20 Best Places to Sell Photos Online (Sell Your Photos 2023)

Selling photos online is one way of making money as a photographer. And that’s important because it’s a crowded market for photographers. And everyone with a smartphone thinks they are a professional photographer nowadays. So if there are good ways of making money, then it helps your business. And the good news is there are lots of ways to sell photos online!

We look at 20 of the best places to sell photos online. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of each platform. And we’ll provide tips on making the most of each one. Finding ways to sell your photos is essential for building a successful photography business.

Our Top 3 Choices for Selling Photos Online

iStock Stock Photos

Picfair

Alamy

What Are the Best Places to Sell Photos Online?

Starting a business taking portraits of people or doing weddings can be fun. But what if you don’t feel confident doing that? Then the answer is right in front of your screen. Sell your photos online!

There are plenty of options out there. The most popular ones are stock photo agencies. There are also a few websites where you can sell your pictures directly to clients or even as artwork.

Stock Photography Websites

Stock photography sites are significant in two ways. First, stock websites sell your work for you. After you upload the photos, all you have to do is sit back and watch your profits grow.

But apart from helping you sell photos online, stock photo agencies also provide information on current stock photo trends. In other words, they give you ideas and hints on what images will likely make you money.

The problem with these sites is they provide a lot of content, which grows every minute. That means your photos compete with millions of other options on the internet.

Another downside is that it can take a long time to edit and work on images to upload. Stock photo websites have strict guidelines when selling photos online. You must follow plenty of rules around the quality and information needed for every image.

Before we look at our recommendations in more detail, here’s a summary of our top picks.

Our Top Pick

iStock Stock Photos

Part of Getty Images
Up to 45% royalties
High recognition for increased traffic

Best for Direct Selling

Picfair

Set your own prices
Payments are handled by Picfair
Use your own custom domain name

Best for Non-Exclusive Commissions

Alamy

50% royalty payments
More than 60 million photos
Non-exclusive contracts

Best for Videos

Shutterstock Stock Photos

More than 91 million videos
In excess of 184 million pictures
Up to 30% royalties

Best for Self-Curating

Dreamstime Stock Photos

Royalties up to 49.5%
Self-curated content
Excellent starting package

Best for Regular Sales

Bigstock

Credit system for customers
Royalties increase with volume sales
30% royalties

Best for Integration

Adobe Stock

Works seamlessly with the Adobe Creative Cloud
Immediate royalty payments
Used by more than four million buyers

Best for Prestige

Getty Images

High-end content brings exclusivity
Up to 20% commission
Rights managed licensing

Best for "Artsy" Photos

Stocksy

Popular with publishers
Reputation for high standards
Exclusive deals with 50-75% royalties

Best Value

Photocase

Rising scale of royalties from 20 to 50%
Reputation for high quality images
More affordable than some bigger sites

Best for Selling to Multiple Sites

Wirestock

Sell to multiple stock sites quickly and easily
Automatically handles keywords and captioning
Simple to use

Best eCommerce Option

PhotoShelter

Integrated cloud storage
Intuitive interface
Works with your website

Best Marketplace Option

500px

Range of plans including free
No limit on uploads
Well-regarded collections

Best Creative Space

Canva

Very popular design platform
Allows users to upload and sell their images
Always evolving with new features

Best Shopfront

Etsy

World's largest online marketplace for creatives
More than 30 million users
You keep 96.5% of the sale price

Best Portfolio Option

SmugMug

Works well as a photographer's portfolio website
Set your own prices for your work
You get to keep 85% of the sale price

Best Instagram Integration

Instaproofs

Easily upload your images from your Instagram account
$10 a month lets you keep 100% of the sale price
Free plan takes 12% commission

Best for Event Photographers

Snapped4u

Very easy to use
Clients get to choose the images they want
You keep 90% of sale price

Best Innovative Platform

GuruShots

Game-based photo uploads
Winner gets up to $300 dollars
Easy to use

Best Print-on-Demand Option

Fine Art America

Printing and shipping handled by the site
You set your prices
You keep 35% of the sale price

The Best Places to Sell Photos Online

Let’s look in more detail at the best places to sell your photos online.

1. iStock Stock Photos

Service Offered	Service Offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features 15-45% royalties
Best For	Best For Anyone looking for a comprehensive, high-traffic site

iStock photo is Getty Images’ microstock branch. It’s a great place to sell stock photos if you are starting because it’s a well-known site.

iStock also includes popular forums and resources that help you understand how to sell photos online. It’s quite useful if you feel lost about where to begin.

