picjumbo Review: A Small Business for Small Businesses

We’ve all been there—shopping around town, visiting all the big chain stores, until we find that one tiny place that has exactly what we are looking for.

Stock photography shopping can be very similar. We all know the couple of industry-leading platforms that host hundreds of millions of files. But sometimes it’s the smaller websites that offer the sweetest deals.

Read our picjumbo review so you can see just how sweet this deal is.

What is picjumbo?

picjumbo is pretty much a one-man project—it’s a stock image website created by a man who didn’t want to deal with the hassle of selling his photos on traditional platforms.

The photographer behind it, Viktor Hanacek, first came up with the idea in 2013.

A decade later, thousands of customers have downloaded more than eight million photos.

Our picjumbo review will let you in on how the site managed to achieve such popularity in a field as competitive as stock photography.

picjumbo Best Features

The fact that it’s free is definitely a good feature, but there’s more to it than that.

An optional subscription grants you access to a significantly more extensive stock content library.

As a bonus, a collection of free design resources is also available.

But let’s break down all that picjumbo has to offer.

picjumbo Free Images

picjumbo’s primary goal is to provide some of the best free stock photography—and, from what we’ve seen, it certainly meets that goal.

The site boasts more than 4,000 entirely free images and doesn’t even require attribution to use them, though it’s always appreciated.

You can download all photos in full quality (usually around 24 megapixels) and use them for anything you desire, including commercial purposes.

No confusing licensing here.

picjumbo Images

No, you aren’t experiencing a déjà vu—we did just talk about this. Sort of.

Now, we’ll talk about the images that aren’t free.

picjumbo’s premium subscription service unlocks more than 10,000 additional pics.

picjumbo’s stock photos come in collections (at the moment of writing, there are 186 of them). A couple of shots from each package are free, but many stay behind a paywall.

Are they worth paying for?

We’d say so.

You obviously can’t expect the same variety you’d get with a mainstream stock photography platform, but there’s still plenty to choose from.

Each collection has a theme, usually pertaining to a certain lifestyle or activity, like travel, yoga, work, cooking, etc.

picjumbo Backgrounds

picjumbo doesn’t offer stock video, but it has something else that could come in handy for your next video project—backgrounds.

You know those fancy music videos on YouTube that have an epic-looking static image on display for you to enjoy while listening to them?

From staggering mountainscapes to sensual boudoir shots, you can get hundreds of such background picjumbo pictures for free.

picjumbo Resources

picjumbo understands that web design isn’t just about plastering a pretty stock photo on your site—it’s about the overall look.

This is probably why the platform hosts an entire category of “design resources” that are sure to give you an edge over the competition.

These resources include:

• Fonts
• Icons
• Mockups
• Social media templates
• Entire UI kits

Editability

picjumbo’s photography game is good—that much is evident right away.

All it takes is a look at the platform’s homepage or at its Instagram account to see how professional the service is.

The majority of picjumbo’s collections look more than just aesthetically pleasing, showing a unified and modern look. And that’s because the author edits his images quite heavily.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it harder for the customer to do any additional manipulation without ruining the shot.

So, while there aren’t any restrictions preventing you from modifying picjumbo’s stock photos, you might find them best suited for scenarios where they fit the mood as-is.

Subject Variety

picjumbo’s nearly two hundred collections of modern stock photography cover almost all topics we could think of.

Moreover, each collection consists of at least a few dozen images, so you’re getting a decent variety.

That said, this isn’t a site where you can type in just about any keyword in the search field and find thousands of matches.

Luckily, you’re able to explore the collections freely (even before subscribing), so you can see the content for yourself and decide if it’s worth investing in it.

You should also keep in mind that many of picjumbo’s stock images feature the same female model.

So, while you will find both casual and professional stock photos of a wide range of activities, the model that appears in all of them is the same. This may or may not work for you depending on what you intend to use the material for.

What We Disliked

It’s in our nature to root for the underdog, but we also have an obligation to provide accurate information.

Hence, we decided to mention a couple of things that we found somewhat unsatisfactory about picjumbo.

Photos Have No Releases

picjumbo’s stock photos have no model or property releases.

Furthermore, some of them contain logos, trademarks, copyrighted brands, and others. And depending on your use case, this can be an issue.

