8 picks · Stock Photos
It's Saturday night and the slide still needs a background. Here are the free photo sites worth bookmarking, and the license rules that can catch a church out.
Updated
Pexels is the best free stock photo site for most churches: free photos and video, no credit needed and a short license. Unsplash suits sermon series artwork, Pixabay adds free music and illustrations, and Rawpixel has free public domain Bible art. Barn Images, Burst, Gratisography and StockSnap.io are good backups for textures, coffee and seasonal shots, kids ministry and CC0 extras.
Free doesn't mean anything goes. Every site on this list allows church and commercial use with no credit line, but the licenses still draw a few lines. Read them once, then tell your volunteers.
Librestock releases ten exclusive CC0 photos on the 1st of each month, real photography and never AI, but each set is replaced the next month. FOCA pairs a modest CC0 photo library with free video clips and social templates.
| App | Best for | Price | Free option | Works on | Learning curve |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pexels | Best overall | Free | Yes | Web, iOS, Android | Easy |
| Unsplash | Best for sermon series artwork | Free; Unsplash+ $84/yr launch price, normally $240/yr (Oct 2026) | Yes | Web, iOS | Easy |
| Pixabay | Best for photos, video and music in one place | Free | Yes | Web | Easy |
| Rawpixel | Best for classic Bible art | Free plan; Business $21/mo billed yearly ($252/yr) (Oct 2026) | Yes | Web | Easy |
| Barn Images | Best for slide textures and backgrounds | Free | Yes | Web | Easy |
| Burst | Best for coffee, food and seasonal shots | Free | Yes | Web | Easy |
| Gratisography | Best for kids and youth ministry | Free | Yes | Web | Easy |
| StockSnap.io | Best backup source | Free | Yes | Web | Easy |
01Best overall
Photos and videos are free with no credit required, and you can crop, edit and add text. That covers Sunday's slide background, the small groups post and the announcement b-roll from one site, with free iOS and Android apps.
02Best for sermon series artwork
Over 6 million free photos and illustrations with a consistent, editorial look, and no credit required. Find one high-resolution image with room for a title, then build the series graphic, slides and social versions from it.
03Best for photos, video and music in one place
Photos, illustrations, vectors, video, music and sound effects in one free library, with no attribution required. A volunteer can grab a background, a kids ministry illustration and a music bed for the announcement video in one sitting.
04Best for classic Bible art
Its public domain collection of classic paintings and engravings, many of them biblical, is free and CC0 with no credit line. Pull a Doré engraving of the prodigal son for a series and you get art no other church in town is using.
05Best for slide textures and backgrounds
Free high-resolution photos from two photographers, so the style stays consistent, with no credit required. It's strong on textures, nature and city scenes that work behind scripture and sermon points once you darken them.
06Best for coffee, food and seasonal shots
Shopify's free library allows commercial use with no credit, and printed flyers are fine. Clear categories from food to seasons make it handy for the welcome cafe menu, a potluck invite or a harvest event graphic.
07Best for kids and youth ministry
Quirky, offbeat photos started by Ryan McGuire, free for commercial use with no credit. One strange, memorable image can carry a youth night invite, a VBS slide or a series about worry, and students won't scroll past it as stock.
08Best backup source
Every photo is released under CC0, so you can blur, crop and darken it with no credit line. It's a quick extra source for texture, sky and landscape backgrounds once you've used up the obvious shots on the bigger sites.
A free photo is a good start, but someone still has to build the title slide, notes slide and social posts around it. Remix sermon series packs come with title slides, notes and social graphics designed to match, with lower thirds in most.
Browse sermon series ↗Made by Church Media Squad, who also run Pro Church Media.
Can you use it on slides, social posts and your website without paying or adding a credit line?
Are the rules on people, logos and merch clear enough to explain to the slide team in one sentence?
Does it have backgrounds, seasonal shots and images with room for text, without endless sifting?
Every license detail and price was checked on each site's own pages in October 2026.
The big free sites have few faith-specific shots like baptism or communion. Rawpixel's public domain collection has classic Bible engravings and paintings, free and CC0. For photos of worship and church life, a Christian stock library such as Lightstock has more.
Not on the sites in this list. Pexels, Unsplash, Pixabay, Burst, Barn Images, Gratisography and StockSnap.io don't require credit, and Rawpixel's public domain images are CC0. Noun Project's free photos are different: many require credit.
Not as an unedited photo for sale. Pexels, Unsplash and Pixabay bar selling unaltered copies, so make the photo part of a larger design or use your own photography.
Be careful. Pexels, StockSnap.io, Barn Images and Gratisography bar implying that anyone pictured endorses your church, and Barn Images supplies no model releases. Noun Project's terms go further and bar using a recognizable person in religious messages.
