We reviewed the top 10 stock video footage APIs so you don’t have to

Top 10 Stock Video Footage APIs Compared

Before we begin, we would like to make a disclaimer that Plainly is NOT a stock video API, so you can trust us as a completely unbiased source, as we won’t be competing with the tools on this list.

Plainly is a batch video-rendering solution for publishers, creative agencies, software companies, and anyone looking to generate and distribute many unique video variations automatically. 

You can book a 30-minute demo with us today and see how you can speed up your workflow. Also, feel free to check out Plainly’s use cases to get a better idea of what Plainly can do.

With this covered, let’s review the 10 best stock video API tools and see what they have to offer.

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Top 10 Stock Video API Tools

Pexels

Pexels is one of the most popular stock photo and video services out there today. It offers both photos and videos at virtually no cost. As far as video goes, their library offers around 150,000 videos.

Pexels’ stock media database can be integrated into your website through their free Image and Video API.

However, one of the major downsides of Pexels is that they don't provide indemnification for the stock media assets they provide. This means potential copyright disputes for which Pexels bears no responsibility. 

Other common cons of Pexels include somewhat inaccurate search results and a lack of good search filters.

You can read Pexels’ API documentation here.

Pros

• Completely free
• Satisfactory quality
• Unlimited downloads

Cons

• Indemnification problems
• Limited search filters

Price

Free.

Licensing

Pexels is centered around a CC0 license. The end-user is responsible for any copyright infringement that may arise since authors of the original content still own the material Pexels distributes. Important note: Pexels’ media cannot be sold further unless modified significantly.

Adobe Stock API

As far as the quality of the stock videos goes, Adobe is among the best tools in the market. Although it’s on the more expensive side, Adobe offers various pricing plans. Different pricing plans offer different numbers of various stock footage.

You can pay monthly, or purchase credits when necessary. For reference, a 40-credit purchase will allow you to buy up to 5 HD videos, and it will cost you $359.99.

However, neither buying credits nor a subscription are necessary to download content.

The search filters allow you to tick the “free” option from the drop-down menu near the search bar, and Adobe will display high-quality stock photos, videos, and vectors that are at the same level of quality as paid ones. It’s just that the number of free options is naturally, more limited.

The API integration works as follows:

1. You register your application on Adobe I/O
2. You pick the authentication method for your use case
3. You build and deploy using Adobe Stock APIs

If quality is your top priority, then definitely do consider Adobe Stock as your choice. However, the steep price might be an immediate dealbreaker for many.

Adobe Stock API documentation is available here.

Pros

• Well-arranged, intuitive website
• Very high-quality videos

Cons

• Limited number of videos — 25 videos per month for the most expensive plan
• More videos can only be purchased through extra credits
• Very expensive — makes more sense for stock photo needs than video

Price

Adobe Stock offers different pricing plans. As far as stock video goes, the plans begin at $29.99/ month (billed annually) for 1 video a month and go as high as $199.99.

Licensing

Adobe offers a “standard license” for its videos, which is more than enough for most users. However, using assets on high-traffic websites (500,000+ unique views) requires you to buy an enhanced or extended license.

Shutterstock Developers

Shutterstock is definitely one of the leaders in the stock image and video industry. They offer one of the most extensive catalogs on the market, covering HD and 4K photos and videos, as well as audio, vector graphics, and illustrations.

As far as video goes, Shutterstock claims its catalog includes as many as 20 million videos.

One of the more noteworthy endpoints of Shutterstock's API allows reverse image or video search.

Shutterstock offers a wide range of different media and plenty of filter options for choosing the right one for your needs.

Shutterstock guarantees a frictionless environment powered by their REST API. Their documentation is available here.

Pros

• Rigorous licensing standard — “worry-free” licensing
• A wide selection of videos

Cons

• Undisclosed pricing

Price

Shutterstock API offers two payment options — a pay-per-use or a monthly plan. Both options require you to contact sales for a custom price, meaning that the price is effectively undisclosed.

However, in our research, we’ve found that the minimum annual commitment is $40,000. The price per asset at that point is around $3 per image and $5-7 per video. There is no chance of a discount for upfront payments. On the other hand, the assets don't have an expiration date — you can use them whenever you like.

Licensing

Shutterstock API provides flexible licensing options and “worry-free licensing”. Shutterstock guarantees assets are vetted by a professional review team so that they comply with all applicable law

Vecteezy API

Vecteezy is an online marketplace for downloading stock videos, photos, and vector graphics directly from artists. 

