12 Best Websites for Elevated Stock Photography
Photos can make or break your website. They shape first impressions, signal credibility, and often determine whether your site feels polished or DIY.
If you’re not a photographer—or you don’t have the budget for a custom brand shoot—high-quality stock photography can bridge that gap beautifully. When chosen well, stock photos can help your website feel cohesive, elevated, and intentional rather than generic or thrown together.
In this article, I’ll break down why premium stock photography makes such a difference, where to find elevated stock photos that don’t look like everyone else’s, and how to use them strategically across your website.
Heads up: this post may contain affiliate links. In other words, if you make a purchase using my link, you won’t pay a dime more but I’ll earn a small commission. My chips and salsa fund thanks you from the bottom of its heart… er stomach?
Table of Contents
How Premium Stock Photography Can Elevate Your Website
One of the biggest advantages of premium stock photography is exclusivity. Most business owners default to free platforms like Unsplash, which means the same images tend to show up again and again across different websites.
While free stock sites do offer beautiful imagery, overuse makes it harder to stand out. Premium stock collections are curated, less widely distributed, and designed with a specific aesthetic in mind so your website immediately feels more refined and unique.
Another key benefit is consistency. Premium stock photos are typically edited by the same photographer or studio, which results in a cohesive look and feel across the entire collection. That visual continuity goes a long way in making your website feel polished and professional.
Why Premium Stock Photos Are Better Than Free Stock Websites
To be clear, free stock photography has its place. Platforms like Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay offer a massive library of images that are easy to access and free to use commercially.
The challenge is differentiation. When the same images are widely available, it becomes increasingly difficult to create a website that feels distinct or thoughtfully branded.
Free stock platforms can also make it harder to maintain visual cohesion. Mixing images from different photographers often results in inconsistent lighting, color tones, and styling; creating a site that feels visually disjointed rather than intentionally designed.
And if your business serves a specific niche, such as therapists, authors, or service-based professionals, you may find that free stock options either feel too generic or cross into “cheesy” territory. Premium collections tend to handle these niches with more nuance and style.
12 Best Places to Find Elevated Stock Photography
Below, I've listed my favorite places for elevated stock photography that will give your website a polished and unique look.
1. Styled Stock Society
Styled Stock Society is one of my absolute favorite resources for high-quality, premium stock photography. In fact, it was one of my first stock photography memberships I invested in early on in my business. Their photos are perfect for entrepreneurs and woman-owned businesses.
Their catalog features more than 11,000 stock photos as well as Canva templates, monthly caption guides, stock videos, and more. The best part is that on top of monthly and annual membership plans, they also offer a lifetime membership as well as plans geared exclusively toward design agencies with extended commercial licenses.
2. Elevae Visuals
Elevae Visuals offers feminine-leaning aesthetic photos and videos that you can use across all your marketing channels. With over 9000 stock photos and more than 800 videos that can be filtered based on color as well as industry, you're bound to find photos to match your brand.
What's more Elevae visuals offers curated visual suites as well as caption templates, Canva templates, and more.
Elevae Visuals offers monthly and annual plans as well as extended Designer's License that allows you to use their photos in client websites and website templates or digital products for sale.
3. Haute Stock (*aff. link)
Haute Stock is another premium stock photography library that's been around since 2015. Their photos feature an editorial, elevated look with a huge library of stock photos and videos as well as curated moodboards to help you find the perfect set of photos for your brand.
What sets them apart is their Couture Curation® service. When you fill out a Couture Curation request, their in-house designers will hand-pick images based on your brand colors, vibe and ideal audience. You'll get 100+ images tailored specifically for your brand at no extra cost.
Haute Stock offers quarterly, annual, and agency plans with unlimited downloads, Canva templates, Hook templates, and more.
4. PixiStock
PixiStock isn't just a stock library - it's a membership offering everything you need to create strategic, high-converting content for your brand. When you join PixiStock, you get access to beautiful, curated photos as well as stock videos, Canva templates, done-for-you content, content planners, marketing classes and workshops, and more.
What I love about Alicia's teaching style is that it feels calm and grounded and rooted in showing up realistically for your business; not focused on numbers and quantity but rather quality and authenticity.
PixiStock offers monthly and annual plans. There is no extended or agency license yet but you can use their photos in digital products for sale where the photos cannot be extracted.
5. Moyo Studio (*aff. link)
Moyo Studio is a little different than other resources on this list as it's a stock library featuring solely on mockup photos. It's perfect for creatives and designers if you want to present your brand, website, and graphic designs in an elevated way.
You'll find a wide range of packaging, stationery, branding, and device mockups as well as curated Canva templates.
Moyo Studio doesn't offer a subscription but rather individual bundles or collections for a one-time fee.
