotos.com is an Expert-Backed and Budget-Friendly Agency 

Stockphotos.com launched three years ago, and its rich and high-quality library is modest compared to the more prominent agencies. But don’t let that mislead you: it’s a company founded and directed by industry veterans and entirely trustworthy, its content is perfectly suitable for professional use, and the catalog has enough variety to serve the most popular design needs. Additionally, they have great AI image upscaling and other tools for non-graphic designers to save time in improving visuals. 

As it is tailored to small and medium-sized business needs, all its prices and plans are more than affordable and have increased flexibility and bonuses that make them more convenient. 

Overall, it’s an ideal alternative for creatives with restricted budgets who do not wish to compromise on image quality. 

Stockphotos.com Background Overview

Though relatively young, Stockphotos.com is backed up by over a decade and a half of industry experience and insider knowledge from its founder and leading team. 

The company’s philosophy revolves around being a fair agency with a human touch, where solutions tailored to clients’ needs and personalized customer support are at the core of the service. 

The Stockphotos.com website page currently hosts a library with 8+ million high-quality images, including stock photos and vector illustrations, and continues to grow through freshly added files periodically. You will also find creative tools, such as a background remover and an image upscaler, powered by the latest machine-learning technology to perform photo edits in just one click. 

Product and service quality are by far the most distinctive characteristics of this stock photo site. 

Stockphotos.com Library: Quality and Expanded Variety 

The platform boasts an extensive media library with 8+ million files suitable for various purposes, such as social media channels, blog post illustrations, websites, and editorial content. Users can enjoy endless creative potential thanks to its Royalty-Free licensing model and the large variety of content themes and styles. 

The collection is divided between stock photographs and vector illustrations and is curated into themed categories such as families, women, men, nature, landscape, business, etc. There are options for every popular topic. Plus, they’re constantly adding new images, so you can rest assured the library is modern, fresh, and continually expanding. 

And finding the right images won't be a problem: the website has an advanced search engine where you can find images based on keywords or use reverse image search to find pictures similar to another one you saw and further narrow results using advanced filters for media type, orientation, and even main color.

Equally important, the image resolution is very high; you can download them up to XXL size at no additional cost. Stockphotos.com is a service suitable for professional use, with pictures that would look perfect in advertisements and other similar placements. 

Stockphotos.com Pricing: Flexible and Low-Cost Subscriptions

One of the best features of this agency is its subscription plans. They’re designed to meet the needs of creatives who need lots of images but spaced out over extended periods yet want affordable rates of bulk-purchasing. 

The Clubs, such as the name of the plans, are all annual deals, paid upfront, and with a yearly download limit. This means once you subscribe, you get to download up to your top allotment of images whenever you want, be it all in one day, over a few months, or a whole year.

Additionally, all the subscription plans include up to 5 seats –meaning it can be shared with up to 5 users–this feature that most other agencies offer at an increased price. Still, here you get it for the same price as an individual account. 

Finally, when you sign up for any Club, you become entitled to substantial member discounts: 50% off extended licenses and 50% off premium images –which will be soon available–. 

This added flexibility and extra benefits are certainly a big plus. 

Club Easy: The Most Popular and Convenient Choice (+ Special Coupon Code!)

 Of all the membership options, Club Easy (also known simply as “the Club”) is the one most users prefer because of its reasonable price, download limit, and bonuses. 

The Club Easy gives 200 image downloads for one year for only $99 – which translates into $0.49 per image, already a great offer. However, they have a special deal, where you get a bonus of 100 downloads in your first year of subscription, bringing the allotment up to 300 downloads in your first year and the price per image down to $0.33!

The subscription to Club Easy also entitles you to several extra perks, namely: 

• 10 upscales with the Stockphotos.com Upscaler tool 
• 10 video downloads 

These come at no additional cost as well. 

And last but not least, we currently have an exclusive Stockphotos.com coupon code, with which you can unlock 10 extra downloads for free on top of your Club Easy subscription! 

