10+ Best Places to Sell Photos Online and Make Money

Last updated on Oct 15, 2024 by Southie Williamson Reader Disclosure

Are you looking for the best places to sell photos online? Maybe you’re wondering which photo-selling websites are best for selling stock photos.

Photographers of all levels are in demand, and there are many ways to sell photos online. As a photographer, knowing the best places to sell photos online makes it easy to earn extra money (or even start a new career).

So many online marketplaces and websites claim to be the best place to sell photography and stock videos. However, this can make it hard to know where to start. To help, we’ve compiled a list of the best ways to sell photos online so you can make money doing what you love.

#1 Best Place to Sell Photos Online

Before diving into our list of the best stock photo-selling sites, let’s talk about the #1 best place to sell photos online: your website! The best reason to sell photographs on your site is that YOU have full control. You decide the prices, and no one takes a share of your earnings. It gives you 100% control over how photos are displayed, and you can set your own terms and conditions.

Don’t have a website yet? It’s not hard to create one. You can use WordPress to build a professional photography site online. To start, check out our simple guide on How to Create a Photography Website in WordPress.

After building your website, you can create a beautiful showcase of your photos. To attract visitors and convince them to buy your images, make sure:

• Your images are correctly displayed.
• Your design is user-friendly.
• Your photos are protected from theft.
• Your images are optimized for search engines.
• You have an excellent eCommerce system to process payments and provide digital downloads to make money selling photos.

Thankfully, all of that’s pretty easy with Envira Gallery!

Selling Photos with Envira Gallery

Envira Gallery is the best premium WordPress gallery plugin. The drag-and-drop builder makes it effortless to create a stunning gallery that beautifully displays your images and videos. The plugin provides a built-in lightbox and multiple layouts, including slideshow, fullscreen, masonry, creative, and more.

Envira Gallery gives you complete control and provides native integration with Woo. Setting up eCommerce and selling your photos is a breeze. The Digital Downloads Addon allows users to download pictures easily. With the Printing Addon, you can even allow users to print images directly from your WordPress gallery.

Check out more of our most popular features:

• Client image proofing
• Social sharing buttons on images, galleries, and albums
• Filterable galleries and albums using tags
• Video galleries
• Albums to organize and manage galleries
• Deeplinking for SEO-friendly galleries.
• Watermarking, image protection, and password-protected galleries
• Built-in image compression and lazy-loading
• Adobe Lightroom integration
• And lots more…

Envira Gallery makes it easy to stand out from competitors. You can create gorgeous, functional galleries without touching a single line of code. Head to our step-by-step tutorial to learn how to use Envira Gallery to sell your photos online.

Get started with Envira Gallery today!

Want to learn more about creating a site to sell pictures as stock images? Check out How to Sell Stock Photos with a WordPress Plugin or Theme.

Top 10 Photo Selling Websites

Although the best place to sell photos online is your own website, there are many other sites where you can list your photography for purchase. Let’s dive into our list of the top 10.

1. Adobe Stock

Adobe Stock is a stock photo site from the makers of the most popular photo editing software, including Photoshop and Lightroom. This photography eCommerce platform has been around for almost 20 years. It’s known to be among the very first online photo-selling marketplaces and is still considered one of the best stock photo websites to sell images.

Adobe Stock connects to Adobe Cloud so that you can upload albums straight from Lightroom. This makes it particularly popular among photographers. Your photos can potentially reach a large audience since Adobe products are used worldwide. Check out more of the features that make Adobe Stock one of the best ways to make money selling photos:

• Supports a wide variety of assets, including images, vector graphics, illustrations, and stock videos
• Doesn’t require exclusive rights to your images—you can sell on other platforms at the same time
• Offers free access to Adobe Portfolio for contributors, which allows you to build a portfolio and showcase your best work

All in all, Adobe Stock is an excellent choice for selling your photos online. It’s easy to use and free to sign up, offering excellent workflow integration and vast reach to millions of buyers. 

Pricing / Payout: Free signup. Contributors receive a 33% royalty share on images.

Get started with Adobe Stock today!

2. Shutterstock

Like to Adobe Stock, Shutterstock has been a popular website to sell photos since these platforms started. They have around 200 million contributors and over 600 million images, videos, and music tracks. They also have millions of purchasing customers.