The royalty payment starts at 15% per download. It can increase to 45%, depending on how popular your photos are. If a customer purchases an image using their subscription credits, you only receive 15%.

If you are into exclusivity, iStock photo will give you 22 to 45%. This rate works on a contract with a 30-day notice period.

2. Picfair

Service Offered	Service Offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features Direct selling to clients
Best For	Best For Anyone looking for a quick and easy way of selling their photos

Picfair allows you to upload your photos (up to 10,000 of them) and sell them through their systems. Rather than receiving a commission, you set the prices that people pay to download. Picfair makes its money from your monthly subscription.

Prices are very reasonable, and Picfair handles the payment processing. UK bank account holders can receive their money directly into their bank account. Others can choose PayPal or Wise (formerly TransferWise) for payment.

If you have (or want to have) your own custom domain name, then you can link it to your Picfair store. This is definitely the most professional-looking option.

In a sense, Picfair allows you to set up your own stock photo website. And that gives you the advantage of keeping all the money for the photos sold.

3. Alamy

Service offered	Service offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features More than 60 million images
Best For	Best For Anyone looking for generous royalty payments

Alamy is a British stock photography website that was started in 1999. To date, it has over 60 million photos and videos. There is a reason for this tremendous amount of content. And it’s partly because of the 50% royalty payment on each photograph it sells.

Despite the large commissions, it doesn’t require you to sell photos to them exclusively. That’s why, in my opinion, this is one of the first choices for selling photos online.

4. Shutterstock Stock Photos

Service Offered	Service Offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features Huge repository and non-exclusive use
Best For	Best For Anyone looking to sell their photos in several locations

Shutterstock houses 184 million images and 91 million videos. They have been enjoying steady growth in sales since its founding in 2003. In 2017, people downloaded 172,000,000 images from this website.

Uploading to the marketplace will net you up to 30% of the sale price of your image. This percentage depends on the size of your image, with payouts falling between $0.25 and $28.

The best thing is that you keep the copyright. So you can still sell the images elsewhere.

5. Dreamstime Stock Photos

Service Offered	Service Offered Photo gallery site
Key Features	Key Features Self-managed curation
Best For	Best For Anyone looking for more control over how their images are presented

Like iStock and Shutterstock, this agency is a perfect starting point if you want to sell online photos. It’s user-friendly. And the requirements aren’t as strict as its rivals.

What makes Dreamstime different is that you get to create and curate your galleries. That way, you have more control over selling photos online. In that respect, you can think of this agency more as a hosting site.

But, of course, that doesn’t mean you can post just anything. Your submissions will still undergo screening to ensure you don’t violate the site rules. For instance, you can’t upload violent or copyrighted content. But if you follow all the guidelines, you can expect to make money once your images are online.

Your commissions start at 25% for a non-exclusive image and 27% for an exclusive option. But as you sell more photos, that can go up to 45% and 49.5%, respectively.

6. Bigstock

Service Offered	Service Offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features Credit system for purchasers
Best For	Best For Anyone who has high-volume image sales

For the most part, BigStock has all the features you can expect from microstock sites. On the surface, it’s just like Shutterstock, Dreamstime, or iStock. But what makes it a bit different is its credit system. And that’s why selling photos online using this platform is also unique.

People can buy stock photos with regular payment options. But as they do, they also earn credits that they can use to purchase even more content from the site. So that means you have two ways of making money.

If users buy photos online using credit, they get a certain amount. For instance, you earn 50 cents for a small picture and $3 for an extra-large option. Meanwhile, your commission generally stays at 30% for each BigStock partner sale.

As your content gets more downloads online, its price increases, and so does your commission. For instance, your photos will earn up to 25 cents if people download them up to 199 times. But you can get 38 cents if people buy one of your images more than 50,000 times.

7. Adobe Stock

Service Offered	Service Offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features Integrates with Adobe Creative Cloud
Best For	Best For Any Creative Cloud users

Adobe Stock (formerly Fotolia) is another microstock photography website. It represents over 57 million images. Adobe repurchased this site in 2014, integrating it into its Creative Cloud service. Here, you can receive royalties between 20 and 46%.

The best part about this site is that your royalties come immediately. Other sites wait until you reach a financial threshold or after 30 days.