It offers easy integration through REST API, user-friendly documentation, and clear commands, and it's easy to integrate — it can be done in a matter of minutes. 

Its pricing starts at $50 per month and offers 500 downloads and 10,000 API calls per payment cycle.

Compared to the other tools here, Vecteezy easily wins our list in the “value for money” category.

Vecteezy API documentation is readily available on this link.

Pros

• Clear pricing
• Easy API integration

Cons

• Poorer search accuracy than competitor
• Search features could be expanded

Price

Vecteezy seems adaptable to users at any scale and is, at the same time, among the most affordable ones on our list. Starting at $50 per month, Vecteezy goes up to enterprise level with a custom price plan — aimed at users with greater needs.

Licensing

Licensing is pretty straightforward and covers various options for different use cases. Each video has a suitable license and custom options are available for higher-traffic pages.

Storyblocks

If you're only looking for stock video and graphics rather than stock photos, Storyblocks might be one of the best options.

The stock media API is simple and easy to integrate and gives your users the freedom to use the assets in whatever way they like, providing access to millions of royalty-free stock media files.

Storyblocks allows you to start testing their API right away with their easy-to-use API test keys. You need to create an account, get a hold of the API keys, and you’re ready to start exploring.

Storyblocks’ search returns a large number of varied options, but this can of course vary depending on how broad your term is.

As far as browsing the content goes, Storyblocks could use some improvement. The assets are high-quality, creative, and make sense when searched for. However, the filters don't allow you to filter the number of people in the shot, or select their gender or ethnicity.

On the other hand, a variety of technical criteria is available as filters, so it’s probably a matter of time before Storyblocks includes the missing filtering options.

You can read Storyblocks’ API documentation here.

Pros

• Free API test drive
• Straightforward
• Video oriented

Cons

• Worse search filter options than competitors
• Only custom pricing is available

Price

The API pricing is custom, depending on what libraries you choose to include. You will need to contact sales for specific plans. In our research, we’ve discovered that the minimum commitment for Storyblocks assets is $24,000 per year.  

Licensing

All of the Storyblocks assets are royalty-free and covered by a $20,000 indemnification. There is also a possibility of a Business license that offers $100,000 indemnification and other business-specific benefits.

Pixabay Developer API

Pixabay takes pride in its unlimited number of API requests, reliability, and setup simplicity.

However, out of the “4.73 million images and videos” advertised, it’s abundantly clear that Pixabay’s focus is primarily on photos rather than videos (it’s even in the name!).

Their API is reliable and trusted by many big companies around the world, such as Canva, piZap, Pablo, and Photofy.

Pixabay offers completely free stock, but suffers from the same issue as Pexels — it is not responsible for any potential copyright infringement. 

As Pixabay’s website clearly states:

“Please be aware that certain Content may be subject to additional intellectual property rights (such as copyrights, trademarks, design rights), moral rights, proprietary rights, property rights, privacy rights, or similar. It is your responsibility to check whether you require the consent of a third party or a license to use Content.”

Pixabay API documentation is available here.

Pros

• Completely free
• Good for startups
• Trusted by well-known companies
• Unlimited API requests

Cons

• Licensing is not 100% reliable
• Too photo-oriented

Price

Pixabay is completely free.

Licensing

Pixabay offers a royalty-free license for all of its content. This means that there are certain limitations and terms that come with the stock assets, all of which are clearly stated on Pixabay’s website.

Pond5 API

Pond5 offers high-quality video and film material, which are easy to navigate and browse. They claim a stunning number of 20 Million+ readily available videos on their website. 

Apart from videos, they also offer varying numbers of music tracks, sound effects, After Effects templates, and 3D models. 

Pond5’s API is competitive and as easy to integrate as its peers.

As far as video goes, Pond5 has far more advanced search filters compared to its competitors. You can browse videos based on resolution, duration, and frames per second (FPS), as well as price, exclusivity, people (number and gender), if the shot is aerial, greenscreen, loopable, etc.

You can reference Pond5’s API documentation on this link.

Pros

• Upload videos to search for similar ones
• Good search filters

Cons

• A bit expensive
• Unpredictable pricing (content’s creators dictate the price)

Price

Packs that include video start at $199 per month, and include “a selection of 4.2M HD & 4K videos”. For certain videos, you will be required to purchase credit packs, which start at $250 per month.

