Tools We Use · November 1, 2026
Royalty-free photos, vector and video for websites and campaigns — how we use Depositphotos on client sites and why it beats generic free stock.
By Astounding Designs
Every website needs imagery, and imagery is where most small business sites go wrong: a stretched phone photo of the storefront, or the same three free stock images every competitor is using.
Depositphotos is where we source a lot of the photography, vector work and video for client sites. Here is what it is and how we use it.
Depositphotos is a royalty-free stock library — photographs, vectors, illustrations, video and editorial images — with a licensing model built for commercial use. Instead of paying per image, you buy a subscription or a credit package and download what you need, with rights to use the images on websites, ad campaigns, print and social.
The library is unusually broad in the everyday categories small businesses actually need: trades and contractors, medical and dental, food and hospitality, real estate, offices, products on clean backgrounds, and lifestyle photography that looks like real people rather than a stock-photo boardroom.
We treat stock photography as a bridge, not a destination. The best result is a handful of real photographs of your team, your space and your work, supported by stock for the supporting sections — backgrounds, category imagery, blog headers, service icons.
Three rules we follow:
The download flow is fast, the licensing is clear enough to hand to a client, and the everyday business categories are genuinely deep rather than padded with artistic filler. When we need six consistent images for a service page in twenty minutes, it is the tool that does not slow the build down.
Browse the library here: Depositphotos.
It is also listed on our partner links page, alongside the other tools we set up for clients.