Four million buyers use this site, so showing them your images is in your best interest.

8. Getty Images

Service Offered	Service Offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features Prestigious stock photo site
Best For	Best For Anyone whose photos reach their quality control standards

This company is perhaps the most prestigious on the list. Since its founding in 1995, it has become one of the world’s premier stock and editorial photography websites.

As mentioned earlier, iStock is Getty Image’s microstock photography branch. But they sell high-end content through Getty Images that often sell thousands of dollars.

People pay a few dollars for a photo on iStock since it’s loyalty-free. But for Getty Images, they need to buy a Rights Managed license. That means buyers don’t pay for the pictures themselves but for the right to use them on specific platforms such as the web or print.

Due to its exclusive status, it can be challenging to get into Getty Images. To apply, you need to submit six images. Getty then determines if your material is appropriate for either iStock or Getty.

You can earn up to 20% in commission if you get in. Photos on the site sell for hundreds of dollars, so that percentage can make you quite some profit.

9. Stocksy

Service Offered	Service Offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features Popular with editors looking for artsy images
Best For	Best For Anyone happy to sell exclusively for good commission

Stocksy isn’t the largest stock photography website. But it certainly isn’t the smallest. It has a reputation for being the artsiest stock agency online. That’s why it’s the stock photo site publishers love to look at.

You will find that this site has very high standards. It might take longer to find your best images and ensure they are spic-and-span for this site.

They also require exclusivity to your work, meaning you can’t sell them elsewhere. Ultimately, it is worth it, as you receive between 50 and 75% of the total purchase.

10. Photocase

Service Offered	Service Offered Stock photo site
Key Features	Key Features High-quality images that feel less staged
Best For	Best For Anyone with images that are less run-of-the-mill

This German company isn’t nearly as big as most other stock photo agencies on this list. But I think it offers quality equal to Stocksy for a more affordable price.

Photocase images don’t look like stock photos. Instead, they feel more authentic and organic. So if you don’t want your images to end up with low-quality work, this is an excellent option. And since it’s a small company, you have less competition from other photographers.

Despite not being as popular as the other stock sites, many people use Photocase regularly. That’s because it provides options for those who don’t like cookie-cutter photos but can’t afford Stocksy.

Photocase also has a unique payment system. You start with a 20% share and have the potential to earn up to 50% commission as more people buy your photos.

You can look at their point system to better understand how to earn commissions.

Don’t be discouraged by the fact that Photocase is a small company. They really give the impression that they value their photographers. Try it, and you might earn decent money from it.

Alternatives to Stock Photography Platforms

You don’t need to rely on stock agencies to sell your photos. There are many other options that you can also try.

The sites on our list greatly vary in the services they offer. So feel free to review them and determine which works best for you.

11. Wirestock

Service Offered	Service Offered Image syndication
Key Features	Key Features Lets you upload to multiple platforms easily
Best For	Best For Anyone looking for maximum reach for their images

Wirestock is a handy tool to help you sell your photos on multiple platforms. You can upload the images to Shutterstock, Depositphotos, and more… All at the same time! And all with just a few clicks of a button.

Another benefit of Wirestock is that the platform handles captioning and keywording. Your future sales and commissions depend on how easy it is to find your images. As well as how well the keywords capture their essence. Using Wirestock to take care of this tedious process is a real time-saver!

Wirestock allows creators to focus on creating instead of juggling multiple platforms.

12. PhotoShelter

Service Offered	Service Offered Integrated eCommerce platform
Key Features	Key Features Lets you sell your images via your own website
Best For	Best For Photographers with a gallery website who want to add selling functionality

If placing images on a stock photography website doesn’t interest you, Photoshelter is an excellent option. This service offers a photography-orientated eCommerce platform that integrates into your website.

There are many benefits to this service. First, it gives you cloud storage for your images. But apart from that, it also has an intuitive interface, social media integrations, and a decent SEO service.

Photoshelter allows you to decide how to showcase your images. It’s ideal as it doesn’t display competitors’ photos next to yours.

13. 500px

Service Offered	Service Offered Photo hosting and selling
Key Features	Key Features Viewers can like and rate your photos
Best For	Best For Anyone looking for a more interactive site with feedback from others

500px has become one of the most popular photography websites in recent years. It’s filling the void that Flickr left as it began losing members. I can say it’s the best place to find collections of the most professional photos online.