As far as the custom API pricing goes, Pond5 requires an annual commitment of $30,000 from its users. With that agreement, the video prices range from $33 to $41, and images from $12 to $14. 

The payment doesn’t need to be made upfront, but it needs to be a commitment. You have unlimited time to use the assets.

Licensing

Pond5 offers an Individual License. The license is royalty-free and can be used for personal or business projects. You can distribute the content worldwide. As with all royalty-free licenses, you can use the media forever, and across an unlimited number of projects.

Getty Images API

From the very first contact with Getty Images API, you will be aware that it's aimed at businesses with a lot of money to spend.

The quality of the content is stellar and the licensing price and type are very clearly displayed next to each asset you are looking to acquire.

However, for accurate API pricing, you will need to contact their sales team for a custom plan.

Getty Images API documentation can be found on this link.

Pros

• Fantastic quality and quantity
• Great support

Cons

• Only custom pricing is available for API

Price

Only custom pricing is available for API integration.

Licensing

Getty Images offers royalty-free licensing, as well as rights-ready, and rights-managed licenses for different assets. The prices are laid out next to the assets you purchase and it's fairly simple to understand what each type of license includes and allows you to do with the asset.

Coverr

Coverr advertises itself as a “no catch” completely free resource for stock videos.

Coverr’s API is free to use for personal and commercial use.

The only limitations of Coverr are 1000 calls per month through their staging app. Also, once you're ready to launch, you will need to request a Production application — which will grant you 500 calls per minute.

One thing to keep in mind is that on-premise video hosting isn't supported by the API Coverr offers.

On the other hand, their website states they're open to exploring options for larger-scale needs, so feel free to contact them for more details.

So far, Coverr is looking like one of the best free API stock video clip options out there.

You can find Coverr’s API documentation here.

Pros

• Completely free
• Great video quality

Cons

• Limited selection compared to others
• Limited customization

Price

Free.

Licensing

Videos are required to credit Coverr by showing their logo.

Videvo

The biggest strength of Videvo is that it’s one of the most user-friendly options for Stock Video API out there. Regardless of how technical you are, Videvo still allows you to easily integrate stock assets into your website.

Of course, Videvo also comes with certain drawbacks. The most notable flaw of Videvo is the reported unreliable customer support and the occasional creep-in of a low-quality video.

The selection is good, but it certainly could be a bit more diverse.

If you’re only looking for video and NOT photos or vector graphics, this tool is one of the few on the list that puts greater emphasis on exactly VIDEO.

If you’re looking for video exclusively, you will probably be better off spending your money on a tool like this than on a multimedia tool such as Adobe, which offers assets you won’t ever need to use.

You can check out Videvo’s API documentation on this link.

Pros

• Video oriented
• Affordable

Cons

• Occasional low-quality videos
• Certain users report poor customer support 

Price

Videvo plans start at $7.99 per month and the pricing goes up to $24.99 per month. 

Licensing

All subscriptions offer royalty-free licenses, which means that any content you download is yours to keep and use in future projects, even after your subscription ends.

Final Thoughts: Top 3 Stock Video API Choices

In the last chapter, we’d like to give our closing thoughts and choose 3 different stock video APIs that best fit different users' needs depending on the scale of your business.

If you’re a smaller business, Vecteezy API is probably the best solution for you. The main pros are not having to worry about licensing and flexible plans which can grow as your business grows. For these reasons, this is one of the best options for businesses just starting out.

If your business is expanding, Pond5 is definitely the tool that will give you the best quality for its price. Even though it is on the more expensive side, if you trust your business will grow in the following years, the annual $30k commitment may not be as big of a challenge as it may at first seem.

Finally, for large-scale businesses, Getty Images API will probably be the best option. The amazing quality of the assets as well as the very clear licensing make it the most reliable choice for businesses where money is a non-issue and reliability is of utmost importance.

We hope our overview of the state of stock video API service pricing and offers has been helpful in making your decision process a lot easier. Take your time before making your decision and good luck!

If you’re looking for stock video APIs, you might be creating an automated video creation workflow.

With Plainly, you can programmatically create 1,000s of video variations in a matter of minutes, as simply as importing data and an After Effects template into our web application, and letting Plainly take care of the rest.

If you’re interested in seeing Plainly’s capabilities, check out our use cases, or book a 30-minute demo today to take a tour!

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