Stock video sites actually worth your time in 2026

Hey Creators 👋,

POV: You just discovered you can get authentic creator-style footage instantly instead of waiting weeks for custom content. Game changer for social media managers on a budget.

Every stock footage site claims to be creator-friendly. Most aren't. Between watermarks, murky commercial licenses, and libraries stuffed with the same tired boardroom clips everyone's already seen, finding footage that actually fits a vertical feed is harder than it should be. So we went through the major platforms, free and paid and compared them on the things that matter when you're making content for social: clip quality, license clarity, 9:16 availability, and whether the search actually works. Some of the best-known names didn't come out well.

Read the full comparison →