Signing up for Shutterstock is free. Once you become a site contributor, you’ll earn money every time someone purchases and downloads your content. Here are a few of the features that make it a great place to sell your stock images:

• Supports a wide variety of files, including images, vector graphics, illustrations, and video
• Doesn’t require exclusive selling rights to your images
• You can earn extra money by referring other photographers or artists to Shutterstock.
• Provides a personalized portfolio page and the ability to track earnings

You should know that the competition is fierce on Shutterstock. As one of the largest stock photo and video sites on the internet, buyers have millions of images to choose from, including royalty-free ones. To sell photos on Shutterstock and make good money in the long run, focus on uploading many images over time.

Pricing / Payout: Free signup and 6 separate earnings levels, ranging from 15% to 40% of the purchase price. The more downloads you get, the more money you earn.

Get started with Shutterstock today!

3. Alamy

Alamy is a British photography site and another great website to sell photos. It offers fast, easy signup and competitive earnings—more than $1 million is paid monthly to contributors. It also provides an iPhone app (Stockimo) to capture and upload photos on the go.

Signing up with Alamy is free and an especially great option for students since students receive a special 100% commission rate for 2 years! Alamy handles the complex licensing and offers photographers a straightforward contract to sell photos online.

The platform doesn’t edit submissions, so you have complete control over your work. Here are a few of the features that make it one of the best websites to sell photos online:

• Supports a variety of assets, including images, vector graphics, illustrations, and video
• Analytics tools to track sales and help you see what type of photos sell best
• Doesn’t require exclusive selling rights to your images

Although this photo-selling site has fewer buyers than Shutterstock or Adobe Stock, Alamy is still good for earning extra revenue. It’s also an excellent choice for students due to its 100% commission rate for 2 years.

Pricing / Payout: Free signup and 3 commission levels. Most contributors receive 40% (threshold of $250 or more in gross sales annually). Contributors earning over $25k in gross sales earn 50% commission.

Get started with Alamy today!

4. Etsy

Etsy is best known as a marketplace to buy and sell handmade goods, custom products, vintage clothes, and more. You may be surprised to see it on our list of the top photo-selling websites. However, Etsy boasts millions of monthly users, and many photographers use it to sell their work. Etsy has more visitors than most stock photo sites and a specific demographic you can cater to. Sellers often make money from images that target crafty young females.

Another big plus is that Etsy operates as your very own eCommerce shop. Aside from selling digital images, you can also sell prints or other items featuring your photography, such as mugs or blankets. Because of this, it’s easier to expand your photography business and start making money selling photos. Here are a few of Etsy’s pros:

• Ability to price your own photos and products for high earnings potential
• Full control over how you display your photos to buyers
• Offers an Offsite Ads program where the platform will automatically advertise your products across the web (15% fee on sales for the service)

Remember, you’ll need to handle manufacturing and factor in printing, packing, and shipping costs if you’re selling prints or other items. Etsy could be a great fit if you want to create an online store to sell your photography without making your own site.

Pricing / Payout: You can sign up for free or pay a monthly fee of $10 for more perks. Etsy charges a listing fee (the first 40 are free, then $0.20 each), a transaction fee (6.5% of the sale price), and a processing fee if you choose to receive payments through the platform (3% + $0.25).

Get started with Etsy today!

5. SmugMug

SmugMug is a well-known photo storage platform that allows you to protect, store, and share digital photos. However, it also offers a sales platform to help you sell photo prints and digital downloads. They claim the setup process only takes 15 minutes!

A cool thing about SmugMug is that it works with various print labs, helping you sell traditional prints or products. You can print images on almost anything, including metal, glass, and keepsakes. Check out more of SmugMug’s features:

• Private galleries and client-friendly tools for proofing
• Custom pricelists
• Unlimited photo storage, including managing RAW files
• Pre-built website templates and personal event sites

SmugMug is a reputable choice for photographers. It’s particularly well-suited to users who want to provide more extensive product prints without dealing with all the manufacturing details themselves. It’s also handy for photographers who need a robust storage solution.

Pricing / Payout: Plans with access to selling features start at $28 per month. Contributors keep 85% of their profits.

Get started with SmugMug today!

6. 500px

500px is a photography website targeted at professionals. It takes a different approach than many of the typical stock agencies. 500px is a community platform where you can host and share photos, connect with other creators, and receive feedback. However, it also lets you create a portfolio to sell photos online and earn money.

