The explosive growth of restricted-budget content creators – including companies that are producing multimedia content in-house on a shoestring – has created an urgent need for value-priced, royalty-free stock imagery on the web. Across the board, these content creators are caught between needing professional-looking photos and illustrations, and having budgets that cannot afford what is being offered by conventional stock photo companies.
Fortunately, there is an online stock photo provider that offers high-quality original imagery at low prices virtually anyone can afford, while delivering fair payments to the artists and photographers who create this imagery. That company is the recently re-branded Storyblocks stock photo/image website. It is a sister company to the stock footage site Videoblocks and stock audio site Audioblocks; both of which provide quality stock content at truly affordable prices.
- Audioblocks provides thousands of studio quality music tracks, sound effects, and loops for a fraction of the cost.
“As with Videoblocks and Audioblocks, Storyblocks charges substantially less for stock content than our competitors; like $10 for a professionally-shot high resolution image,” said TJ Leonard, Storyblocks’ CEO. “Meanwhile, if you become a Storyblocks subscribing member at $99 annually, this same photo will only cost you $4! Better yet, Storyblocks members have unlimited access to our library of over 400,000 stock images. If you use more than a handful of stock images yearly, being a member is a very affordable way to address all of your imagery needs.”
At the same time that it is offering content users low prices, Storyblocks is also treating its stock content makers fairly. “Every time one of our stock content makers’ images are sold through Storyblocks, they earn 100% commission on the sale,” said TJ Leonard. “That’s right. They get all the money content creators pay us for their photos, because our revenues come from our memberships. You can’t get fairer than 100% commission. That’s why so many stock content makers choose to work with Storyblocks, rather than anyone else.”
Download anything from the Storyblocks Member Library of 400,000 images, photos, vectors, textures, icons, and more. Sign up for your free trial today.
Again, this same win-win approach is used by Storyblocks’ sister companies Videoblocks and Audioblocks. Add insightful free articles on the most effective ways to create professional-looking content, and this trio of stock content firms provide content creators and stock content makers with an integrated, affordable path to succeeding in their respective creative missions
The reason why Storyblocks, Videoblocks, and Audioblocks offer affordable stock content to the world is traceable to one person: Arnold Schwarzenegger. While in high school, company founder/videographer Joel Holland interviewed the ‘Terminator’ movie star and former California ‘Governator’ for Holland’s youth career TV show. Holland got great video content from Schwarzenegger, but then couldn’t afford the video effects and B-roll needed to make his final product look truly professional.
This frustration inspired Holland to create a trio of stock content companies that would sell professional-quality video, and, and imagery at low prices; thus allowing everyone to chance to produce A-grade content on the smallest of budgets. Videoblocks came first, followed by Audioblocks and then Storyblocks (previously branded as GraphicStock).
“I founded Videoblocks based on a very personal need: to provide premium creative that everyone can afford,” Holland told Forbes magazine. “I was a video editor who couldn’t afford stock video from high cost providers, and I felt that there were plenty others out there like me. I built the business to solve a problem that I deeply cared about.”
Today, the newly re-branded Storyblocks is delivering this same cost-effective solution to stock imagery consumers. The very best photos and illustrations are now within their reach, at prices so low that most will likely never turn to the freebies on Wiki Commons again.
Want a free trial to our Storyblocks Membership Library? Sign up today!
Additional Resources
Quit your day job to create stock footage
Using interviews from some of Videoblocks’ own stock content creators, this article explains how a competent cameraperson can make a living capturing stock footage (or photos, or audio).
20 great After Effects photo templates
This series of After Effects (AE) templates provides photographers with eye-catching ways to display their imagery portfolios.
B-roll time lapse overview
This collection of stock time lapse videos shows the ‘wow’ power of time lapse to moving any production along.
