Whether you’re making a film or video content, using the highest quality video footage, imagery, and sound is crucial. Stock video and royalty-free music websites like Pond5 can be a great resource for the media assets you need.
Pond5 is one of the world’s largest stock marketplaces, offering stunning footage from professional artists worldwide. You’ll also find music tracks, sound effects, motion graphics, and imagery.
In this review, we’re going to give you a closer look at Pond5, its stock content library and features, as well as information on how pricing and licensing work.
Review Summary
| Website | pond5.com |
| Videos | 43.8 million |
| Photos | 98.2 million |
| Illustrations | 28.8 million |
| Music/SFX | 4.6 million |
| Licensing | Royalty-free |
| Free Trial | No |
| Alternatives | Artgrid & Shutterstock |
Get 20% off all subscriptions. Boost the production value of your project at a fraction of the cost. 🙌
What is Pond5?
Pond5 launched the first royalty-free video marketplace in 2006 for creatives to sell their stock video footage. Since then, it has grown into one of the largest and most popular platforms in the world.
Major brands like Disney, BBC, ITV, and Netflix use Pond5 content to create everything from advertisements to feature films.
As stock content becomes more accessible and versatile, content creators, marketers, and others depend on Pond5 as well. They use stock content for a wide variety of projects. For example:
- YouTube and Vimeo videos
- Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok posts and reels
- Websites, blogs, and newsletters
- Online ads
With its full, yet simple license, filmmakers, production companies, and creators around the world can use Pond5’s media assets.
Why Video Creators Choose Pond5
All in all, there’s a total of 175.5 million media assets at your disposal from Pond5.
Free stock photo sites like Pixabay and Pexels collectively have 7.4 million media assets, most of which are photos. You can see why content creators and videographers are willing to pay for premium stock content.
Pond5 isn’t the only player in the game though. For instance, Shutterstock and Adobe Stock are other popular platforms that creatives use in their work. While these platforms have massive amounts of stock photography, their video, music, and SFX collections can’t compete with Pond5.
For example, Shutterstock has 27 million videos and Adobe Stock has 34 million. They’re not too far off from Pond5’s nearly 44 million, but it’s still a noticeable difference.
Then take a closer look at their stock audio content. Adobe, for example, only has 86,000 audio clips. Shutterstock has 29,000. Pond5 has 4.6 million.
If you’re a website designer or developer, it makes sense why you might be drawn to other platforms. However, Pond5’s well-rounded collection of media assets seems to be especially crafted for video pros.
That’s not the only reason why Pond5 is worth splurging for:
What You Need to Know About Pond5
It’s not always feasible to film or record everything you need to create an amazing film or piece of digital content. So you turn to stock content to fill in the gaps.
Pond5 offers a well-designed and intuitive platform that serves all of your royalty-free media needs.
But is it right for you? Here’s what you need to know:
There’s a Massive Library of Content
Having been around since 2006, it’s no surprise that Pond5 has amassed such an impressive collection of content and templates.
| Videos | 43.8 million |
| Photos | 98.2 million |
| Illustrations | 28.8 million |
| Music | 2.3 million |
| Sound Effects | 2.3 million |
| After Effects Templates | 41,000 |
| Photoshop Templates | 9,6000 |
There are various benefits to having access to a library of this size.
The first is you won’t have to deal with the kinds of search limitations you often find on free stock photo and video websites. When you search for something as specific as old stock footage from Cuba or something more broad like flying eagles, you’re bound to get thousands of matches.
The other big benefit is originality. Because of how vast this archive is, the chances of you using the same visuals or audio as others are slim. As a result, Pond5 is a good way to establish your competitive advantage and lend more credibility to your video-based project.
Also, if you’re an Adobe designer, there are tens of thousands of templates made specifically for After Effects and Photoshop. Rather than piece together these visuals on your own, these templates will save you time and energy.
Filter Your Search Results in Creative Ways
With the search bar, you can search for the content you want using specific keywords.
The problem is, many of your searches are likely to yield hundreds or even thousands of results. While it’s great to have so much stock content at your disposal, you need a way to narrow your options down.
Look closely at the home page search bar and you’ll notice that Pond5 tries to help with this.
