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Many business owners pick images from Google Images for their website. That's risky. Most images online are copyrighted, and photo agencies actively send notices and invoices for unlicensed use. The good news: there are excellent free sources if you follow their licences.
This is general information, not legal advice. Always read the licence on the site you download from.
Free photo sites
Unsplash
High-quality photos, free for commercial use under the Unsplash License. Attribution is appreciated but not required. You can't sell the photos unaltered or build a competing photo service.
Pexels
Free photos and videos for commercial use, attribution not required. Good selection of video clips for website backgrounds.
Pixabay
Photos, illustrations, vectors and videos under the Pixabay Content License. Free for commercial use with some restrictions (for example, not using identifiable people in ways that suggest endorsement).
Common rules across these sites
- Don't imply that people in photos endorse your product
- Be careful with photos showing logos, brands or recognisable private property
- Don't sell the image itself (as prints or on merchandise) without changes
- Keep a note of where each image came from
Free icon sources
- Google Material Symbols: open-source icons, free for commercial use
- Font Awesome Free: many free icons under open licences; Pro icons need a paid licence
- Heroicons, Feather, Lucide, Tabler Icons: open-source icon sets popular with developers
- Flaticon / Freepik: free use often requires attribution; without attribution you need a premium licence
Free illustrations
- unDraw: open illustrations you can recolour to match your brand
- Open Peeps, Humaaans, Blush (some free): check each licence
What to avoid
- Google Images: a search result is not a licence
- Competitor websites: never copy their photos, even "just for now"
- Watermarked previews from paid stock sites
- Celebrity or film images, which have personality and copyright issues
- AI images of real people or brands
Better than stock: your own photos
For local businesses, real photos beat stock almost every time. Customers want to see your shop, team, vehicles and work. Stock photos of smiling models can reduce trust. See stock vs real photos.
Use stock for: - Background textures and abstract visuals - Blog post covers - Concepts that are hard to photograph
Optimise before uploading
Free stock photos are often 4000+ pixels wide and several MB. Resize to the size actually shown (often 1200–1600 px wide), compress, and convert to WebP. Your site will load much faster. See image optimisation.
Keep a simple licence log
A sheet with: image file name, page used on, source URL, licence and date downloaded. If you ever receive a notice, this record helps you respond quickly.
Every website we build uses properly licensed or client-owned images. Start your project.