The fundamental elements of an audiovisual project are two:
-Music.
– Video.
Now, are you going to produce both? Do you have the time and the necessary materials to carry them out?
Ideally, each of your productions should be accompanied by unique content, created and personalised by yourself. However, it is often impossible to do so due to lack of time, money and even imagination.
That’s why many companies have decided to offer a wide range of music and video banks for anyone to use; these are called stock music and videos.
In this article we will talk about the latter – also called stock or b-rool videos, but if you are looking for more information about royalty-free background music to use in your videos, we have an article in Legis Music where we talk about it in depth.
Below, we will be clearing up many of the doubts you probably have about stock videos, such as: what they are, where you can get them or if they are free.
What are stock videos?
Stock videos are, basically, videos that have been recorded for later use in multiple projects.
They are usually no longer than 1 minute (although there are exceptions) and can be found in practically any category or subject matter: sports, nature, landscapes, slow motion, families…
In this way, there are creators who record content and then sell the rights to use it to other people who are looking to save the time and money of recording it themselves.
What are they used for?
We see stock videos everywhere in our daily lives: TV commercials, documentaries and films. They are often used by film producers to set the scene for their productions, both in terms of scenery
(shots in the Amazon rainforest) as well as emotional relationships between people (mother and daughter enjoying themselves in the park) or as a simple filler to fit several fragments together in a fluid way.
On the other hand, web designers or graphic designers also use so-called “stock footage” to present their business to other companies, so they use a dynamic and entertaining background that attracts attention, instead of a simple photo with their logo.
While these are the main uses, in reality, anyone could buy stock videos: students for their academic work, youtubers to accompany a publication with a voice-over, entrepreneurs in their marketing strategies… There are countless uses and fields in which these videos can be used.
Where can I buy royalty-free stock video?
Just type the words “royalty free stock video” into the search engine and in less than a second, more than 10,000 results will appear.
However, you really need to choose the best platform, the one that best suits your needs.
So, we have made it easy for you, and below, we will show you the 4 best platforms where you can buy royalty free stock videos.
ENVATO ELEMENTS.
Envato Elements is a great online resource where you can get a wide range of digital assets with a monthly subscription. Through this, you can choose exactly the stock video you’re looking for, as it offers a filter option where you determine the resolution, frames per second or duration you want.
- Full access to its catalogue of stock videos and music.
- Unlimited downloads – as long as your subscription remains active.
- No copyright claims.
- Option to cancel the subscription at any time.
As we said, it consists of a monthly subscription of 31,65$/month, although they have also added an annual plan with which you will save 50%, paying 189,90$/year or 15,83$/month.
ARTGRID.
Artgrid is a new website that offers stock video licensing. Depending on the plan you choose, you will be able to enjoy some advantages or others, which are mainly related to the experience you have in these matters.
Below is a table in which you can see how they differ from each other, but we can tell you that with all three you will get unlimited downloads and indefinite use forever, thanks to the so-called ‘Artgrid universal’ licence.
| Plans | Junior HD | Creator 4K+ | Pro RAW/LOG |
|---|---|---|---|
| Image quality | HD | Hd, 4K and 8K | RAW/LOG, HD, 4K y 8K |
| Video compression | H.264 | H.264 | H.264 |
| Codecs | – | ProRes from Apple | ProRes from Apple |
| Price | 24,84$/month | 39,79$/month | 42,78$/month |
ADOBE STOCK FOOTAGE.
Adobe Stock is a service that, along the lines of those mentioned above, offers multimedia content of all kinds:
images, videos, templates, illustrations… Any video you buy from Adobe Stock includes a royalty-free licence, so you can use it as many times as you want, so that even if you cancel your subscription, you will still be able to use it in your projects.
Unlike other platforms, this one offers, in addition to subscriptions (with which you can access photos, vectors, illustrations and music tracks), credit packages with which you can obtain high-resolution images and videos.
So, as the main focus of this article is on stock videos, we will explain how the credit packs work. First of all, it should be noted that each content is obtained for a certain amount of credits, as if you pay a price for each one; so an HD video is purchased with 8 credits and a 4K video is purchased with 20 credits. Here are the 5 different types of packages offered by Adobe Stock and what content you can get with each one.
a) 5 credits for 43,60$. This option does not give you access to any video, as it does not reach the minimum number of credits required for an HD video, so you can only get 5 standard images.
b)16 credits for 132,55$. With this option you can buy two HD videos.
c) 40 credits for 294,67$. Here we move on to the possibility of accessing 4K videos, more specifically, you will get 2 videos of this type; or if you want to keep the HD format, you will get 5 of them.
d) 80 credits for 545,69$. We double the number of High Definition videos – 10 videos – and quadruple the number of 4K videos – 4 videos.
e) 150 credits for 982,25$. This last package gives you the choice of 18 HD videos or 7 4K videos.
While you can clearly see the difference between the lower credit package and the higher credit package, they all have in common that the credits expire one year after purchase, that you will have to buy more credits when you need to buy new content, and that you will be able to access the entire content collection.
As you can see, this platform works with a different payment system, as the user, in the case of purchasing stock videos, pays per unit, not in monthly or annual packages. This means that, on the one hand, the price of each content becomes more expensive, but also that – especially if you need a small amount of videos – you only pay for what you need.
SHUTTERSTOCK.
