5 Best Free Stock Sites for Business Content Creation
It can be sooo frustrating when you think you’ve found that perfect video clip, image or piece of music to use on a promotional video for your business only to find it’s copyrighted and you don’t have permission to use it.
Or even worse, you’ve hit publish on your latest YouTube creation only to see your content removed from the platform for copyright infringement.
How do you avoid this and still produce great content? Free stock websites are a great tool to help you avoid this.
I’ve spent hour after hour researching and using dozens of sites to find the best stock websites out there and today I’m going to share the results with you.
In this article I’ll walk you through the 5 best free stock sites for business content creation whether you’re looking for stock videos, images, sound effects or music.
These are the best free solopreneur tools for the job.
You can use them to enrich your own creations and you won’t have to take out a loan or pawn your favorite guitar to include the material you find. The videos, images and music you’ll find on these sites are completely free to use!
Even for commercial use.
Which makes them great resources for budding solopreneurs, side hustlers and growing home businesses. Each site offers different unique strengths so make sure you read until the end to get full value!
Prefer watching instead? Checkout the video version below:
Let’s get started.
Mixkit is owned by Envato Elements so expect to be encouraged to subscribe to their paid site for access to a greater range of high quality video, but you can just safely ignore these prompts.
It made our list of Free stock sites for business content creation for good reason. There are tons of free resources on this site that you don’t have to pay for and they’re free to use even for commercial purposes.
Here are Mixkit’s available categories:
- Stock Videos
- Nature
- Lifestyle
- Animals
- Food
- Transport
- Business
Each one of these section are divided into:
- Stock Music
- Sound Effects
- Video Templates
- Icons
You can click on anyone of these categories to explore the hundreds of available stock offerings or you can use the drop down arrow in the search bar to select your category and enter your search item.
For example, in the image above I typed “Northern Lights” in the search bar.
The first row of search results are paid stock samples from Envato Elements so you can just scroll past those to get to the free footage.
Click on any image to preview the video on a separate page.
Quality of Videos and available Formats on Mixkit:
You’ll notice you have two options for the quality of video you can choose from:
- HD Ready 1080×720
- Full HD 1920×1080
Either offers great quality for just about any project, but if you do need 4K, then Mixkit isn’t the site for you.
All downloads are in MP4 format — widely used in today’s video world.
License Agreement Overview:
The great thing about Mixkit is that these videos really are yours to use how you please in most circumstances and attribution is not required — although they appreciate when you do!
The only restrictions on your use of these videos, images and music is that you can’t use them on a service that is a competitor to Mixkit, you can’t use them in other stock footage offerings when recognized brands are visible and you can’t use them in adult content.
Pexels offers a wide range of free videos and images, making it a valuable resource for business content creation. The first thing you’ll notice when you visit the website is that it isn’t as organized as Mixkit. There are only two main categories to choose from.
The main categories available are limited. They are:
- Photos
- Videos
If you look to the right underneath the search bar (include screen shot), there are also trending, new and following tabs, but you’re options are definitely much more limited.
Your best bet with Pexels is simply to type the thing you’re searching for in the search bar and see what pops up.
In the image above we looked for some cool videos of meadows. In this case, our search found more than 1000 different options based on our query, which is pretty impressive.
Just be careful.
You’ll also notice some paid options as you scroll through your results from iStock. They are not free and you’ll want to avoid those.
If you want to preview a video that catches your eye in a larger widow simply click on it and it will open your sample so you can watch the video.
Once you find the one you want, click on the arrow next to the free download button to see your available quality options.
Quality of Videos and available Formats on Pexels
There are a number of options in the video category. Starting with basic SD all the way up to Full HD. Here’s a breakdown:
- Standard Defintion
- HD
- Full HD
- Quad HD
- 4K UHD
All video downloads on Pexels are in MP4 format.
License Agreement Overview:
Pexels is another site that gives you a ton of freedom to use their videos and images as you like, including for commercial purposes.
