Let’s face it: if you are a business owner with a  web presence, you are probably buying images.  Everyone is doing it.  Even if you don’t have any content on the internet, you should be paying for the images you use in things like mailing pamphlets, internal training materials, and more.  If you want to stay 100% within the parameters of the law, you should really be paying a licensing fee for ANY image you use in a commercial setting. Which, for almost every kind of business these days, is a lot of pictures.   So what can you do to minimize costs when buying images are concerned?  What’s the cheapest, best option for your company.  Simpler than you might think: cheap stock photo images. Not Using Cheap Stock Photo Images?  Anything Else is Too Expensive. When you need photos and images for your business, where do you turn?  If you want something specific, do you pay a contracted photographer?  Do you have a favorite artist that you pay to make all of your images?  Do you license directly from photographers for all of your photo needs? Chances are, if you are pursuing any of those options to get images for your business, you are happy with quality but feeling hit hard in the pocket book.  That’s because you know, deep down, that you are paying too much for the images you are using.  And downloading cheap stock photo images is a lot cheaper than any of the options we mentioned above. With a cheap stock photo site, you could pay literally pennies for some of the best photos on the internet.  With bundle services, you can get thousands and thousands of photos per year to meet all of your business needs.  Or find a credit or on demand service that lets you only buy the few images you need when you meet them.  Or better yet, check out our $99 dollar package deal for the best of both worlds. How are Cheapo Stock Photo Images so Cheap? If you’ve just started looking into the world of cheap stock photos, you are probably stricken by just how inexpensive they can be.  But don’t worry: this low price tag doesn’t mean low quality, and even the most budget friendly cheap stock photo images can be amazing pieces of art.  In fact, most cheap stock photo image vendors hand pick their images by hand, and only choose to work with photographers with proven records of producing top level content. So how do cheap stock photo image sites sell art so cheap?  The secret is in the licensing, as cheap stock photo sites essentially sell you a use license while retaining the rights to resell the image to others.  This means that technically another company could be using the same stock photo as you, but whether or not you are the only person using a cheap stock photo image, you definitely paid a lot less for the legal rights to do so than you would have in any other situation. Don’t think that just because stock photos can be cheap, they aren’t good quality.  Instead, cheap stock photo image vendors are able to offer high quality products so cheap due to working in bulk, not skimping on quality and art. Wait a Minute.  Aren’t Online Photos Free? Yes and no.  Yes, you can do a google search and find a lot of “free images” online.  Yes, you can probably find beautiful works of art on the blogs of photographers, or on a public domain site like Flickr.  But no, those images aren’t free to use by your business. In order to use an image for commercial use, you need licensed rights to do so, and you can’t get those rights from a google image search.  If you aren’t paying for cheap stock photo images, you may be saving a few bucks today.  But in the long run, you expose yourself to huge legal fees and potential damages claims, as the people who own the image licenses you aren’t paying for come calling for their due compensation.  Which is another prime reason why cheap stock photo images save you money: in the long run, paying the cheap licensing fee is a lot more economical than fighting in court. The Bottom Line: Whether you are paying an artist directly for the rights to use their images, or hiring your own photographer to capture all of the photos you need, you are paying too much for high quality imagery.  And if you don’t pay for your images at all, you open yourself up to legal trouble.  Of course photographers and artists are great people, but you are running a business.  And when your bottom dollar counts, utilizing cheap stock photo images is the most economical choice there is.