Apart from photo storage, 500px is a marketplace for people to purchase your work. Furthermore, it has a “like” and “photo view” area that shows your images’ ranking and views.

You receive detailed data on where these interactions come from using this platform. All the stats you see can be helpful when it comes to selling your work.

You can upload as many images as you want. You can even run photography workshops through it.

There are four plans to join. They range from Free to Pro and Adobe. It’s best to become a paying member to take advantage of all the platform’s features.

14. Canva

Service Offered	Service Offered Design website
Key Features	Key Features Sell your images to Canva users in their designs
Best For	Best For Anyone looking for an extra outlet for their photos

Canva is one of the most user-friendly graphic design editing platforms. It has drag-and-drop features that allow anyone to create anything from posters to Instagram Story animations.

A lot of the graphics and photos that Canva offers are free. But they also sell other services, including stock photography.

Unlike some traditional stock photography agencies, this stock website makes it easy for people to buy pictures. Users have to drag and drop the photos. Then they click to purchase them to remove the watermark.

Canva’s ease of use means lots of potential to earn money. Many people don’t usually use stock agencies but regularly buy photos from the platform.

With millions of users, Canva continually expands and looks for new stock photos to sell. You can apply and post your stock photos on the website. But they also regularly ask their contributors to photograph custom projects for them.

15. Etsy

Service Offered	Service Offered Storefront
Key Features	Key Features Set up your own store to sell your images
Best For	Best For Anyone looking to sell directly with full control over prices

Etsy is the biggest marketplace on the internet for handmade products. The items you can sell can be physical prints or digital photography downloads. Most of the products are unique. And many are one-off items the creators won’t make again.

With over 30 million users, Etsy is a great platform to sell your photos.

You can also recreate your brand on Etsy. You set the price for your images and even design a page that best displays your photos.

Etsy keeps 20 cents for each product you upload and 3.5% of the sale price. Selling items here can be a challenge. But they offer a helpful handbook to teach you all about branding and marketing. The information they share includes how to price your items, how to sell your photos, and how to succeed.

16. Smugmug

Service Offered	Service Offered Portfolio site
Key Features	Key Features Simply choose your website design and add sales functionality
Best For	Best For Photographers who want to add photo sales to their portfolio

SmugMug is an excellent site for those photographers with an entrepreneurial mindset. They let you choose how much to charge for your photos, and they let you keep 85% in commissions.

So how do they let you earn that much money? Here’s an example from their website: “If you sell a 5×7 for $10.79 and the Smugmug default price for it is $0.79. The markup is $10.00. You keep $8.50 as profit (85% of $10).”

The catch here is you have to buy a Pro subscription. And that starts at $12.50 per month. There is no free option to help you start selling your photos.

17. Instaproofs

Service Offered	Service Offered Storefront
Key Features	Key Features Integrates simply with your Instagram account
Best For	Best For Selling images with interest generated via Instagram

Instaproofs is an online photo storefront. The “Insta” part of the name comes from the ease of taking images from your Instagram account to the website.

You define the print sizes and the price tags that come alongside them. The free account lets you create 15 galleries with a 3 GB storage capacity. The site will also take a 12% commission from your sales if you’re not a paying member.

But if you think it’s worth it, you can also subscribe for $10 per month. Doing so lets you sell images without commission, which helps if many people buy your photos.

18. Snapped4u

Service Offered	Service Offered Event photo sales
Key Features	Key Features Makes a simple connection between photographer and subjects
Best For	Best For Anyone who regularly photographs events

If you want to make money doing event photography, consider Snapped4u.

You can think of Snapped4u as an online gallery. All you have to do is upload your event images on the website. Your clients can then pick the photos they like and pay you.

What’s great about Snapped4u is that it’s straightforward to use. For instance, your clients don’t have to log in to view your photos. If you want your gallery to be private, you can assign a password that they can use to access the files. It’s so simple that it feels like buying postcards at a souvenir shop!

You’ll need to pay a $10 registration fee. But at least there are no posting fees. Snapped4u also gets a 50-cent cut for photos under $5 and 10% for anything above that price range.

19. GuruShots

Service Offered	Service Offered Photography game
Key Features	Key Features Compete worldwide against other photographers
Best For	Best For Adding a little excitement to your photo sales

GuruShots isn’t exactly where you can sell photos online, but you can use this platform to make money.