Club Plus & Club Ultimate: More Downloads, More Benefits

If you need more than 200 images in one year, higher-volume plans are available, all with the same structure regarding download limit, upfront payment, and seats. 

Club Plus comes with 500 downloads in a year for $199. Right now, you get a bonus of 250 downloads in your first year, totaling 750 images for $0.27 each. A bargain! This plan includes 10 free upscales, 20 video downloads, and 2 vehicle templates. 

Club Ultimate, the largest subscription available, has 1,000 downloads per year for $299. As you likely guessed, there is a special bonus of 500 downloads in your first year, with which you end up getting 1,500 images and paying only $0.20 each. That’s a steal. 

The Ultimate offer has the bonuses of 10 upscales, 30 videos, and 5 vehicle templates, too. 

Stockphotos.com On Demand: Single Image Purchase and Image Packs

Suppose you don’t want to acquire a subscription. In that case, Stockphotos.com has an on demand service where you pay only for a certain amount of pictures once, with no recurrent payment or ongoing commitment to the agency. 

One relevant feature of their service is letting you buy just one image. The single image purchase price is $12 per photo –any size up to XXL costs the same, photos and vectors alike–. If you want more than one, though, the image packs are a better choice, as they offer discounts for volume: 

• 5 images for $36 = $7.20 per image
• 10 images for $49 = $4.90 per image
• 25 images for $105 = $4.20 per image

You can save between 40 and 65% off the regular price for an image if you get them in a pack. 

Stockphotos.com Extended Licenses: Lowest Market Rate for Commercial-Use Images

The above-listed prices are all for images under Stockphotos.com’s standard license agreement –which we’ll discuss in a moment–but if you want, for example, to use the photos in a product for resale, you need an Extended License. Pictures under this license cost more but have many additional usage rights and benefits. 

Extended Licenses are available for all images in the site’s catalog and on-demand only. The price points are to be highlighted, as they are some of the lowest in the market for this type of coverage: 

• 1 EL image: $70 – Exclusive member’s price 50% off $35
• 5 EL images: $280 ($56 per image) – Exclusive member’s price 50% off $140 ($28 per image)
• 25 EL images: $1,000 ($40 per image) – Exclusive member’s price 50% off $500 ($20 per image)
• 50 EL images: $1,900 ($38 per image) – Exclusive member’s price 50% off $950 ($19 per image)

Extended Licenses are about twenty bucks cheaper than most stock photo sites, even without the member's discount. An advantage worth considering. 

Stockphotos.com Licensing Model: Royalty-Free and Super Flexible

We discussed how much each license costs; now, let’s discuss the coverage details. Stockphotos.com works with Royalty Free licenses, which give you a battery of predefined usage rights with no limitations regarding time, geographic locations, or the number of projects, and with a strict one-time payment. You pay for the image and license it once –when you hit the download button– and it’s yours to use forever (even after your subscription ends), wherever you want, and in as many designs as you want, within the established terms. 

The Standard license here is a lot more flexible than in competitor sites. It covers your regular commercial use cases such as websites, social media, magazines, and printed press, but also includes things like use in broadcast for TV or film and in manufactured products such as magnets or mugs, as long as they are given away for free as part of a promotional effort (and not sold for a profit). 

The limitations of the standard license are very few, but important to know them: 

• Prints cannot exceed 500,000 copies
• Image cannot be used in digital or physical products for resale (including clothing, merchandising, web templates, and more)
• You cannot transfer the license to anyone (no reselling, gifting, lending, etc.) – Note: you may use the image in a design for a client, taking responsibility for the use. 
• You cannot display the image in such a way that others can download it
• You cannot use the photo in defamatory or controversial content that may put the image’s creator or the agency in a bad light. Themes like politics, religion, and criminality are out of the scope of usage, and other sensitive topics like mental health or serious illnesses require written approval before use. 

