BigStockPhoto vs DepositPhotos – Which is Best for Royalty Free Images?
If you are a content producer, blogger, website owner, or online business owner, you need to have some image and photo resources that you can go to to get royalty-free images. Royalty-free images are not always free, but they are free of royalty payments that you have to worry about when you use them.
What are “royalty-free images?”
Royalty-free images are images that you are allowed to use on your websites and other properties. This means that you can post royalty-free images or materials on your websites, blogs, and other online properties without the fear of copyright infringement. It is important to read the license before downloading or purchasing the image, though, so you’ll know specifically what the license says for each image or digital asset.
But, in general, once you download the royalty-free image, you can use it even in commercial projects in most cases. In addition to downloading royalty-free images, site owners can use any of these free design editing tools to customize the look and feel of images for their sites.
Are they really free?
Royalty-free images are not necessarily free of charge. Some sites have free images, and others have images you must pay for before you download them. Some sites allow both paid and free images. Photographers who are seeking coverage for their artistic creations may upload their pictures or graphics for people to post to get noticed by potential customers.
BigStockPhoto
BigStockPhoto offers royalty-free images and graphics for download for a premium cost of $79 per month for five images per day or 53 cents per image. You can download up to 150 images per month for use in your projects. For content providers who post a lot of unique positions and who need graphics, this is an excellent service to use. One of the best aspects of bigstockphoto.com is that fact that you can use the images any way you want to, including for your commercial projects.
Deposit Photos
Depositphotos.com is another source for royalty-free images and graphics. You can download pictures of any size or type from their site. There are plenty of pictures, images, graphics, and vector images to choose from. This service also allows you to download 150 images per month for $99 per month. They also offer another option if you don’t want to commit to the $99 per month premium. You can choose to download up to 10 new images per month for only $9.99 per month. Then if you need more pictures in any given month, you can download additional images for $1 per additional image.
Deposit Photo also has video packages where you can download video content, as well. For $69 you can get 5 SD videos in standard quality. If you need HD content, you can get 5 HD videos in 720p for $239. They even offer the new Ultra HD or 4K quality video (the new standard for HD video for the new TVs) for $169 for one video.
The license for Deposit Photos is a bit more complicated than the one with BigStockPhoto, so it’s important that you read and understand the agreement.
You can get either a standard or an extended license with Deposit Photos that allows you to use the media that you download in various ways. Again, you should read the license agreement whether you choose the standard or extended license. For example, the standard license prohibits the resale of the media if it plays a major role in the finished product, but the extended allows this.
One good thing about Deposit Photos is the fact that you have an option of a lighter premium of 9.99 for ten images. So if you only need a few, this might be a way to try it out. Both companies have a trial program to try before you buy.
BigStockPhoto vs. Deposit Photos Price Plans
When comparing the two royalty free image sites together, you are going to see they have a lot to offer in terms of image and video content to download. This is especially true with BigStockPhoto as they have a much larger video directory, and price plans built just for accessing such material as well.
You can see a breakdown of BigStockPhoto’s membership plans below. Instead of offering a set price per image, BigStockPhoto allows members to make a choice between how many images they want to download per day or month. The “10 images/videos per day” option will save the most money in the long run.
Deposit Photos also has a subscription, monthly or yearly payment plans and on demand memberships as well. No matter how many images you want to download or have access to, there is a plan built specifically for you.
When looking at all of the options available, the monthly plans are almost always the best ways to go if you want to save money. Instead of paying $1+ per image, you are looking at pay under .35 per image in some case. Just make sure you log in daily to download your images, as the credits won’t roll over, they will just go unused.
Which royalty free image site is best?
When considering both BigStockPhoto and DepositPhotos, we think they are both excellent sources to have on hand when you are in need of original images that you might not be able to create yourself. But there are some significant differences to consider. BigStockPhoto and DepositPhotos both allow you to download both high-quality images and videos. BigStockPhoto is a bit lower priced in that you can download up to 150 images at $79 while the DepositPhotos price is $99 for that same number of photos.
Individual videos in HD are a bit high on the BigStockPhoto site, but their license is less complicated. As long as you pay the price for the BigStockPhoto images or videos, you never have to worry about whether your license covers you. You are free to use them in commercial projects in any way you want, provided you do not post or resell the images in isolation.
DespositPhoto’s license is a bit complicated, so it’s feasible that you need a third party to look over the contract to make sure you comply unless you have an excellent understanding of exactly how your project will be viewed by the company once completed.
The less red tape you have to go through, the better off you’ll be. So due to the complicated license clauses of the latter, we prefer the BigStockPhoto site for downloading royalty-free images.
Check them both out, though, and decide for yourself. It depends on your understanding of how you’ll use your project and how much money you can budget for the download of digital media.