If you’ve been creating videos or building websites for a while, chances are you’ve heard of Pixabay.
It’s one of the most popular royalty free stock sites on the web and for good reason — it has an extensive catalog in all categories.
Here’s a list of the main available categories:
- Photos
- Illustrations
- Vectors
- Videos
- Music
- Sound Effects
- GIFs
You can also search by:
- Naturism
- Wallpapers
- Flowers
- Women
- Cat
- Business
- Spring
- Landscape
- Money
- Dogs
- People
Choice is abundant on Pixabay, which is probably what makes it so popular.
Quality of Videos and available Formats on Pixabay
This time, let’s try searching for the term summer in the video category. As you type summer you’ll notice that Pixabay brings up some suggested terms to further refine your search.
For this example, we’ll choose summer beach.
Just like Mixkit, the first thing you’ll see after hitting enter on your search are suggested paid sponsored videos — this time from iStock.
We can ignore those and scroll past them to our free choices.
One thing you’ll notice that’s different with Pixabay is that some videos do come with a 4K option. If it’s available in 4K, you’ll see this indicated in the bottom right corner of the thumbnail as you hover over it.
You’ll also find several other options as well, starting with standard video.
Video downloads are in MP4 format.
License Agreement Overview:
Pixabay has a similar license agreement to Pexels and Mixkit. Your downloads can be used for personal or commercial purposes and attribution is not required.
By now you’ll notice that the prohibited uses are pretty similar on each of these sites. You can’t use unmodified images or videos, you can’t use them to advertise another product when a logo is clearly visible and you can’t use them in explicit adult style content.
All videos are in MP4 format.
Coverr is a little different from the other sites we’ve looked at so far.
This isn’t a great site for images if that’s what you’re looking for. They’re more focused on videos and music. If you’re looking for stock material in either of these categories, you’ll find a lot to choose from when you visit the Coverr website.
Here are the main categories for videos:
- Nature
- People
- Love & Relationships
- Fitness
- Aerial Videography
- Food & Drink
- Travel
Under music you can search by:
- Genres
- Instrument
- Mood
In the example below I looked at the aerial videography category.
Quality of Videos and available Formats on Coverr
Once again at the top of our search are the paid sponsor options from Shutterstock this time. Below that are our free options to choose from.
When we click on a video that catches our eye it opens up in a preview window. In the free version you’re limited to Full HD — which is perfectly fine for most purposes. Simply click on this option to start your download.
All videos are in MP4 format.
License Agreement Overview:
You’re free to use your downloads from Coverr for either commercial or non-commercial purposes. Attribution is not required.
You can’t use their downloads to create a competing service, you can’t use them for AI training and you can’t use them for promotional purposes when another company’s trademark or logo is clearly visible in the video.
Stock Site #5 Pond5’s Public Domain Project
Our last stock site is probably the most unique in our list. Did you know that there is a ton of historical footage that’s in the Public Domain and free to use?
The problem is, where do you find it?
That’s where Pond5 comes in.
This site is loaded with historical stock material and it’s all completely free to use.
The main categories are:
- Footage
- Audio
- Images
- And 3D Models
You can click on one of these category to explore the available archives or type something specific you’re looking for in the search bar.
In the image below I did a search for horses.
In this case I didn’t find a ton of options, but for our purposes, we’ll say this was exactly what we I was looking for.
As this is old footage, there aren’t a ton of options in terms of quality.
For the most part your only option is a 1920×1080 HD video, which should work just fine.
A note of caution, you will have to sign in to download anything from this site, but you can just use your Google account for this.
License Agreement Overview:
The license is free for personal or business use, but you can only use it as an individual.
It can’t be used for extended commercial use. This is just for individuals, so it’s ideal for you solopreneurs out there.
Side note, there are other places to find old public domain footage. Nasa’s site is a great example. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find many other options as well.
Time to Start Creating
So there you have it.
The top free stock sites for business content creation. With these 5 sites you can find all the stock content you need to make your own images and videos standout and help your business standout.
Time to start creating!
