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Envato Review
Reviewed by Carlos Gil · Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Updated 7 min readEditorially reviewed
Quick facts
- Starting price
- Core $16.50/mo billed annually ($39 monthly); Plus $39/mo billed annually
- Free plan
- No
- Best for
- Video editors, designers, freelancers and small agencies who use many kinds of stock assets and templates across client and social projects
- Platforms
- Web; templates for Premiere Pro, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, Canva, Affinity, PowerPoint, Keynote, Blender and more
BestStacked Score
Weighted average of 5 categories. Methodology below.
Quick answer
Is Envato worth it, and what does a subscription include?
Envato is a creative asset subscription: one plan gives you unlimited downloads from a catalog Envato puts at 29+ million items, including stock video and photos, music and sound effects, video and design templates, graphics, 3D, fonts and WordPress themes. On October 18, 2026, Core cost $16.50 a month billed annually, or $39 month to month, and included 20 AI credits a month. Plus ($39 a month billed annually) adds 200 AI credits for image, video, voice, music and graphics generation, and Ultimate adds 500 to 2,000. Each download is licensed for one project; using an item again means registering a new license, and items must be licensed while your subscription is active.
- Best for
- Editors, designers and small agencies who need many asset types (footage, music, templates, fonts) under one license.
- Skip it if
- You only need music for broadcast TV, or design work that Canva's built-in library already covers.
- Strongest capability
- Breadth: video templates, footage, music, graphics, fonts and 3D in one subscription, plus AI tools on paid credits.
- Biggest limitation
- The license is per project, music excludes broadcast use on Individual and Teams plans, and cancelled subscriptions aren't refunded.
- Current cost
- Core $16.50/mo billed annually ($39 monthly); Plus $39/mo ($59 monthly); Ultimate from $99/mo billed annually.
The Verdict
Envato's main draw is breadth. One subscription covers video templates for Premiere Pro, After Effects, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve, stock footage and photos, music with stems, sound effects, graphics, fonts, presentation templates and WordPress themes under one license, and Envato adds AI generation tools on a monthly credit allowance. Downloads of stock assets are unlimited, subject to a fair use policy, and the annual Core plan works out to $198 a year. The license needs attention: each download covers one project, items must be licensed and the project completed while you're subscribed, music isn't licensed for broadcast on Individual and Teams plans, and fonts stay with the subscriber. Envato doesn't refund cancelled subscriptions, and item support comes from each item's author. We score Envato 8.1/10, provisionally.
Best for
Video editors, designers and small agencies who use footage, music, templates and fonts across many client and social projects.
Skip if
You need broadcast music rights without an Enterprise plan, or a design editor rather than downloadable assets.
AlternativesCanva, Epidemic Sound, Adobe Express
The Background
What Is Envato?
Envato, which says it has served creative professionals since 2006, runs several creative marketplaces. Its subscription, long called Envato Elements and now branded simply Envato (envato.com redirects to it), gives subscribers unlimited downloads from a catalog of what Envato describes as 29+ million items made by independent authors: stock video, motion graphics and LUTs, royalty-free music with stems, sound effects, stock photos, graphics and illustrations, fonts and add-ons, design and presentation templates, video templates for editing software, 3D models, Lottie animations and web templates including WordPress themes and plugins. The subscription also includes AI tools for generating and editing images, video, voiceovers, music, sound effects, graphics and mockups, paid for with monthly AI credits. Envato's other products, such as Envato Market (single-item purchases), Placeit, Mixkit and Envato Tuts+, are separate: the subscription can't be used to download items from Envato Market. Envato is a library you download from; it isn't a design editor like Canva, although many templates are made for Canva.
The Product
Envato Features: What You Actually Get
Unlimited stock downloads across asset types
Every plan, including Core, gives unlimited downloads of stock assets, subject to Envato's fair use policy, which rules out bots, account sharing and downloading in bulk to stockpile items for after a subscription ends. Categories include stock video and photos, music and sound effects, video templates, design and presentation templates, graphics, 3D, fonts, add-ons and web templates. New items are added daily, according to Envato.
A freelance video editor pulls a logo reveal template, b-roll clips, a music track and a lower-thirds pack for one client video, all under one subscription.
AI tools on monthly credits
Envato's AI tools generate and edit images, video, voiceovers, music, sound effects, icons, illustrations and mockups. Core includes 20 AI credits a month, Plus 200 and Ultimate a choice of 500, 1,000 or 2,000. Envato says most image, graphic, voice and sound actions start at 1 credit and video generation can take several, and you see the cost before generating. Plus allows 3 generations at once and Ultimate 10. Envato lists models from OpenAI, Google, Kling, ElevenLabs, Flux and Minimax, and says model availability can change without notice.