500px’s payment structure for selling photographs sets it apart. Contributors pay a monthly subscription fee to access the platform’s features, sell photos, and receive 100% commission on any sales. Alternatively, you can sign up for a free plan with a 60% commission. Here’s what makes 500px one of the best places to sell photos online:

• Analytics to see where your photo views are coming from, which images are most popular, and how your pictures fare compared to competitors
• An available-for-hire directory where you can add a profile, portfolio, and resume to get discovered by potential clients (Pro plan)
• A discovery page that uses the ‘Pulse algorithm’ to add your new uploads and increase exposure
• Weekly photo challenges (Quests) with prizes

500px puts a big emphasis on high-quality submissions. They review every photo, checking for uniqueness, technical quality, overall aesthetic, production value, and commercial viability before making images available for purchase. It’s not the most beginner-friendly option. However, it’s a great way for professional photographers with a high skill level to get their work seen without competing with lower-quality images in an oversaturated market. Connecting with the photography community and earning 100% commission is a big plus.

Pricing / Payout: Offers 3 membership plans ranging from free to $9.99 per month. Paid plans include unlimited photo uploads and 100% commission.

Get started with 500px today!

7. Snapped4u

Snapped4u makes selling event photos and portraits a piece of cake. If you shoot weddings, parties, engagements, or concerts, Snapped4u makes your life easier. Make a new gallery, upload JPEG photos, and set photo prices after shooting an event or portrait session. Then, clients can buy the photos, and Snapped4u will immediately email them the files.

Each Snapped4u seller has a gallery page. That way, customers who book you for multiple events can always find your images in the same place. You can also give your personalized URL to anyone who may want to purchase your photos, like other event guests. Check out more on using Snapped4U for selling event photos online:

• Set your own prices with a maximum photo price of $20
• Payments to your PayPal account on the 1st of the month or all purchased photos
• Galleries remain posted for 4 months, but you can renew them after expiration

Keep in mind that Snapped4u isn’t designed for stock photography. It’s solely for event and portrait photographers. It provides a simple way for photographers to sell the images they took to the people they photographed.

Pricing / Payout: Charges a one-time registration fee of $10 and commission fees. Snapped4u charges $0.50 on all photo sales under $5.00 and 10% on all others.

Get started with Snapped4u today!

8. PhotoShelter

PhotoShelter is a digital asset management system with services for brands, organizations, and photographers. The platform helps photographers with portfolio creation, gallery organization, client proofing, and selling digital downloads or prints.

PhotoShelter allows you to build a portfolio website quickly, create galleries, add eCommerce functionality, and easily deliver purchased orders to customers. Here are a few of the features that make it a top choice for photography websites:

• Pre-built templates to build your photography site
• Built-in eCommerce features and partnerships with professional print labs
• Private galleries and client proofing
• A mobile app to upload, price, and view your archive of photos

PhotoShelter is a good choice if you’re looking for an easy, hands-off way to create a photography site. The service provides plenty of features for managing and selling photos online.

Pricing / Payout: Offers 3 monthly subscription plans, which start at $10.00. You’ll also pay an 8%-10% transaction fee on each photo sale.

Get started with Photoshelter today!

9. Fotomoto

Unlike most websites on our list, Fotomoto isn’t a marketplace to sell images online. Instead, it’s a widget that integrates with your website to help you sell digital photos and offer print-on-demand services. After you set up a Fotomoto account and add the shopping widget to your site, visitors can purchase images.

If you sell physical prints or canvases, you can manually fulfill orders or let Fotomoto manage them. The service will handle the entire process, including printing, packaging, and shipping. Here are some of Fotomoto’s top features for selling photographs:

• Integration with numerous platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Flickr, and Squarespace
• Customizable widget to display your branding and logo
• User-friendly dashboard for customization and tracking

Whether you’re a hobbyist photographer, a professional photographer, or a graphic designer, Fotomoto has some great features for existing websites. It’s a solid option if you want a simple way to sell physical prints online.

Pricing / Payout: Offers 3 subscription plans ranging from a free plan with a 22% transaction fee to $10 a month with a 10% transaction fee.

Get started with Fotomoto today!

10. TourPhotos

TourPhotos is a hub for tourists and activity photographers across the globe. Many travel agencies and tour companies use it to upload photos from their trips for attendees to buy. You can create galleries for each activity and upload high-resolution images or videos for clients to purchase.

