In-Depth Review of 6 Cheap Stock Photo Agencies

Are you paying too much for stock photos? As you know, stock photos agencies offer different pricing plans that can make you want to take out your calculator. It’s not always easy to decide which one you should purchase. With options between subscriptions and pay-as-you-go credits, you probably just want a quick solution. So we took out our calculator for you and did the math in-depth leaving no penny unturned.

If you had an unlimited supply of stock photos that were high-quality, how many would you actually use every day? It is easy to feel limited when you are paying a premium for stock photos. You are on a budget but you want to have access to more creative solutions to use in anything from your blog posts to social media to design projects. With these cheap stock photo agencies, you can get more photos for less.

To make it easier for you, we compiled a list of 6 of the cheapest stock photo agencies and how much you can expect to pay. We’ve already done the deal searching for you, took out our calculators, and even have some cheap stock photo coupon codes to give you extra savings so read on to discover the 6 cheap stock photo agencies in-depth.

  1. Shutterstock

shutterstockWith prices as low as $0.26 per photo, Shutterstock offers prime prices. In order to get your stock photos this cheap, you need to purchase the yearly subscription service which is priced at $199 per month for a year for a total of $2,388. If you do not want to commit for a whole year, there are also monthly services that cost $249 and a three-month plan that is $229 per month. The month-to-month plan will cost you $0.32 per stock photo while the three-month subscription gets you photos as cheap as $0.30.

These Shutterstock subscriptions give you access to 25 stock photo downloads per day. In order to get the cheapest prices, you need to download your total allotment of photos per day. The Shutterstock subscription is best for a busy online business that needs daily photos. If you are only using one or two photos per day or even less than that, Shutterstock will not be the cheapest stock photo agency option for you. However, for businesses and individual who want access to more than 46 million high-quality stock photos, Shutterstock is an industry leader.

  1. Dollar Photo Club

Dollar photo clubOn the reverse end of the cheap stock photo spectrum, Dollar Photo Club is perfect for those individuals who only need 1 stock photo every day or every week. The math behind this service is simple. Each stock photo costs only $1 always. An offshoot of Fotolia, Dollar Photo Club is perfect for the creative professional seeking cheap stock photos. There is a yearly subscription plan that costs $99 and gives you access to 99 photos. If you need more, you only pay $1 per photo after the 99.

Besides the $99 VIP membership, Dollar Photo Club also offers a cheaper subscription plan that costs only $10 per month which gives you access to – that’s right, you guessed it – 10 high-quality cheap stock photos. This month-to-month plan has an application process. According  to the site, only 30 percent of applicants are accepted to this service to give you access to the cheapest stock photos.

While Shutterstock’s subscription services blows Dollar Photo Club’s $1 photo out of the water for customers utilizing large bulk stock photos, Dollar Photo Club is perfect for the creative individual with a blog or weekly newsletter, small business owner, or freelance designer who needs cheap stock photos only a few times per week. For the individual looking for a by-the-photo purchase on the cheap, Dollar Photo Club is great. You’ll have access to over 25 million cheap stock photos.

  1. Fotolia

FotoliaAt Fotolia, you get access to royalty-free stock photos at the cheap price of only $0.19 per image. Like other cheap stock photo agencies, there are subscription and pay-as-you go plans. The in-bulk Fotolia subscription plan gives you access to the cheapest rates. You and your company will be able to download between 25 and 250 cheap stock photos daily with these plans and here is where you’ll find the advertised $0.19 per stock photo price. Obviously you need to be in need of large quantities of cheap stock photos to take full advantage of this great offer.

If you need unlimited amounts of stock photo downloads per day, Fotolia also offers a monthly subscription plan that gives you between 5 and 5000 downloads per month. When you purchase the higher end of these monthly plans, you’ll get access to a cheap per stock photo price of $0.64 per image. Any unused images will be rolled over month-to-month to make sure you don’t miss out on images you’ve paid for.

  1. Photodune

photoduneAnother option available for the small business or creative individual, Photodune offers cheap stock photos [ as low as $1. The dollar per image is for the extra-small image which increases to $2 for a small image, and then there is a one dollar increase for each size upgrade after that. If you do not want to spend hundreds of dollars per month for cheap stock photos, then Photodune will be a viable option, you should consider. Besides offering cheap stock photos, Photodune is part of the larger envatomarket which gives you access to other creative products like video and audio.

  1. PhotoSpin

photospinAt the top of the list as one of the cheapest stock photo agencies available, PhotoSpin offers subscription plans that give you access to images as low as $0.06 per stock photo. With the Plus and Super Plus subscription packages available for businesses and other users who need large quantities of cheap stock photos, you will have millions of options to choose from at PhotoSpin.

The Plus plan starts at $429 for the year and goes up to $749 per year. This gives you access to images from $0.07 to $0.06 per image. That’s an unbeatable price. The Super Plus plan satisfies your larger pixel requirements with cheap bulk stock photo starting at $649 per year up to $1049 annually. For these 5100px/17in photos, you will pay $0.11 to $0.09 per image. If you purchased the cheapest of each plan, you would have access to at least 16 images per day including weekends or a total of 500 images each month. The higher priced plans give you access to 1000 downloads each month.

PhotoSpin also tries to appeal to the individual in need of only a photo or two. It offers a single photo option with prices starting at $2 for a small 864px/2.5 inches. Prices steadily rise from there until maxing out at $30 for an extra-large stock photo of 5100px/17in.

  1. DepositPhotos

depositphotosWith access to nearly 30 million high-quality stock photos, you will never go wanting if you buy from this cheap stock photo agency. DepositPhotos offers both a monthly subscription and a daily subscription plan. While the price per images of these plans are cheap, the total cost is very high so it will be best for large corporations and bigger businesses seeking to buy in bulk.

The DepositPhotos daily subscription plan can cost as little as $0.15 per image if you purchase the one year plan with 200 images per day. This totals to a whopping $10,999 dollars. For the monthly subscription option, if you purchase the plan for 1 year and get 5000 images per month, you can get access to individual images at $0.63 a piece with a total cost of $37,699.

When it comes to the better deal, if you want to have access to a large quantity of high-quality cheap stock photos, as a DepositPhotos customer select the daily subscription option. At nearly 30 percent the cost of the monthly plan, you will have access to 124 percent more photos. It seems DepositPhotos has yet to run the math on this one. You can also get pay-as-you go photos for as little as $0.90 per image if you purchase 1001 in bulk.

It has been our intention to make the search for the cheapest stock photo agencies easier for you with this in-depth guide on the pricing plans of the cheapest options available. Whether you are a big company that uses hundreds of images per day or an individual who needs only a few images per month, there are options for you to find cheap stock photos. If you have a favorite cheap stock photo agency that we missed, please share it with us in the comments.