In our visual era, we all marketers, bloggers, and entrepreneurs are chasing for high-quality photography to accompany our content marketing. Searching for elegant, styled stock photos that tell a story is most often a chore.
What Are Styled Stock Photos and Why Are They Important?
Styled stock photos are high-end photos, the compelling ingredient on a mission to visually back your content strategy and empower it to generate sustainable results for your business.
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Paid or Free Styled Stock Photos?
There are tonnes of free stock photos all over the internet, for instance, Pixabay and Unsplash are some of the most popular sites for free stock photos. There also are sites that offer free-styled stock images or at least some sample bundles. But here are some great reasons why subscribing to a membership for styled stock photos is a brilliant idea.
Why Invest in Styled Stock Photography?
First of all, free styled stock photography is often overused. It’s possible that the free image that attracted you attracted another 100 brand owners. So, all those 100 will end up with the same image across all their platforms. This is something you can easily avoid with paid styled stock photography.
Secondly, the terms and conditions of using free styled stock photos from free websites aren’t always very elaborate. Different sites will state different terms, but for paid custom styled stock photos the terms are very straightforward and are often meant to support your business.
Thirdly when you compare the quality of free styled stock photos to paid styled photos; the difference is like day and night. The free photos aren’t often of top quality. For paid styled stocks, on the other hand, quality is guaranteed and this will enable you to do much more with them. And it’s unlikely some direct competitor of yours will use the same styled photography library. Thus, you have a higher chance of being perceived as original by your audience.
With these three valuable reasons, you would understand why paid styled stock images is superior for your business at whatever stage you’re in.
Where Can You Buy Stock Photos?
There are several options you can run with. For instance, you can get premium styled stock photos from marketplaces such as the Creative Market or you can opt to sign up for a more dedicated website that specifically has curated styled stock photography created with business in mind.
From both sources, you have the option of purchasing single photos from the marketplace or shop section of the dedicated stock sites or you can opt for bundles or memberships, whatever suits your purpose. You can kick off your campaign using the right custom stock image for as low as $5.
With dedicated websites that offer paid custom styled stock photos, you will have the entire library at your disposal and absolute value for your money.
So, what do we do if we want beautifully styled stock images?
Look!
There are quite many small, niche sites that offer great stylish photos, most of them provide some free bundle photos and have subscriptions from which to choose.
I hand-picked some of the best feminine, dazzling, styled stock photos available online. Here is a list that I am very sure you will find very interesting and useful:
1. BizStyledStock – A Professional Photos Library Built for Businesses Aiming for an Aesthetic Brand
If you’ve been searching for custom styled stock photos that are fresh and not cliché or stereotypical, then welcome to BizStyledStock. A rich styled stock photos resource and digital space for elegant, high-resolution professional photos and stock imagery designed particularly for women entrepreneurs and solopreneurs. Plus, you have the possibility of personalizing them further to suit your brand and goals.
You don’t have to go through the wearisome experience of searching through thousands of outdated style-lacking images anymore. With BizStyledStock you access straight-to-the-point, passion-filled resources to make your business instantly stand out.
I have passionately used my marketing expertise to create and shoot a styled stock image database that will provide you with the kind of online presence that your brand needs. So, if you don’t know how to use styled stock photography, I have created a large variety of stock images for business, to fit your marketing visuals and to guide your sustained marketing initiatives. Plus mockups, that allow further personalization, social media templates for Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook, abstract photos, quotes, and more.
It’s obvious that starting up your brand can be the most challenging task yet. You have everything to figure out and often, a minimal budget. To give you a hand while establishing your online presence, get started with this free stock photos bundle of 20 photos and 2 mockups to ease your work. Plus some more each month if you join the mailing list.
These include light background photos that you can use as a hero image for websites, professional background images for LinkedIn, Zoom, social media campaigns, converting ads or sales campaigns, or simply background images for editing. They are also ideal for blog covers.
All you need is to download them and personalize them to fit better with your brand.
These free styled stock photos include professional images for business. They have high resolution to enable you to customize them further.
BizStyledStock is your ticket to building a stellar online presence. It offers graphic elements aiming to infuse an original vibe into your visuals. Empower your world-class content with some styled imagery and designs to entertain and keep your readers coming back for more. Make use of backgrounds, layers, patterns, and supplementary graphic elements to make your visuals look original and fancy.