Also crucial to know is that the agency offers a legal warranty of the copyright validity and rights clearance of all their pictures and includes an indemnification policy of $10,000 in case you are accused of misuse of said pictures (providing that you’re complying with the license terms, of course). 

The Extended License includes all the rights detailed in the standard, with a couple of key additions: 

• It eliminates the reproduction limit, meaning you can print as many copies as you wish
• It gives you the right to use the image in products for resale, be they physical or digital (except print-on-demand schemes)

Finally, there is a special print-on-demand license and an API service, should you be interested in this type of collaboration. 

Stockphotos.com AI Image Upscaler

A great bonus of this site is its design toolkit which is available for all. The AI Image Upscaler, which name is self-explanatory, is the most popular online tool in this small arsenal. 

Built with top deep learning technology for image enhancement, this software lets you enlarge and enhance images from 2x and up to 8x enhancing in a few seconds. 

Right now, the tool has four different AI models to upscale images. FacePro, which, as you probably guessed, works excellent for faces and human portraits, and then Balanced, Ironed, and DetailPro. These models take care of noise reduction and motion blur fixing to produce a higher-quality version of your original image. You can try them all until your upscaled image looks perfect. 

Of course, it also works as an image enlarger, where you can get an image resized or blown up without losing quality. 

The AI Image Upscaler is free for up to 3 upscales in 2x resolution and the basic enhancing model. If you want to enlarge an image 4x or 8x, you want to try the more advanced AI models, or if you need to process more than 3 images, then you can buy more upscales in one-off packs: 20 upscales for $7, and 100 upscales for $15. The paid service includes perks like automatic social media resizing. Right now and for a limited time, these packs come with 10 and 50 extra upscales, respectively. 

Don’t forget that you get free upscales when you subscribe to one of the Clubs!

Stockphotos.com AI Background Remover

A more recent addition to the kit is the intelligent BG Remover, which uses the latest AI image manipulation techniques to identify and remove the background of any image in one swift move without you doing anything – upload your image file and hit the remove button. 

This is useful for perfect social media cutout downloads or quickly replacing a photo's background. 

The BG remover’s free version gives you 3 removals for images up to 2000 pixels. If you need to process bigger pictures or a more significant amount, you can opt between the standard package of 20 removals for $4.90 or 100 removals for $15. The latter gives you access to batch processing, too! And if you combine it with AI upscaling, you end up with great cutouts and no quality loss. 

Ultimate: Stockphotos.com AI Magic Edits

The latest feature added to this service is Magic Edits, a way to perform significant photo edits using state-of-the-art AI image generation models. For example, you can change the age of people in photos to be younger or older than the original, or you can change their gender so they appear more masculine or feminine in the final image, all by just sliding a grade bar. Pretty impressive. 

As it’s so recent, the terms and limitations of this feature are yet to be defined on the site. But stay tuned!

Stockphotos.com Star Customer Support: Real People in Real Time

Last but not least, one factor to be mentioned in this review is the agency’s customer service. When they say they believe in adding the human touch, they mean it. And where this philosophy is more felt in the website’s customer support. 

Unlike most other stock media agencies, Stockphotos.com does not use automated chatbots. They have a team of agents dedicated to customer assistance on a live chat and round-the-clock, responding to potential buyers' questions, solving any possible issues from users, giving out quotes for special requests, and more. They also have options to contact via email, to call the company directly, or to request a callback. Customer happiness is a valuable asset for this company; its support team shows it. 

Stockphotos.com: A Great Alternative in Low-Cost Images

Our Stockphotos.com in-depth review concludes that this service is a perfect fit for businesses and individuals who want the best benefits of big stock photo websites, such as high-quality images, flexible and legally-backed licenses, and top-notch design tools but cannot afford their costs. 

With some of the lowest prices in the market for stock photo subscriptions, on-demand imagery, and the trustworthy stamp of being designed and led by industry experts, Stockphotos.com gives you premium stock photography services at budget-friendly prices.