In addition to typing your query, you can use the tabs above to select the content type as well as the purpose (like Creative or News). Below the search bar, you’ll get more help with popular search suggestions.
There’s another tool available that might not be so obvious at first.
To the left of the “Search” button is an image search icon.
What this does is open a tool similar to Google’s “search by image” tool. To use it, click the icon and upload a file that’s similar in appearance — either in composition or color — to the video, photo, or illustration you’re looking for.
Pond5 offers more assistance throughout the site to help you find exactly what you need.
For instance, you can search content by category and also filter results based on:
- Price
- Commercial vs. editorial
- Orientation
- Resolution
- Duration
- Frame rate
- Number and gender of people
- Artist name
- And more
All of these tools will make it much easier to manage such a vast collection of content.
Quick-view Details Offer Extra Transparency
A lot of times when we’re on stock video sites, we get super excited about a piece of content we’ve found. On the surface, it looks great. Only, upon closer inspection, we realize it isn’t included in our subscription, it costs too much, or it’s not approved for commercial use.
One of the nicest features of Pond5 is how much you can learn about a piece of content from search results. Take, for example, this fiery video clip:
When you’re on the search results page, hovering over the featured image will tell you many things about a video:
- Name/description of the video
- Duration
- Price
- HD and 4K formats
- Exclusivity to Pond5
You can also click the “View Similar” link to find similar videos and graphics.
You’ll find just as much transparency from the royalty-free music and SFX search pages, too.
From here, you’ll get a description of the file as well as see the file duration, available formats, price, and if it’s available in your subscription. You can also play the entire clip from this page.
Even if you can’t filter by file type or exclusivity, these search page details will help streamline your content search process.
How Pond5 Licensing Works
Here are the 3 main licenses that can be used with all media types:
| Individual | Business | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Use | Sizzle reels, social media, and smaller projects | TV broadcasts, regional ads and commercials, and similar projects | Feature films, national advertising, and similar large-scale work |
| Cover | Up to $15K | Up to $250K | Up to $1M |
| Price | Included (free) | Item Price +$149 | Item Price +$299 |
All Pond5 licenses are royalty-free. Once you purchase the license, there is no expiration. Use it whenever you need it.
If you’re working on larger video productions or you’re producing content on behalf of brands that require indemnification (coverage), Pond5 has you covered. The amount of protection you receive depends on the license you purchase.
You can use your license in personal or commercial projects worldwide. One thing to note is that editorial use cases may have some restrictions. While you can still purchase this type of content with your license, you may only be able to use it for a single project or in limited distribution.
Pond5 Pricing Options
Pond5 offers several pricing options, which allows for much more flexibility than many other platforms.
Option 1: Subscriptions
If you regularly use stock media in your projects, it might be your best bet to get a Pond5 subscription. You’re able to download 10 media files per month at a significant savings compared to the other pricing options.
Pond5 currently offers three subscription plans:
| Music | Music & SFX | Footage Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost Per Month | $25 | $30 | $199 |
| Cost Per Year | $150 | $180 | $999 |
| Includes | ✔ 10 downloads ✔ Music tracks | ✔ 10 downloads ✔ Music tracks ✔ Sound effects | ✔ 10 downloads ✔ Music tracks ✔ Sound effects ✔ Selection of HD & 4K videos ✔ Selection of images and AE templates |
If you’re creating your own video footage, you can save even more with a subscription. The Music and Music & SFX plans are good options if you only need sound to accompany your video production.
Another good thing to know is that you can roll over any unused assets from the previous month. So you won’t have to stress over not getting your money’s worth.
If you’re wondering how Pond5 pricing stacks up against the other big stock media companies, it’s a bit cheaper. However, you get many more downloads from the other providers.
Both Adobe’s and Shutterstock’s memberships, for instance, range from $29 to $199 a month on the annual plans.
The primary difference is that, with Shutterstock, $29 gets you 10 downloads a month and $199 gets you 750. Plus, you can download any content from the site as opposed to select assets which is how Pond5 handles it.
Adobe is different. While the pricing structure is the same, Adobe has a strict limit on how many videos you can download. $29, for instance, gives you 1 video download while $199 gives you 25.
