123RF review

123RF is one of those stock photo sites that I’ve never known whether to recommend or not—it was a borderline case if you will.

So I decided to give it another chance this year, and the verdict is here: I do NOT recommend 123RF. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad and you won’t get scammed. But if you’re willing to invest a couple dozen bucks a month, there are better options.

Since the last time I reviewed 123RF, they added a bunch of AI tools (that I’m not impressed by, btw), improved customer support, and changed their pricing, again. But they haven’t ironed out one of the more glaring issues: horrible image search.

Cost and licensing

123RF’s pricing and licensing structure can be quite complex, so let’s break it down. A free account lets you download from a collection of two million files, but you have to provide attribution, can’t use the materials for merchandise, and get no legal guarantee.

Here’s a brief summary of 123RF pricing plans and their respective licenses:

There are three subscription plans. The PLUS plan costs $29 per month or $200 per year, offering unlimited access to about half of their collection, roughly 100 million files. This plan includes a 7-day free trial. Files downloaded with this plan come with the 123RF PLUS license, which covers web use but not offline uses like prints, offline advertising, or merchandise. Attribution isn’t required, but there’s no legal guarantee. This plan is ideal for digital creators who work with websites and social media but don’t have offline businesses.

The PLUS BUSINESS plan costs $59 per month or $300 per year and offers the same access to the PLUS collection. The key difference is that it allows offline use and includes a $25,000 legal guarantee. For comparison, top-tier stock photo sites like Shutterstock provide a $10,000 guarantee with their standard licenses.

In terms of similar unlimited subscriptions, Freepik charges $24 per month or $144 per year, Envato Elements is $39 per month or $200 per year, and Vecteezy costs $14 per month or $108 per year. While 123RF is pricier, it offers a larger collection and a higher legal guarantee.

There are also standard subscription plans, called PREMIUM at 123RF, which provide a fixed number of downloads per month. These plans give you access to the entire collection with the same license as the PLUS BUSINESS plan. Prices range from $39 to $139 per month or $350 to $1430 per year, depending on whether you need between 20 and 350 images per month. For comparison, 10 downloads cost $29 at Shutterstock, iStock, and Adobe Stock, while Depositphotos offers 30 downloads for the same price.

Finally, there are credit packs for purchasing content beyond photos, such as vectors, audio, video, and fonts. Credits range from 30 to 270, costing $30 to $200, translating to roughly $0.75 to $1 per credit. Most content costs 10 credits, with videos priced at 30 credits. This means you’ll pay about $8 to $10 per image and three times more per video. These prices are similar to those at Shutterstock, iStock, and Adobe Stock, where on-demand images cost between $8 and $15, but are more expensive than Depositphotos, where images cost between $2 and $6.

Credits can also be used to buy extended licenses, costing 60 credits (~$60) for photos and audio and 80 credits for videos. These licenses are royalty-free and allow use in merchandise. However, the extended license at 123RF provides only a $25,000 indemnity, whereas Shutterstock and iStock offer up to $250,000.

123RF does provide refunds, but they are limited to three days (which I am not sure is allowed for EU citizens, who should have 14-day refund rights). According to 123RF, you can get a full refund within 3 business days and a 50% refund after that provided you haven’t downloaded anything. If you have downloaded any content, your refund amount will be adjusted based on that.

Image quality and variety

123RF offers a fairly good variety of images with 200 million options. However, I noticed that opting for one of the PLUS plans cuts the selection in half and leaves you with lower-quality images. While the overall image quality is decent, and I was able to use a good amount of images for my projects, photos featuring people often appear noticeably posed. Many images also have that generic stock photo look.

Photos are available in high resolutions, including 12MP and above, with a 300dpi resolution. While raw formats are unavailable, users can download images in JPG format and vector images in PNG format.

Unfortunately, the search functionality on 123RF is a significant drawback. Each time I added a new search parameter, it took a few seconds to refresh, significantly slowing down the refinement process. Additionally, there are not enough filters. While I could filter by AI-generated content, vectors, commercial or editorial use, and orientation, 123RF lacks essential filters found in some of the best providers. For example, I couldn’t filter by the number of people or the predominant color.

While 123RF doesn’t feature a dedicated editorial collection, it does include images classified as editorial due to recognizable people or objects. However, I found that a good portion of these images are categorized as editorial for no apparent reason. My best guess is that the photographer didn’t get permission to take the photo. This lack of a model release makes me question the platform’s image acquisition process.

Tools

123RF has embraced the AI wave, adding numerous tools and integrations for subscribers. With an active subscription, you can access features like an AI image generator, upscale, background blur and remover, and extender.

These tools remind me of Adobe’s Photoshop AI. However, there’s a significant drawback: each tool operates independently, offering no options for further editing. In Photoshop, you can use tools interchangeably on one picture, making edits to the AI changes. With 123RF, you have no control over the results.

The term “AI” has become a buzzword in design. While useful in specific contexts, it’s not a catch-all solution. This is just my personal take.

123RF isn’t alone in adding AI tools. Shutterstock, iStock, Adobe Stock, Depositphotos, Envato Elements, Artlist, and Freepik have also jumped on the AI bandwagon. Everyone seems to be incorporating AI in some way.

Personally, I’d prefer if 123RF’s parent company, Inmagine, focused more on their web-based design platform, Designs.ai. This platform has the potential to be a great alternative to Canva or Adobe Express, especially with an integrated 123RF image library. Instead, they’ve opted to introduce standalone AI tools while raising prices, making their services four times more expensive than Adobe Express.

Should you subscribe to 123RF?

There’s nothing about 123RF that would make me say, “You absolutely shouldn’t pay for this, stay away!”, but at the same time nothing about it stands out. For any feature you could point out, I would be able to find an alternative that does it better.

Let me demonstrate:

• 123RF has lots of images: True, but Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Alamy, and Depositphotos all have even more.
• 123RF has numerous tools: Adobe Stock is natively integrated into all Adobe apps, which come with Adobe’s generative AI, which is more advanced than 123RF’s tools. Shutterstock can also be integrated into Creative Cloud, has its own AI (trained on its own images so there’s no copyright conflict), numerous integrations, an image editor, and more.

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Matic Broz

Matic Broz is a stock media licensing expert with over 10 years of experience using and testing creative platforms for his own creative work. He has personally licensed over 5,000 stock assets and helped 20,000+ creators choose the right subscription services through his work at Photutorial.

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