6. Inspired Stock Shop
If you're looking for spiritual, soulful images for your business, look no further than inspired Stock Shop. You'll find beautiful collections geared for heart-centered entrepreneurs featuring crystals, sacred geometry, journaling, tarot, astrology, witchy photos, and more.
Inspired Stock Shop offers quarterly plans as well as a 12-month all access pass which includes access to over 10,000 images as well as monthly content calendars and Canva templates.
7. pocstock
pocstock is a premium diversity-focused stock library featuring photos, videos, vectors, and graphics that represent a wide range of identities and experiences.
You can start with a free account and pay per image, or opt for a monthly subscription based on download volume—making it flexible for different usage needs.
8. Stocksy
Stocksy is another premium photo library with subscription based on usage. They describe themselves as human-made, no AI photo library that features stock photos as well as videos. You can also get a curated collection tailored to your brand and business.
You can choose between pricing plans that include only stock photos and illustrations or membership that includes videos and animations.
9. CreateHER Stock
CreateHER Stock is a premium stock photography website for content curators. Their extensive library features over 5000 images spanning lifestyle, business, wellness, and other categories.
Their pricing plans are slightly different as they have regular monthly, quarterly, and annual plans; as well as custom stock curation and networking photoshoots.
10. Her Creative Studio
Her Creative Studio features elevated stock photography perfect for service providers and coaches. The membership includes access to stock photos, Canva templates, tech mockups, guides and planners to help you organize and plan your content, and more.
You can choose between quarterly and annual plans as well as Pro membership which is geared towards designers and creative agencies.
11. TONL
TONL is a diversity-forward stock library with collections spanning trends, travel, tech, food, and more. Their imagery highlights people of varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds in natural, modern contexts.
They offer pay-as-you-go options as well as monthly subscriptions based on download needs.
12. Adobe Stock
In addition to tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, Adobe offers a comprehensive stock library with photos, videos, illustrations, and creative assets.
Adobe Stock is particularly useful for corporate-leaning visuals or niche industries where other stock libraries may fall short. Plans are available monthly or annually (paid monthly).
How to Make the Most Out of Your Premium Stock Photos
Premium stock photography is only as effective as how you use it. Simply swapping free photos for paid ones won’t automatically elevate your website—intentional placement and consistency is what makes the difference.
1. Start With Your Brand Visuals First
Before you download a single image, get clear on your brand foundations:
primary and secondary colors
tone and mood (light, airy, editorial, bold, muted, etc.)
the feeling you want people to have when they land on your site
Without this foundational work, you run the risk of your photos looking disjointed. Premium collections work best when they reinforce an already defined visual direction.
2. Choose One Primary Collection Per Website
One of the biggest mistakes I see is pulling photos from too many different sources. Even premium images can clash if the lighting, styling, or color grading doesn’t align.
For most websites, one primary stock collection (with maybe a small secondary set for accents) is enough. This creates instant cohesion and helps your site feel intentionally designed rather than pieced together.
3. Use Stock Photos To Support Your Message
Stock photos shouldn’t just “fill space.” Every image should support the content around it.
A few guiding questions to keep in mind as you're curating your stock photos:
Does this photo reinforce the emotion or message of this section?
Does it help the reader visualize the experience of working with me?
Would removing this image weaken or strengthen the page?
If a photo doesn’t add clarity, credibility, or mood—it’s probably not doing its job.
4. Be Selective With Hero Images
Your hero sections do a lot of heavy lifting. Instead of defaulting to a generic workspace photo, look for images that:
leave room for text
feel aspirational but still relatable
reflect your audience more than your personal taste
Sometimes a quieter, more minimal image will outperform something visually impressive but distracting.
5. Edit For Consistency
Even premium stock photos benefit from light editing. Small adjustments, like exposure, warmth, or contrast, can help images feel cohesive across your site.
You don’t need advanced Photoshop skills. Simple tweaks in tools like Canva or even your website editor can help unify images and align them more closely with your brand palette.
6. Think Beyond Your Website
The best value from premium stock photography comes from reuse. The same images can (and should) show up across:
your website
email marketing
blog posts
social media
lead magnets and digital products
When visuals are reused intentionally, they become part of your brand’s visual identity instead of one-off decorations.
7. Pair Strong Visuals With Intentional Spacing
White space matters just as much as the photos themselves. Premium imagery shines when it has room to breathe.
Avoid overcrowding sections with too many images at once. Fewer, well-placed photos almost always feel more elevated than a page packed with visuals.
Final Thoughts
Premium stock photography can elevate your website and make it look more premium. And thanks to the websites on this list, you'll have no issues finding the perfect photos for your website.
If you’re not sure how to choose website photos that actually support your message (instead of just looking pretty), I walk through this — and the bigger strategic decisions behind it — inside The Profitable Website Planner.
For more tips and tricks, check out these articles:
