Top 10 Stock Video Websites for Royalty Free Footage

As web video gains momentum, stock footage is becoming an essential part of every video editors toolkit. We are constantly asked by freelancers if we know of any good stock video websites to use for their last minute corporate shoot or music video. 

The majority of the time, if you use a professional production company or freelancer, they will shoot their own footage in-house however if required they sometimes supplement this with a bit of stock footage. Over the last 5 years the quality and sheer volume of online stock footage has increased dramatically, providing video editors with the flexibility to play with a wide variety of footage. There are countless stock video sites on the web, but the video content they offer varies dramatically in quality and price. Here are our ten favorites, with our top recommendation right at the beginning. 

Shutterstock offers package pricing and single file pricing, and you pay slightly more for 4K and HD over standard definition clips. With 1.4 million video files on offer, you’re guaranteed to find something perfect for practically every project. 

The stock video on Shutterstock is of an extremely high quality; it’s hard to imagine any user that would grumble about the content here. The pricing has changed recently and is very reasonable with the ability to buy packs of stock video clips (which makes a huge saving!). 

VideoHive is part of the Envato network, an interconnected range of content marketplaces including CodeCanyon and ThemeForest. Stock video is located in its Stock Footage category. At the time of writing this blog, VideoHive offered more than 40,000 stock video files, and all are displayed in a handy list format with useful categories. 

The stock video on VideoHive is very affordable, so it’s a great site if you just want to dip your toe into stock video or grab a quick clip for a beginner project. But as with many stock media sites, the quality does suffer slightly at a lower price point, so be careful what you spend your credits on. 

Stock video is generally sold file-by-file, so VideoBlocks is interesting. It sells clips based on a subscription model. That makes it ideal for heavy users that need a constant supply of fresh video content for their projects. Use the filters to search for video and audio across a range of categories; VideoBlocks even offers Ultra HD (4K) video content on the site. 

VideoBlocks offers more than 100,000 clips, and there’s a 7 day free trial available. If you use the free trial and then cancel, you can continue to use the clips you downloaded. The same applies if you sign up and then cancel. With such interesting terms and diverse content, it has to be worth a try. 

With almost 2.1 million video clips on offer, Pond5 is a massive marketplace for stock video content. The site features a nice split interface with its catalogue at the top and the Collections pane at the bottom. You can use Collections to bookmark video without leaving the main screen. 

We enjoy sourcing video on Pond5. It offers a good selection of stock video and is reasonably priced. Every video has a mouse over effect that displays a handy preview, and the pricing is simple and clear. 

Dissolve is a stock video site that was posted in the comments below. We love it. The quality of the clips is very impressive, and that’s partly because the footage is shot on very high end equipment (e.g Red Epic, Arri Alexa, Canon C300). These cameras produce stunning shots and crystal clear 4K video – many of the clips on Dissolve have been transcoded from this resolution so look great at 1080p! 

There is a bit of a trade off: you’ll pay more to achieve this high quality video content. However, if quality is your primary focus, it’s always worth investing that little bit more. Head to the site and explore some of the content in the Ideas Blog. 

If you’re pushed for time and need content quickly, ArtBeats could be your ideal stock video website. It has a research team that will hunt down clips for free. All you need to do is fill in a form on the site detailing your requirements; the team will put together a clip bin for your perusal. 

Overall, ArtBeats isn’t the most polished stock video website, but it offers a free weekly clip, and there’s also a handy demo reel feature across the site. For speed and convenience, we think ArtBeats is hard to beat. 

Motion Elements is a highly accessible site that provides content inspired by Asia. It’s a large marketplace that offers a wide range of content, from After Effects templates through to animated characters. 

So, what does ‘inspired by Asia’ mean? Well, Motion Elements is based in Singapore, and its target markets are Europe, the USA, Japan, Korea and the wider Asian continent. While it’s useful for Westerners, people living in the Far East will find a wealth of great stock video. 

iStock was previously known as iStockPhoto, but it has recently been rebranded to account for the diverse range of content on the site (images, vector graphics, sound, video and more). Bloggers, brands and creative flock to iStock to obtain quality stock material. 

While iStock isn’t the cheapest or the most reliable, it’s a trusted brand backed by a well-established company. To find affordable content that fits your requirements, you’ll have to use the search filters and pick the appropriate meaning for your keywords. The credits system is fiddly, though, and it takes a little getting used to. 

The BBC vaults contain all kinds of professional footage that gets video makers salivating. From black and white clips through to wildlife footage from the Amazon, it’s all here. The BBC Motion Gallery site collects content from the BBC, CBS, CCTV (China), ABC (Australia) and a range of other broadcasters and media companies. 

As you’d expect, the quality of the clips on the BBC Motion Gallery is second to none. Some of the content is of a very fine vintage, and you’ll find quirky footage here that’s impossible to source anywhere else. Many of the clips have been contributed by professional camera operators that used to work for the BBC, so the calibre of the content is extremely high. 

The downsides are the pricing and the license arrangements; it can be expensive and complicated to obtain what you want. 

** Update – Since writing this post, the BCC Motion Gallery has now entered into a partnership with Getty Images and you will find all of our their online content in the link above. This means that licensing is now much easier, the only problem is the pricing has gone up substantially! **