Here’s a comparison of the membership pricing structures:
| Pond5 | Shutterstock | Adobe Stock | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per Month | $25-$199 | $49-$249 | $49-$249 |
| Cost Per Year | $150-$999 | $29-$199 | $29-$199 |
| # of Downloads Included | 10/month | 10-750/month | 10-750 standard assets + 1-25 videos |
So you’ll need to decide if the selection and quality of Pond5’s video and audio collection is superior to what you get on other sites. And whether or not the cost is worth it.
Option 2: Credit Packs
Starting from as low as $250, credit packs allow you to pay upfront for the media you need. In the process, you get up to 20% in bonus credits.
| Credit Pack Cost | Bonus Credits Received |
|---|---|
| $250 | $25 |
| $500 | $65 |
| $1,000 | $160 |
| $2,500 | $500 |
Once bought, these pre-paid credits work just like cash when you want to buy any media. However, there’s a one-year expiration, so make sure to purchase only what you need.
Shutterstock and Adobe Stock also offer packs at a discounted rate.
Here is where you’ll want to pay close attention to Shutterstock’s fine print.
For starters, their packs aren’t for credits; they’re for downloads. Secondly, filmmakers and video production companies will most likely have to buy the Extended License pack, which is much more expensive — $229 vs. $1,359 for 25 downloads a year.
Adobe Stock offers credit packs similar to Pond5. However, videos are strictly limited. For instance, the cheapest pack is $49.95 and gets you 5 images and 0 videos. The most expensive pack is $1,200 and gets you 150 images and 18 SD videos.
So Pond5 seems to be the best deal in this regard.
Option 3: Pay Per Item
As the name suggests, this option allows you to buy the media you want when you need it.
There is no set cost for media assets. To find the price of individual items, hover over them in search results or visit the product page to discover how much they cost.
In this screenshot from the sound effects page, you can see that clips cost differently. There’s one for $10, two for $25, and one for $149.
Is Pond5 Worth It for Filmmakers and Video Content Creators?
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| ✔ Huge collection of stock video, sounds & images | ✘ Some content is very expensive |
| ✔ Flexible pricing options | ✘ No free trial |
| ✔ Easy to use website | ✘ Video subscription doesn’t give access to the full library |
| ✔ High-quality footage | |
| ✔ One simple license |
In short, yes!
No matter what type of video projects you create, you’ll likely find the media you’re looking for on Pond5. This is due to its expansive and ever-growing library as well as its exclusive content.
Also, it’s hard to argue with the quality of content you find on Pond5. This is clear in the large number of major, well-known companies using the platform.
While it might not be free to use, you can explore the stock library without a subscription. So if you’re on the fence about Pond5, you can get an idea if it’ll suit your needs before you spend any money on it.
We’d also urge you to check out the competition while you’re at it. Pricing is somewhat comparable between Pond5 and the major platforms. However, the other sites don’t cater to filmmakers and other video creators with impressive video, music, and SFX content the way that Pond5 does.
So it’s a matter of deciding how valuable it would be to have all your royalty-free content in one place and if the quality is superior enough to the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pond5
What does Pond5 do?
Pond5 is a marketplace for filmmakers, video production companies, and other content creators. There are tens of millions of royalty-free stock videos, music, sound effects, photography, and more all available for purchase from this site.
Is Pond5 free to use?
While you will find a link to Free Media in the footer of the Pond5 website, the vast majority of content requires a purchase.
The free media Pond5 has available is similar to the likes of what you’d find on a site like Pexels or Pixabay. The quality is okay and the content isn’t very original. To get the high-quality and often exclusive content, you need to pay.
Is Pond5 safe?
Yes, it’s completely safe to purchase royalty-free videos and other types of content from Pond5. All communication, data, and payments are encrypted.
Is Pond5 legit?
Yes. Pond5 is trusted by many people, from students to major film studios. They provide a completely transparent and easy-to-use marketplace.
Is Pond5 royalty-free?
Yes. All Pond5 licenses are royalty-free and can be used for personal or business projects with worldwide distribution forever.
Does Pond5 require a subscription?
No, Pond5 does not require a subscription. You can purchase items individually or via credit packs.
Can I get a refund?
Yes. If you’re not 100% satisfied with your purchase, you can request a refund within 24 hours.