A social media manager on Plus generates a few product mockups and a short voiceover each week inside the 200-credit allowance.
Templates for the tools you already use
Much of the catalog is templates rather than finished assets: video templates for Premiere Pro, After Effects, Apple Motion, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve; design templates for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Figma, Affinity and Canva; presentation templates for PowerPoint and Keynote; and 3D files for Blender and Spline. You download the files and edit them in your own software.
An agency designer downloads a pitch-deck template for Keynote and a social media kit for Figma, then adapts both to a client's brand.
Claim Clear for YouTube
Claim Clear helps creators deal with YouTube Content ID claims on Envato music. Tracks marked "Claim Clear ready" can be used on up to 3 safelisted YouTube channels, where eligible claims clear automatically, and you can clear up to 30 individual videos a month from the Claim Clear dashboard. Envato says Claim Clear ready music doesn't guarantee a video will never receive a claim; it makes eligible claims quicker to resolve.
A YouTuber safelists their channel, filters the music library by Content ID, and uses only Claim Clear ready tracks so eligible claims clear on upload.
Feature recap
- Unlimited stock downloads from 29+ million items (fair use applies)
- Video, design, presentation, 3D and web templates
- Music with stems and sound effects
- AI image, video, voice, music, sound and graphics tools on credits
- 20 / 200 / 500-2,000 AI credits a month by plan
- Commercial license per project, covering client work
- Claim Clear for YouTube Content ID claims
- Teams, Student and Enterprise plans
The Numbers
Envato Pricing: Every Plan Explained
These are USD prices from elements.envato.com/pricing on October 18, 2026, read in a browser, excluding local tax. Envato shows the annual-billing rate as a monthly figure; the month-to-month price appears beneath it.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Included Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CoreBest value | $39/mo | $16.50/mo billed annually ($198/yr) | Unlimited stock downloads, 20 AI credits a month, commercial license for stock assets and AI generations; students 30% off | Anyone who mainly needs stock assets and templates |
| Plus | $59/mo | $39/mo billed annually ($468/yr) | Everything in Core plus 200 AI credits a month and 3 parallel AI generations | Creators who use AI generation regularly |
| Ultimate | $149, $259 or $459/mo | $99, $168 or $297/mo billed annually (500, 1,000 or 2,000 credits) | Everything in Core plus 500, 1,000 or 2,000 AI credits a month and 10 parallel AI generations | Heavy AI video and image users |
| Teams and Enterprise | Teams from $58/mo for 2 members | Teams from $29/mo billed annually for 2 members; Enterprise quoted | Teams: 2 to 5 members with shared management. Enterprise (50+ employees): custom seats, custom licensing, indemnification, broadcast rights, SSO, account manager | Small teams; larger companies needing broadcast rights |
Pricing scenarios (our calculations from Envato's published USD prices, October 18, 2026; tax excluded). Core billed annually costs $198 a year; paying $39 month to month costs $468 a year, so annual billing is the lower-cost option for anyone subscribing for more than five months. Plus billed annually costs $468 a year, $270 more than Core, for 180 more AI credits a month; if you generate little AI content, Core covers the stock library on its own. Ultimate billed annually costs $1,188 a year for 500 credits, $2,016 for 1,000 or $3,564 for 2,000. For two people, the Teams Core plan at $29 a month billed annually ($348 a year) costs less than two individual Core plans ($396). The student price is $11.50 a month, 30% off Core, for verified students 18 and over. Envato doesn't refund cancelled subscriptions: you keep access until the end of the period you paid for, upgrades are charged pro rata and downgrades take effect at the next renewal. Envato's pricing pages describe team savings as "up to 34%" on the main pricing page and "up to 35%" on the Teams page.
Licensing
What the Envato license covers, and what it doesn't
The Envato Elements License (last revised October 6, 2026) applies to Individual and Teams subscriptions. Each time you download an item, you get a commercial, worldwide license to use it in one project to create a specific end product, including work for clients and monetized content. To use the same item in another project, you register a new license for it. You must have an active subscription to license an item, and the end product must be completed while you're subscribed; once it is, the license continues for the life of that end product, even after you cancel.
The license doesn't cover: redistributing items as stock, templates or source files, even for free; using items in on-demand or print-on-demand products where the customer customizes the item; merchandise whose main value is the item itself (a poster of a stock photo, for example); or claiming ownership of an item, including registering music in YouTube Content ID. Fonts and add-ons are licensed to the subscriber only, on up to two computers per seat, and can't be shared with colleagues or clients.
