Guess what? AppSumo’s best deal ever is back! It’s time to stock up on stock photo, my friends! Read on to find out how to get 100 amazing photos for just $49, plus check out my tips for making the most of those credits!

*Affiliate links included below. Thanks for your support! FYI, every picture in this post came from my Depositphotos credits!

I LOVE the Depositphotos deal on AppSumo. It was the first deal I ever bought through them and what got me hooked on their site in the first place. While they said the last $39 deal was, well, the last, they did manage to score a new deal. Sure, it’s not the $39 deal, but still,  $49 for 100 credits to Depositphotos is pretty amazing, especially since they have the best selection of stock images on the entire internet (in my opinion, anyway). I don’t think you need a calculator to know that it comes out to just around $0.50 a picture.

If you have the budget for it and you use stock photography regularly, I highly recommend buying a few packs because you really just never know if and when this deal is coming back around. For me, though, I don’t have the budget to buy more than one or two packs at a time, and I only use stock pictures in about 30% of my posts. I’ve developed a system for getting the most out of those credits, and I want to share it with you!

What you get with the Depositphotos deal:

• 100 stock photo and vector image downloads: you can download them in ANY size. Here’s a hint: always go big (more on that below)
• Unlimited deals per user -buy 1 pack or buy 100! Buy 1000 if you want!
• Credits never expire – stockpile those babies for years or use them all at once. Totally your choice.
• All images are royalty-free – you can use them commercially for social media posts, graphic designs, eBook covers, etc. without any attribution. 

Just a few pics I bought from Depositphoto over the years!

Click here to get the Depositphoto deal!

How to get the most out of your Depositphotos credits

1- Start your search on free sites

I know what you’re thinking: you bought the Depositphotos deal so you would have something a little more unique and enticing than the same old freebie stock pics, right? I’m totally with you on that…for certain images. Your social media images definitely need to stand out, especially on Pinterest. All the filler images in your posts, though, don’t really need to be extraordinary. I mean, if you’re talking about a computer and just want a pic to break things up, you’ll find plenty of gorgeous images on sites like Unsplash. A little editing magic and you can make even the most mundane stock fit your needs for filler pics. Save your credits for those pics that you’ll use to promote your post. That’s where you really need to shine.

2- Search smart on Depositphotos

With a gajillion pictures (okay, so over 60 million, but still, close to a gajillion) across literally every category, it’s easy to spend days looking for the perfect picture if you’re not smart about it. Trust me on this, I once spent two hours looking for a simple Christmas graphic, not because I couldn’t find one I liked but because I found too many. Don’t just type your search query into the search bar and go. Take a second to filter out the results.

• Starting at the top, next to the search bar, decide if you’re looking for photos, vectors, or all images. 90% of the time, I only want photos. Filtering out those vectors saves me time since they’re not dragging my attention away from what I really need.
• Click on the undiscovered section if you want something that a million other bloggers aren’t already using
• Over on the left hand side, exclude editorial pictures. They have rules on how you can use them, and you want pictures that you can use in as many different ways as possible. Just hover over the little square with the lines in it (six icons down from the top).
• Click the icon right below the editorial icon and filter by orientation. If you’re looking for a pic that you’ll ONLY use as a pin, go long. Only FB or IG? Go square. Something more diverse? Look through all of them and read my tips below for getting the most out of a single picture.
• Use the favorites feature: don’t just grab the first picture you like. Click the little star and save it to your favorites. Then look at them side by side and see which “speaks” to you the most.

3- Think beyond a single use

Once you download a photo from Depositphotos, you can use it as many times as you want. If you choose wisely, you can get a few uses out of the same picture without anyone even realizing you’re recycling. While you won’t always find it, you want to at least look for photos that can be cropped creatively to make new photos. For example, if you’re looking for cute holiday vectors, grab a set instead of a single image. Just crop and save each graphic as a new graphic. You also want to look for pictures that will work on all social media with just a bit of cropping. The picture above, for example, leaves plenty of blank space for text for a Pin, yet can easily be cropped into a landscape photo for Facebook and Twitter.

4- Download a comp first

I really love Depositphotos’ “download a comp” feature. Just open up a picture that you’re thinking about buying and hover over it. You’ll see a download icon on the pic itself. They’ll give you a good-sized picture (not hi-res, but still enough to work with) to play around with before committing. The comp will have a Depositphotos watermark all over it, so don’t think you’re getting around buying a pic. Besides, it would be dishonest (and I’m pretty sure illegal) to do that. Still, it’s incredibly useful. If I’m not sure a picture will look good with text on it, I download the comp and open it in PicMonkey. I add everything that I would as if I was actually making my graphic. If it looks good, I buy the pic. If not, I move on. This has saved me from wasting so many credits!

5- ALWAYS Go Big!

When it comes to making the most of your Depositphotos credits, size DOES matter. You’re allowed to download any size with your credit (except extended licenses), so grab the XL size. That way, you can easily alter the picture (such as cropping it) without losing quality.

Following this system has helped me really stretch out my credits. I bought two packs last year because I had a bit of extra money. I still have over 300 pictures left (I had some left from the year before) because I’m really smart about how I use them. Even if you can afford to buy 10 packs, you still want to be smart about how you use your credits because you never know if and when this deal is coming back!

Remember, this deal goes crazy fast, so grab your 100 Depositphotos credits for $49 now!

Do you have any other tips for making the most of your credits? Share below!