This platform also allows you to pay according to the number of clips you need, as it offers video packages in different resolutions: SD, HD and 4K. The options are: packs of 5 clips, 10 or 25. Here is a summary table:
| Clips packages | Imagen format | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| SD | HD | 4K | |
| 5 clips | 251,02$ | 293,59$ | 577,35$ |
| 10 clips | 500,95$ | 544,61$ | 108,05$ |
| 25 clips | 1091,40 | 1308,59$ | 2618,27 |
However, if you consider that you will often use the resources offered by this website, you can also subscribe to one of two plans: video subscriptions or “Felx 25” subscriptions of various elements.
On the one hand, with video subscriptions, you can get a number of clips on a monthly basis:
- 5 clips: 97,13$ per month.
- 10 clips: 151,70$ per month.
- 20 clips: 195,36$ per month.
Similarly, you also have the possibility to choose how you will pay: yearly with monthly billing, monthly without contract or yearly with advance billing. The prices would then be as follows:
| Number of clips/month | Payment plan | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual with monthly invoicing | Monthly without contract | Annual with advance invoicing | |
| 5 clips | 97,13$/month | 184,45$/month | 904,77$/year |
| 10 clips | 151,70$/month | 348,16$/month | 1526,87$/year |
| 20 clips | 195,36$/month | 653,75$/month | 1963,43$/year |
On the other hand, there is the “Flex 25” subscription, with which, in addition to videos, you also get access to 25 images, 6 music tracks, 3 video clips or a combination of all – you get 25 credits in total. As with the previous subscription, there are 3 types of payment plans:
- Monthly without contract: you can cancel at any time for 75,31$ per month.
- Annual with monthly billing: for 53,48$€ per month.
- Annual with advance billing: for 544,61$ per year.
As you can see, this platform offers many different payment options, so you can choose the one that best suits you depending on the amount of resources you are going to use: if you will only use a couple of resources for a single occasion, your best option is to buy packages of clips; while if you will frequently use different videos, we recommend you to access the monthly or annual subscriptions.
Are there sites with free stock music?
Yes, these videos are called public domain stock videos, as they have no copyright attached to them.
There are two reasons why you can access them for free:
- The copyright term has ended. For a while these videos had to be paid to be obtained, but after a while they became free.
- The author himself or herself decides that he or she does not want to make any financial profit from producing his or her videos.
However, although it may seem very appealing to obtain a multimedia resource free of charge, it is not recommended because, as with copyright-free music, it has certain risks:
- Authors may eventually decide to sell their rights, and may ask for a certain amount of money.
- Because it is available to everyone, it would not surprise you if the background of your audiovisual project is also present in many other people’s, making it ‘unoriginal’.
In any case, here are 5 websites where you can find free stock videos:
PEXELS.
One of the most popular and widely used free stock video websites.
Pexels offers a wide range of videos, with categories such as: technology, cities, people and nature. When you use any of its resources you don’t have to mention the source or the author, so you have total freedom.
VIDEVO.
Although this website has a wide variety of content, you should be careful when selecting the one you want, because when you choose a category, free videos are automatically mixed with paid videos, so you have to make sure before downloading them.
VIDEEZY.
There are many people who upload and offer their content on this website altruistically so that anyone can have them for free. Most of the videos are no longer than 1 minute, which allows you to edit and adapt them as you wish.
These are some of the categories you can find:
DAREFUL.
Dareful is a somewhat different website, as its purpose is not to offer as many videos as possible, but rather that they have a good quality; so you will not have the same variety as on other websites, but you will have a good quality assured.
Here is one of the thousands of videos they offer:
PIXABAY.
Each and every one of the resources on this platform are free of copyright, so you can do with them as you please without any risk: use them as you download them, modify them or distribute them, both for personal and commercial purposes. All of this without any financial cost.
As you will see below, you can choose between HD and 4K videos.
Stock videos and marketing.
According to Wyzowl’s annual report “The State of Video Marketing 2020”, 85% of companies used video as a marketing tool in 2020.
In addition, 96% of users confirm that they got to know a product or service better thanks to the marketing video used by the brand.
The importance of using video as a marketing strategy for a business is therefore quite clear. However, many companies refuse to include them due to the belief that it will be a great cost, both financially and in terms of time.
By now you know that there is a simple solution to this problem: stock videos produced by other people.
In addition to saving money, stock videos offer three other great benefits:
- Quality. Stock videos have been produced – almost always – by professionals in the audiovisual world, who take care of the details, the perspectives… So you will probably get a better image of the finished product than if you recorded it yourself.
- Diversity. There are countless genres and categories of stock videos available on the Internet, so you’re bound to find what you’re looking for.
- Effectiveness. The creators of this content seek to convey a message, emotions and feelings, so whatever your marketing objective, you will be able to find a video that perfectly expresses the aspect you want to show and highlight.
Conclusion.
If you’ve made it this far, you can proudly say that you know all you need to know about stock video.
As you have already read, these types of videos, also known as stock or b-rool videos, are nothing more than videos created to be used in audiovisual projects of any kind.
You have also discovered that you can get them for free or pay for them, being the latter option the most recommendable, due to the fact that you won’t have future problems with copyright, you won’t have to mention the artist and you will get that touch of originality in your project.
At the same time, we have clarified the 4 main benefits of using this type of video as a marketing strategy so that you do not hesitate when deciding how to capture the attention of potential users or consumers.
Therefore, it is now up to you to decide where and how to get the best stock videos for your project or business.
