How to Try Shutterstock for One Month for Free
Shutterstock is one of the biggest and most popular image banks around the web, but its vast library with millions of high-quality stock images is locked under a paid threshold. For those who want to try them without cashing out, there is a free trial for their smallest image subscription, which is ideal. You may also enjoy one free photo, one free vector every week on the agency's homepage, and a commitment-free selection of free graphic assets. This guide shows you how to access free images with these three methods.
One-Month Trial Run with 10 Downloads
This was the trial offer that is now unavailable:
This deal gives users 30 days complimentary access to Shutterstock's 10-images-a-month annual subscription. Activating it, you can download up to ten stock photos and vector graphics from the library with over 450 million files, with a royalty-free license covering commercial use, free of charge. It's the perfect way to test the waters with the service and verify image quality.
Here are the key terms and conditions of the Shutterstock free trial:
- The site has various subscriptions, but only the smallest, 10-monthly-images annual plan includes a free trial.
- It's a first-month-free deal on an annual subscription; if you cancel within 30 days of activation, you will not be charged, but you can stay subscribed and will be billed from the second month onwards.
- You can search, find, and download any pictures from the main catalog on the website, up to ten downloads (premium content is excluded).
- You may upgrade to a larger subscription or purchase on-demand packs once your trial ends. In this case, you can benefit from our great discount codes for Shutterstock.
- If you don't wish to become a paid user, you can cancel the trial during its validity period and retain your free account.
How to Activate the Trial
Here is how to access and utilize the Shutterstock free trial in very simple steps:
1. Click on the offer banner in this article
2. You'll land on the offer page; click the “Start your trial” button
3. Create your free account.
4. Complete the billing information and payment details. (Don't worry; you won't get billed if you cancel within 30 days.)
5. Hit the “complete checkout button.”
6. Done! You now have one month to select and obtain up to 10 images.
A quick tip: You can also access the trial offer from Shutterstock's pricing page, which shows all the subscriptions and image packs available. Here, you must select the annual plan for ten downloads a month, and you'll see the red sign disclosing the free trial. However, our way is faster!
Important! This is an annual plan, but the free access lasts only 30 days; after the first month, you will be charged the regular $29 a-month price automatically –this is why you must enter your credit card info to unlock the trial. To avoid any charges, you must cancel your subscription plan within the initial 30 days of activating it. Stay subscribed if you want to continue downloading images past the trial date.
What's Included
This special deal lets you download ten high-quality photos or vector images from Shutterstock's catalog of over 450 million files for 30 days. Any stock image you obtain comes with their Standard License, meaning these are royalty-free pictures for perpetual and worldwide use, suitable for commercial use, and legally verified. They are also all high resolution and suitable for professional use, whether digital or print. All your creative needs will likely be covered.
Additionally, you obtain full access to other premium features, such as:
- Shutterstock Generate, an AI image generator
- Shutterstock Create editing tool with AI-powered functions
- Personalized homepage
- Curated collection options
If you wish to learn more about this platform and explore its offers, features, and user experience ratings, read our Shutterstock review.
Important note: The offer includes still image downloads only. Stock videos and stock music files are not available via this trial. Photos marked as Premium (such as those from the Offset collection) are also excluded.
How to Cancel
You must cancel the plan before the trial period ends if you don't wish to pay for a subscription. Here is how:
- Log in to your account
- Go to “Account details.”
- Select “Plans” on the left side panel
- Click on your active subscription
- Select “Cancel plan early.”
- Done! You will see a notification on the screen that your plan has been successfully canceled. Additionally, you will be asked to select a reason for the cancellation (but it does not affect the cancellation itself)
As long as you cancel within the initial month of activation, you will not be charged a penny, and you can use your downloads until the end of the month.
Insider Tip: Shutterstock's billing cycle starts 48 hours before the previous month expires. To avoid charges, cancel at least three days before the expiration date. If you missed that window and were automatically charged, you can cancel the subscription via direct contact with Shutterstock. If the 30-day period is still running, their agents will help you with a free cancellation.
Note that you can cancel any Shutterstock subscription at any given time, but after the trial run is up, cancellation fees will apply.
Weekly Free Stock Images
Shutterstock offers a commitment-free way to download images for free to test their service: their long-standing weekly freebies. Every week, they release one stock photo and one vector file on their homepage, which are free to download and use. Access to these files requires no credit card information, so no strings are attached.
The free giveaway files get renewed every Tuesday, so visit the page weekly to catch the freebies as they come.
Free Graphic Resources
Last but not least, on the Shutterstock Blog is a “free downloads” tab that hosts various themed collections with hundreds of free creative assets for graphic design and video production: icons, vectors, brushes, fonts, LUTs, and more. These collections are constantly updated and expanded, so check the tab regularly.
All you need to download these items is a Shutterstock account –which you can get for free.
Legit Methods for Free Download
The most important point in these offers is that they all provide you with perfectly legal, validly licensed, unwatermarked images from Shutterstock.
All images include the agency's standard license, which ensures flexible usage rights for your projects. They are also high-resolution and suitable for professional use.
Remember that methods that do not include using the red “download” button on the Shutterstock website are illegal. Doing so will make you an infractor and potentially result in legal trouble.
The free trial, weekly freebies, and free creative assets offered by Shutterstock are the only legitimate, ethical ways to obtain free files from this platform.
Get Stock Images for Free at Shutterstock
So there you go, three great options to download stock photography for free from one of the most popular agencies online!
Which one do you like the best? Are you going to try them all? Share your thoughts in the comments.
*Note: Remember that the one-month trial offer detailed above is unavailable now, but this cool promo code to save 25% off a large image pack on Shutterstock is still running, so don't miss it!
hello my name is linoy
my client would like to purchase several of your images
i would like to know how many images could i buy the price and of course if i could publish them and the legal aspect of using your images.
I recommend checking with Shutterstock directly.
I think your variety of shutter images are great ideas for orchestrating ways to communicate with the public. Thank you so much for making this provision possible.
We’re glad you found our Shutterstock Free Trial useful, Sandra!