You can, of course, work around this one, but it can get annoying, so we had to mention it.

Especially seeing as picjumbo doesn’t offer indemnification or legal support of any sort, which means you’re on your own.

So, word of advice?

Double-check the images you’re using for commercial purposes.

Newsletters Can Get Spammy

You can subscribe to picjumbo’s newsletter and get notifications whenever there are new collections on the website.

So far, so good.

The problem is that, well, picjumbo is a business. It needs money.

It relies on promotional services—that is, companies can pay picjumbo to promote their products.

And when they do that, picjumbo sends you (and the other 80,000 newsletter subscribers) ads disguised as emails.

Not cool.

picjumbo Plans & Pricing

Premium subscription starting at $11/mo

picjumbo offers more than 4,000 royalty-free images at no cost whatsoever.

You can download them one by one—no one will stop you—but you can also download them as a batch for $15 to save yourself some time.

If you’re interested in downloading premium content, though, you need to pay for a subscription. Rest assured, all options give you the same perks. picjumbo’s pricing only varies depending on the length of the subscription you’re aiming for:

Monthly – $49

Annual – $129, or just $11 per month (78% discount)

Lifetime – $249 (90% discount)

A membership gives you access to all images on the website as well as to the batch-download option. You also get monthly emails with new collections.

A membership gives you access to all images on the website as well as to the batch-download option. You also get monthly emails with new collections.

Photo Redistribution License

Under a normal license, you cannot redistribute or resell images—this is standard practice. However, if you want to make picjumbo content available to your customers, you can still do so. You just have to get a redistribution license.

There are two plans available:

Redistribution License for picjumbo Free Images – $149/month

Redistribution License for picjumbo Free + Premium Images – $199/month

picjumbo User Reviews

We made sure to look around the internet for some picjumbo stock photos reviews. Unsurprisingly, most of the (admittedly little) customer feedback is positive.

picjumbo holds a 4.1-star rating on G2 based on 11 reviews. The majority of users are impressed with the quality of the photos, many saying that they’ve seen worse on paid sites.

Most reviewers also agree that the stylized and artistic look of the images, while a bit niche, is welcome since it looks professional.

The single negative picjumbo review on G2 mentions difficulties with unsubscribing from the service—but even so, the user praised the photographer’s creativeness and variety of the images.

Is picjumbo Worth It?

It is.

First, it requires no investment whatsoever to give it a try.

Second, while it’s true that picjumbo has nowhere close to the same number of images as mainstream platforms, it’s often superior quality-wise.

Finally, if you enjoy using the site and decide to subscribe, you can get a lifetime membership for a third of the price of a single stock photo on certain other platforms.

So, yeah, we at Web Tribunal would say it’s worth it.

Alternatives of picjumbo

Even though picjumbo is a great option, it’s certainly not the only one.

Let’s check out some alternatives.

picjumbo vs Depositphotos

Depositphotos is a paid platform, affordable as it may be.

Plus, it also offers around 70,000 free high-quality stock photos that you might want to take a look at.

After all, that library is bigger than picjumbo’s free and paid collections combined.

picjumbo vs Vecteezy

This one’s tough.

Vecteezy boasts a substantially larger library of free stock images and vectors, but it requires attribution. picjumbo, on the other hand, lets you use its content entirely for free.

Ultimately, it doesn’t hurt to keep both bookmarked.

picjumbo vs Shutterstock

Shutterstock isn’t just big—it’s straight-up gigantic.

You’ll struggle to find a similar amount of stock imagery elsewhere.

Surprisingly, though, the two services get along nicely.

Not only will you find Shutterstock images on picjumbo but, as a picjumbo user, you get 15% off at Shutterstock with the promo code PICJUMBO15.

Final Verdict

We enjoyed writing this picjumbo review for 2022, but not as much as we enjoyed actually using the website.

picjumbo’s ready-to-use modern-looking stock media might not appeal to everyone’s taste, but it works wonders for anyone who wishes to skip the hassle of achieving a professional look by themselves.

Large corporations who require greater flexibility and legal guarantees might prefer an alternative option, but we wholeheartedly recommend picjumbo for smaller organizations and individuals.