Here, photographers compete against each other across a plethora of different subjects. Other members vote on the images, and the winners get prizes worth up to $300. You enter a challenge and upload up to four images for that theme.

According to their site, “GuruShots uses special proprietary algorithms to make sure each submitted photo gains equal exposure regardless of when it was submitted during the challenge, giving each entrant an equal opportunity to win through ‘statistically-based objectivity.'”

We have a full GuruShots review to check out too!

20. Fine Art America

Service Offered	Service Offered Direct printing and sales
Key Features	Key Features Site handles all the sales, printing, and delivery
Best For	Best For Anyone looking to sell their printed images easily

Fine Art America is a print-on-demand site. That means they only print and ship your images when a buyer buys one. Their focus is on fine arts, such as photography and digital images of painting, etc.

You can set your prices on Fine Art America, and the website will add its markup. You keep 35% of the final price, and they get the other 65%. So if you demand $10 profit, they will price your piece at $47.

But it isn’t bad since you control how much you want to earn per image. Not to mention that you don’t need to print the photos yourself.

Build a Website to Avoid Fees and Commission

There is nothing like selling your work on your own site. If you are tech-savvy, you can find a way to do this for “free” (not counting domain and hosting fees).

If you aren’t proficient in web design or programming, you can join Wix or Square Space. They do all the background work for you.

Once you set up your website, you can offer as many photos as you want! There is no fee or commission to pay third-party sites after each sale.

A quick Google search can help you find the best website builder. Then you can start selling your own high-quality photos.

It’s a great option if you get a lot of traffic to your site.

FAQs About the Best Places to Sell Photos Online

Here are answers to three questions we get asked about the most. We hope they help you decide where to sell your photos online.

What Is the Difference Between Microstock vs Regular Stock Sites?

Microstock is a pretty new term in photography. It was born with the introduction of sites such as iStock and Shutterstock. Traditional stock agencies generally sell stock photography at a higher price. In contrast, microstock sites offer a low-cost alternative.

The average price that microstock photo sites sell ranges from a few cents to about $5. The photographer then receives a percentage of that sale price. These sites often offer monthly subscriptions to customers for several downloads a month.

Regular stock photography sites, on average, charge a higher price for photos. But it is not unusual for them to sell a photo for a few dollars. So while you may sell more photos on a microstock site, your average sale price will usually be higher on a traditional stock website.

What Is the Difference Between a Managed vs Unmanaged Stock Photo Site?

Some managed stock photography companies have an editor who reviews your photo submissions. And they select the photos that they will want to represent.

So the chosen photos then go through a quality control (QC) process. And this ensures they are good enough for that agency.

An unmanaged agency is one where all the photos you submit are accepted as long as they pass QC. For example, Alamy Stock Photo is an unmanaged stock photo site.

There are pros and cons to using either. The more photos you have online, the more chance of selling one. But on the flip side, the more photos the agency has on its site, the more yours will be lost amongst the crowd.

The other advantage of a managed stock site is that only your best photos will be on sale.

What Should I Look For in the Fine Print?

There are several details to look for. It’s important that after you choose the company that will sell your work, you read and understand the terms and conditions.

There will often be a minimum term that they will want the photo for. So if you decide to pull your images from one agency and move to another, it might be months, if not years, before you can.

You should also be clear on the exclusivity that the agency will need regarding your work. Some stock photography sites will allow you to send the same images to other sites. But some will want exclusive rights to the photos they accept.

That means you won’t be allowed to send those photos to other stock photography sites. This would include similar photos taken that are considered “sister images.”

The other important factor is the commission that you will receive. While one agency might sell your photos at a higher price, they may offer a lower commission.

This could range from 20% to 50% or more. So ensure you check how much you will make from each sale.

Conclusion: Best Places to Sell Photos Online

Stock photography websites are perfect because they take the workload off your shoulders. You can make money just by sharing your portfolio. You can try all the websites we mentioned in this article. Most of them are non-exclusive, so you can add the same image to different platforms and widen your audience.

Non-stock websites will make you more money per image. But they may need more work. For instance, Etsy requires that you print and ship the photos yourself. That process takes time, effort, and energy. But if you stick with it, the long-term payout can be better than stock photography.

So which is the best site to sell photos? We think iStock is the best choice for selling stock photos. This is due to its extensive and varied customer base and worldwide presence. It also has a user-friendly submission process and policies.

Our Top 3 Choices for Selling Photos Online

iStock Stock Photos