If your work involves continuous use of royalty-free images, then by now you’re probably accustomed to scanning the internet over and over again to find what you need for the best price. With the winter holidays approaching, microstock agencies launch special deals, and it’s always a good idea to use quality season-specific images, because they rarely fail to resonate with potential clients. This is a list of the top 10 stock photo agencies in the wintertime.
YAY Images
YAY earned its first place in my list of preferences this year. The agency amassed 4 million stock files that can be accessed via either of the four subscription plans (Digital, Print, Pro, or Streaming). Regardless of the subscription of choice, all web images can be altered and filtered onsite, not to mention that YAY hosts them – so that all you need to do is paste the link in your articles.
YAY’s traditional subscription plans are Digital and Print. The former is priced at $49, and provides users with 1500PX images, ideal for when you’re working on a PowerPoint, e-book, app, or any sort of commercial project. However, if you need materialized high-resolution images, then you ought to enroll in a Print Image Subscription ($99), which allows you to print even with 300 DPI. Even more, they have a great $9 monthly subscription that works flawless.
Notwithstanding classic plans, YAY has recently instated the Streaming Subscription, an ideal plan for images meant to be published online. An in-browser editor allows users to modify acquired images (700PX) and then publish them without much ado. In other words, there is no need to download your desired image, open it in Photoshop, and then finally upload it onto your website, blog, or newsletter.
For just $9, you can buy as many images as you wish, edit them online in a jiffy, and then paste the YAY-generated code in your articles (so your server always stays light). The Streaming feature is singular to YAY as far as the stock photo market goes, and that alone will make you feel lucky that you came across this simple and cost-effective online solution just before the holidays.
MostPhotos
The second place in my list is occupied by MostPhotos.com, one of my favorite stock photo agencies. I love them for their authentic and real-life images shot by thousands of members from all over the world because whenever I need a particular image, they have it. Starting with their gorgeous website and all the way to their great business model, everything was built around both the buyer’s and the seller’s needs which means that you won’t get confused using their services.
They have one of the easiest to use license that lets you use a purchased image forever, in any of your projects. Even more, if you work in a team, you don’t have to purchase a multi-user account because they will offer individual access for every of your team’s member, for free.
Talking about budgets and prices, I am pleased to see that on MostPhotos.com you can find prices for any budget. In other words, you can buy individual images from $5 in download packages or using monthly subscriptions, starting from $0.51 per image.
They have a huge database with over 5.7 million images, 10.000 uploaded every day and more than 46.700 members so MostPhotos.com is great both for searching images and for selling them.
Stocksy
It’s an all-too-familiar frenzy every time the winter holidays occur: you spend ages trying to find the most appropriate thematic images to integrate in your projects, jumping from one stock photo agency to another in search of superlative quality and advantageous deals. Well, those days are over, because Stocksy could satisfy the aesthetic criteria of any creative professional with its drop-dead gorgeous, 100%-exclusive images.
The ‘Thanksgiving’ and ‘Christmas & Holidays’ categories encase high-end photos that you wouldn’t normally expect to find on the shelves of a microstock agency. Nevertheless, there they are. It becomes clear that whoever handpicked them doesn’t know the meaning of compromise when it comes to quality and artistic value, which means that you no longer need to sort through endless amounts of garbage until you find something meaningful.
This makes plenty of sense when you learn that Stocksy is a co-operative managed by artists, who scrutinize all new works before inviting any contributor join in. However, once they’re accepted, photographers are entitled to 50% of each standard license purchase, and 100% of extended licenses. As a customer, you can take web-sized images from Stocksy for the price of $10.
Inmagine
Inmagine is one of my favorite stock photo agencies. By all means, try out their sophisticated search tools. If you write “winter holidays” in the search box, you’ll be presented with more than 10.000 season-specific images which you can further prune with the help of various filters.
Depositphotos
Depositphotos has so far gathered as many as 19 million royalty-free stock files in its vaults, and the agency has made it a weekly habit of gift-wrapping one item from their Vector Collection. However, I need to mention their famous Discounted Lightboxes – collections comprised of festive images which are herewith sold at 20% off the standard price. Right now, the Thanksgiving Lightbox is 300 strong, while the Christmas Lightbox has more than 1300 fabulous images to choose from.
Stockfresh
Stockfresh has placed 3 million stock photos, graphics, and vectors at their users’ disposal, in a very accessible manner. In truth, Stockfresh not only has attractive prepaid packages and subscriptions, but it also makes it dead simple to locate and take the sought-after images. If you should pay them a visit in this period, be sure to check out the Thanksgiving and Christmas-related new images – you will more than certainly find something that you like.
Shutterstock
Shutterstock sports a wonderful Holidays collection this year. The agency’s total adds up to 30 million creative files right now, and more images are accepted each week. What is more, if you sign up, you are rewarded with one vector and one photo per week at no charge whatsoever.
Getty Images
I have the best of opinions about Getty Images for this upcoming season. The super-advanced search box will take you anywhere you want to go, and if you a run a simple Christmas search, 200.000 beautiful illustrations and photos are bound to turn up in the blink of an eye.
iStock
iStock is a giant among stock photo agencies, seeing as it was the first microstock source in remembrance. It would be a fine idea to consult the Editor’s Picks section, particularly during this time of the year, because it will display precious recommendations for the holidays. Overall, 400.000 of iStock’s Flash media, audio files, photos, and illustrations have a festive theme.
Can Stock Photo
Last, but not least, Can Stock Photo commands more than 480.000 Christmas illustrations, video footage, and photos – so it’s worth considering as a holiday image source. An “army” of 21.000 contributors upload high-quality content everyday, and it’s good to know that you don’t have to make any commitments if you spotted something that you like on their website – you can take images and pay with Paypal or credit card.
That being said, here are some winter representative images that the agencies listed above are selling.
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