The platform uses a calendar-like store. That way, buyers can find their photos by selecting the date of their activity. Check out more of TourPhotos standout features:

• Set individual prices or bulk packages and generate discount codes.
• Automatic branding will apply your logo to each photo.
• Customers can share purchased photos directly to social media.

If you’re an activity photographer who often shoots tours or other events, TourPhotos is a perfect solution for providing photos to your clients. Plus, the service includes staff management features where collaborators can upload photos and earn a % of sales.

Pricing / Payout: It offers a transaction-based plan where TourPhotos keeps a 20%-25% commission. You can also pay a monthly fee to provide free photos to clients.

Get started with TourPhotos today!

Frequently Asked Questions

Which website is best for selling photos?

Trick question—your website is the best site to sell photos online. You have complete control and won’t pay any commission fees. Plus, creating a WordPress photography site and selling images is easy with Envira Gallery. That said, most stock agency sites don’t require exclusive selling rights. So, you can sell photos on your own site while earning passive income from other photo-selling websites!

Adobe Stock and Shutterstock are popular options. They’re suitable for beginners and provide a vast audience reach. If you’re a seasoned photographer with high-quality images, 500px is another excellent option. Still looking for options? Here are a few more of the best places to sell photos online that we didn’t cover on our main list:

• iStock Photo by Getty Images – Non-exclusive microstock site that pays 15%-45% royalties.
• Dreamstime – Stock website that allows you to curate your galleries and pays a 25% to 45% commission for non-exclusive images.
• Fine Art America – Print-on-demand service that handles all ordering aspects. They focus on fine art and pay a 35% commission, but you set the prices.
• Stocksy – Somewhat niche with a focus on artsy, high-quality photos. It requires selling exclusivity and pays contributors 50%-75% of the purchase price.

Who pays the most for your photos?

Macrostock sites, like Alamy, Stocksy, and Getty Images, focus on high-end, often exclusive images from professional photographers. Compared to microstock sites, they have a stricter application and approval process, but they typically offer higher payouts per image, often reaching hundreds of dollars.

How much money can you make selling photos online?

The amount of money you can make selling photos online varies widely and depends on several factors. Firstly, the quality and uniqueness of your photos play a significant role. Exceptional, in-demand images tend to attract more buyers. The platform you choose also matters—some marketplaces charge higher prices or offer better commissions.

• Consistency and quantity contribute to earnings.
• Regularly uploading a range of appealing photos can increase your chances of making sales.
• Building a solid portfolio and engaging with your audience can lead to repeat customers and positive word-of-mouth, further boosting your income.

Ultimately, successfully selling pictures online requires dedication and understanding your audience and market trends. Some photographers earn a modest supplementary income using a stock photography website. Others turn online photo sales into a lucrative, full-scale eCommerce business.

What kind of photos sell the most?

Corporations, mom-and-pop shops, graphic designers, marketers, and more buy custom or stock photography for online use. Bloggers and website owners who run small to medium-sized businesses make up the largest buying base for stock images. Here are some of the types of photos they buy the most:

• People: Pictures of people (of all ages) are always popular. Currently, photos of different countries and cultures, active elderly citizens, and models with imperfections are high sellers.
• People working: Images of folks working on laptops, writing, speaking at meetings, etc., are very popular with businesses. Just don’t make them so generic that they become a meme.
• Food: Various types of food photography, the stages of cooking, and even empty, unwashed plates are popular on stock photo websites.
• Travel: Landscape photos for sale and shots from around the world are always in high demand.
• DIY & Tools: Photos of DIY artwork, crafts, home projects, and tools are popular. Photos of gears, hammers, nuts, bolts, and screws can convey a lot of things for potential buyers.
• Cities: Cityscapes, buildings, people commuting, and photos that show city motion and lights are in demand.
• Nature: This is a no-brainer. The beautiful outdoors never gets old to shoot and never goes out of style with buyers. Check out the Best Places to Sell Nature Photography Online.

That’s it for now! We hope this guide helped you find the best place to sell photos online so you can start making money with photography!

Not using Envira Gallery? Get started today!

If you enjoyed this article, check out our list of the Best Photo Editing Software for Photographers.

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and X (Twitter) for the best photography tips, resources, and WordPress tutorials.