Offers: Free bundle and paid memberships (The Silver Plan (Quarterly), The Gold Plan (Annual))
2. StyledStockSociety
Elle Drouin’s style and elegance are more than obvious in her visuals. A sharp aesthetic sense that you will appreciate for sure. I have to confess that I am a great fan of her posh images.
If you sign up to her email list you get instant access to 20 free photos plus monthly free bundles to download.
Offers: Free bundle and paid memberships (Quarterly, Annual, and Lifetime Membership Plans)
3. Styled Stock
A collection of feminine photos. A small treasure counting some thousands of items, a collection of beautiful images. And some totally free!! Pleasantly surprised to see that. Browse the library and for sure you will find photos to fit your taste and brand.
Offers: Single Photo Purchase Option
4. Haute Stock
Lady Boss in action! A styled and chic stock library that includes lifestyle images, social media premade quotes, styled desktop images, mockups, exclusive graphics, and seasonal visuals.
Rachel, as a stylist and photographer obsessed with brand and beauty, aims to give a hand to women entrepreneurs and creative professionals.
Sign-up for regular free images.
Offers: Quarterly and Annual Membership Plans
5. SC Stockshop
A comprehensive library with several collections among which desktop, stationery, screens, beauty, florals, frames, etc. You have the possibility to sort your brand color or preferred color.
You get instantly 20 photos when you subscribe and on different occasions, like Valentine’s Day or Christmas other free bundles.
Offers: Single Image Purchases and Collections
6. She Bold Stock
Colorful, bold, shining, and outstanding photos. A world in a photo! Jasmine does a great job with the visuals she creates. Sure, it’s a matter of taste.
Some tens of bundles to pick from Lifestyle Stock Photo Bundle (Minimalist), 25 Motivational Social Media Quote Package, Pink and White desktop bundle, etc.
Grab 20 free style photos when subscribing. And every other month you get new images.
Offers: Free bundle and Monthly and Quarterly Membership Plans
7. Ivory Mix
Kayla does a tremendous job with her glamorous photography, you can access immediately a free collection of over 500 styled images
There is a wide variety of images, girly, chic, and delightful shots for various niches. Just pick the ones that suit yours.
Ivory Mix scores more than 5000 elite stock, which you can access entirely via various membership options or by selective bundles.
Offers: Free images and Quarterly or Annual memberships
8. Pixistock
I simply fell in love with Alicia’s photos, as she refers to them as “Stunning, ready-to-use content to grow your business online”. A true demonstration of elegance and finesse.
She has a stock photo subscription that provides thousands of stock photos, Canva templates for social media, content calendar plans, and LightRoom presets. Over 5000 businesses use her images.
Offers: Paid Membership
9. Her Creative Studio
Created to help creative entrepreneurs stand out from the crowd, Her Creative Studio has an elegant offer, with a couple of subscription options. Their library enriches periodically, they currently have over 2000 photos in their library.
And you receive monthly a free styled item if you subscribe to the mail.
Offers: Annual and Bi-Annual Membership.
10. Social Square
This is another well-curated collection of over 5000 high-quality custom styled stock photos for your social media, website, email, newsletter, or wherever you might want to do in your marketing.
Social Square is also a membership by Shay Cochran who owns SC Stock Shop, so you have the benefit of getting access to unlimited square photos when you subscribe to this service. This catalog is ideal for Instagram or social media campaigns but can easily be used for other marketing activities across the digital space.
Offers: Monthly or Annual Subscription.
11. Moyo Studio
Moyo Studio is the catalog created with graphic designers and creatives in mind to allow infinite possibilities of customization. And present your work in a unique, personal way.
These effortlessly stylish themes allow you to showcase your personal preference because they’re fully customizable, meaning you can make the mockups your very own to give the exact aesthetic that you need your brand to have. They have a great mix of themed image collections and mockups ranging from masculine as well as a feminine workspace to lifestyle all put together in such chicness.
Offers: Membership, Image Packs
12. Stocks by Jewels
If you’re looking for an authentic and absolutely real representation of female entrepreneurs, then this is the place to search. It’s a custom styled stock photos collection featuring real women in their real everyday life.
Stocks by Jewel are vibrant and colorful styled stock photos that communicate emotion and real feelings. So if you want to tell a story that your audience can resonate with, then this highly curated stock collection offers just the right stock photos to give them a real sense of who you are and what your brand is really about. Here you will find custom styled stock for every stage of your business.
