As many of you already know, I started a small business marketing agency at the beginning of the year. As I’ve taken on clients, my need for stock photos, videos, and other creative has grown. I quickly got tired of jumping from free site to free site looking for a decent quality image that could be used in a variety of ways or a specific mockup, or the perfect font. As a blogger, I also have a need for many of these things, so I decided to bite the bullet and subscribe to Envato Elements (post contains affiliate links for your convenience). If you found this post by searching for “Envato Elements Review” then you’re probably wondering if Envato Elements is worth it.

Is Envato Elements worth it?

What is Envato Elements?

Envato Elements is a service provided by Envato that gives creators, designers, and others access to a large library of digital assets. Assets that include fonts, graphics, illustrations, photos, videos, audio files, WordPress plugins and themes, and more. It is set up as a subscription service that is billed either monthly or annually. At the time of this post, it was $198 a year or $33 per month.

Envato Elements - Unlimited downloads of 55+ million creative assets. From just $16.50/month.

Are There Discounts Available?

I ended up purchasing the annual subscription – but I have a trick for you to save a little money! I signed up for a free account and added the annual subscription to my cart… and then I left it. You may have done this with other large retailers in the past, I know I have. And what I’ve learned is they will send you an “abandoned cart” email letting you know it’s still sitting there. But if you wait a day or two, they’ll send another email and this time they’ll sweeten the deal to get you to finalize the purchase by adding a discount. And that’s exactly what Envato Elements did! I received a discount of $14/month when purchasing the annual subscription, so my total was $168 for the year.

Considering the amount of time I scoured free and paid sites looking for different creative, having a library of over 200,000,000 digital assets at my disposal is pretty awesome. New items are added to Envato Elements’ resource library on a regular basis. Most of the top-level categories are broken down into sub-categories to help narrow down a search.

Quality stock audio for vloggers, podcasters and video producers

I’ve used stock photography, illustrations, video, and audio. Thanks to Envato Elements, I’ve even learned how to use After Effects to create custom video intros, outros and logo reveals. If you’re a blogger that does video, the stock audio is great for putting together video and has much better options than the built-in audio that Adobe Premier offers. Plus the stock video can add some fun B-roll to your videos!

Let’s move on to the details, shall we?

Who is Envato Elements for?

The following groups would definitely benefit from a subscription:

  • Bloggers who are searching for high-quality images to go along with their blog posts.
  • Videographers/Vloggers looking for stock video, video templates and audio.
  • Marketing agencies that need access to a variety of digital assets for a magnitude of projects.
  • Illustrators and graphic designers looking for more font, action, brushes, and layer style choices.
  • Podcasters needing audio for their episodes.
  • Website owners, agencies, and freelancers need various WordPress plugins and themes.

By now you may be wondering about download credits and licensing. I’ve got great news for you! With this subscription service, you don’t need to worry about download limits or credits! You can download and experiment with different graphics, files, and themes before selecting the ones that are ideal for your specific project.

Envato Elements makes it easy to license your assets

Envato Elements Licensing

Envato Elements keeps licensing super simple. A commercial license covers all downloadable assets. This allows you to use those assets in your work with clients and in your own work.

To summarize:

  • A single commercial license. All items that can be used in Envato Elements have the same license terms. You receive broad commercial rights so that you can use items for both clients projects and for personal projects.
  • Register items each time they are used. Whenever you download an item, you’ll receive an ongoing license for single-use. If you want to re-use an item, all you have to do is go to your downloads and register that item again for different use.
  • Certain common-sense limitations apply:
    • You can’t redistribute or re-sell items;
    • You can’t use items in on-demand services;
    • You generally can’t use the items you’ve downloaded as a basis for merchandising. For example, you can’t print an item from Envato Elements onto a T-shirt.

But what happens to the License if you stop using Envato Elements?

Once you cancel your subscription, you can’t download any more items. However, any items that you’ve already downloaded and registered for a project before the subscription was canceled can still be used for that particular project.

Check out the full Envato Elements Licensing to learn more.

Product and print mock-up subscription service

So is Envato Elements worth it?

I 100% have found value in having a subscription to Envato Elements. It provides me with access to stock imagery and other creative that I am comfortable using because I know I’m free and clear to do so. There are times when I can’t find exactly what I need in the stock image library, and that does get frustrating. I’ve also used Deposit Photos, and they typically always had what I was looking for, but the price for that service is higher and I don’t gain access to the huge library of other digital assets like Envato Elements has.

The mock-ups have been great for my own personal marketing efforts. Having a digital marketing company means I don’t always have quantifiable products to show people. The mock-ups solve that issue and look great in my social media posts and on my website! I am also able to use them for my client’s products and services, which really elevates most small businesses in the eye of the consumer! A professional look at a fraction of the cost.

I highly recommend creating a free account and searching through the different sections of the library to see if Envato Elements will be a good fit for you! With the free account you’ll also gain access to free files monthly.