Offers: Membership and photo/Canva template bundles
13. Atelier
As the name suggests, this workshop for designers is truly their happy place, creatives, and bloggers looking to create a visual branding that has consistency across all channels have a home here. Ingrid, the brain behind Atelier, has created an incredible collection of darker to neutral-toned styled photography to serve people that are tired of pink!
Inspired by real life, she has used a variety of locations and color themes for some fresh variety and you get all these in two types of membership. You can sign up for individual use or as a designer, where you get the benefit of using custom styled stock photos for your clients!
You also get access to a variety of mockups and exclusive collections that are added monthly.
Offers: Membership and Photo/Canva Template Bundles
14. Create Her Stock
If you have been on a search for styled stock photos that features black women, then your search is over. Neosha fused her love for design and photography with the need for authentic high-quality images for black women. And created an amazing “digital pantry” for authentic custom photography for melanated women.
You can use this custom styled stock library for business, lifestyle, or regular blog content creation. It’s not enough to use just any images that your audience can relate to, it’s more important to use unique high quality and deeply authentic art-level styled images. And that’s what you get when you sign up for a membership or subscribe to their email list.
Offers: Membership plans for Bloggers, Influencers, Brands, and Tribe
15. Katie Harp Creative
Katie offers free styled stock photography and templates to help you style your digital brand in a unique way. She offers Pinterest management services to go along with the well-curated styled stock imagery to ensure you focus on other important aspects of your business.
The stock photos and templates are great for enhancing your social media presence and building a cohesive brand in general. Get over 50 styled stock photography free with membership.
Offers: Membership and photo/Canva template bundles
16. Color Joy Stock
Here is another styled stock photography website that’s dedicated to serving the need for diversity and representation. They promote diversity and inclusivity in their photography by using the most diverse models of all skin tones and body types.
Color Joy Stock is a celebration and collaboration of diverse work and lifestyles in an authentic manner that makes your work in the digital marketing space much easier. Besides the custom-styled images, they help you with your content strategy and offer free educational tools that you can use in your brand marketing.
To get all these and more value for your unique brand, you can sign up for a membership.
Offers: Membership
17. Sourced Co
Are you in the wedding industry? Well, you’re not left behind. This site is dedicated to you. They offer styled imagery that’s modern, minimalist, and very affordable.
Created by a team of experienced wedding professionals, you’re fully covered in terms of creative wedding-styled stock photography and videos you need to elevate your brand. This team sets the trend in the industry way ahead of time and thus gives you a leg up.
They target wedding planners, wedding invite designers, wedding photographers, stylists, and even stationery designers.
When you subscribe, you’re allowed into a robust library of elegant photography and graphics professionally created to take your brand to the next level.
Offers: Monthly or Annual Membership for the wedding industry
28. Envato Elements
My personal favorite for mockups and infographics. And even if it doesn’t exactly belong to this list I will not refrain to insert it. 😊
It is not free, but worth giving them a try if you want gorgeous unique visuals for your site, courses, or stylish content upgrades, that go beyond photography.
Some Issues to Consider When Using Styled Stock Images
Now that the quest for the best styled stock images library is over, how now do you decide which option to work with? Here are some tips to guide you:
Membership vs. Single Image Purchase
Signing up for membership is a much cheaper option compared to going for single images. First of all, you get access to the entire catalog. Secondly, you get to work with a variety of images for your various needs. Thirdly, you get to enjoy newly released offers that are issued either weekly or monthly depending on different sites.
You also get unlimited image downloads, and, on some sites, access is allowed to more than one user. This makes it easy for you to get help from other team members, saving you time and effort. You can’t get all these benefits on a single purchase.
How Do You Ensure the Images Match Your Brand?
For you to stand out, you surely must have a style of your own. To test whether a certain site offers your kind of visuals, you can always start with the free styled photography pack offered through an email sign-up.
If it works for you, then you can sign up for the membership to get more and better images. If not, then you can keep trying until you find the right ones. Just ensure to use images that represent your brand in the best possible way.
I hope you will find this list helpful. And that it will save you some time while searching for new elegant and chic photos.
All these styled stock photo libraries are great in their own way. Choose the best that fits your brand, personal preferences, and style. You have by far more chances of creating an eye-catching online presence for your business than using the large databases used by millions of other businesses worldwide.