Music has extra conditions on Individual and Teams plans: it can't be used in broadcasts (TV, radio, or streaming substitutes such as IPTV) or in a film released in theaters, and for P.R.O.-registered tracks public performance rights aren't included. Envato's Enterprise plan adds broadcasting rights, custom licensing and indemnification.
Two points of wording to read together: the pricing page describes a "Lifetime commercial license" and says existing licensed uses are "covered forever", while the license itself calls each license "revocable" and lets Envato end it for listed reasons, such as a rights problem with an item. If a license is ended, you have to remove the item from your end product.
See Envato plansAI tools
How AI credits and AI output rights work
AI credits are separate from stock downloads, which stay unlimited on every plan. Core includes 20 credits a month, Plus 200 and Ultimate 500, 1,000 or 2,000. Envato says credit costs vary by action and may change as its tools evolve; its pricing page doesn't say whether unused credits carry over to the next month, so check before you plan around a balance.
Envato's AI Product Terms (last revised July 1, 2026) grant a commercial license to what you generate, to be used within a larger end product, but don't assign ownership of the output. AI music can't be used as standalone music, for example on audio streaming platforms, and outputs can't be used to train other AI models. If you edit an Envato stock item with an AI tool, both the Elements License and the AI terms apply.
Scoring
How the provisional score is built
BestStacked weights five sub-scores: ease of use 20%, features 25%, pricing 20%, support 15% and integrations 20%. For Envato they come only from Envato's documentation, not from testing, and are provisional until the editor approves them. Ease of use 8.6: one subscription with unlimited downloads and simple plan choices, but each project needs its own license registration. Features 8.8: a broad catalog across video, audio, design, 3D, fonts and web, plus AI tools and Claim Clear; music broadcast rights need Enterprise. Pricing 8.2: Core at $198 a year billed annually and Teams and student discounts, offset by a month-to-month price more than twice the annual rate, no free plan and no refunds on cancellation. Support 7.2: a help center and support request form, but no item support from Envato and no live channel listed on the pages checked. Integrations 7.4: templates for Adobe, Apple, Blackmagic, Figma, Canva, Affinity and Microsoft tools, but few direct connections documented on the pages checked. That works out to 8.1 out of 10.
The Tradeoffs
Envato Pros and Cons
What we love
- Unlimited stock downloads on every plan
- Video, music, templates, graphics, fonts and 3D in one subscription
- Core costs $198 a year billed annually
- Commercial license covers client work and monetized content
- AI image, video, voice and music tools included on credits
- Claim Clear helps resolve eligible YouTube claims
- Teams and 30% student pricing
What could be better
- License covers one project per registration; reuse needs a new license
- Music license excludes broadcast use on Individual and Teams plans
- Cancelled subscriptions aren't refunded
- Month-to-month Core is $39, versus $16.50 a month billed annually
- Item support comes from each author, not Envato
- Doesn't include Envato Market items
The Audience
Who Should Use Envato?
Best for: video editors and motion designers
Video templates for Premiere Pro, After Effects, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve, plus footage, music and sound effects, cover most of a typical client edit under one subscription.
Best for: freelancers and small agencies
The license covers client work, and the Teams plan shares one subscription across two to five people for less than individual plans.
Skip if: you need broadcast music or an all-in-one editor
TV and radio productions need Envato's Enterprise plan for broadcast rights. If you want to design in the browser with a built-in library, Canva or Adobe Express fits better.
The Methodology
How We Reviewed Envato
This is an editorial review, not a hands-on test. BestStacked did not use Envato for this review and makes no claims about asset quality, search results or AI output beyond what Envato documents. It's based on Envato's own pages, all checked on October 18, 2026: the pricing page (read in a browser in USD, with each Ultimate credit option selected), the Teams, Students and Enterprise pages, the about page, and the help center's Envato Elements License, Fair Use Policy, AI Product Terms and Claim Clear articles. Competitor prices come from their BestStacked reviews, checked on each vendor's pricing page between October 8 and 14, 2026. Where Envato's pages differ, both versions are reported. Envato's tracked partner link is used on the review buttons; it does not affect the score.
Our editorial evaluation considers product information, official documentation, pricing, features and professional experience. It is not a claim of documented hands-on testing.
Our review methodology →What changed
- : First published. Editorial review based on Envato's pricing page (read in a browser in USD), Teams, Students, Enterprise and about pages, and the Envato Elements License, Fair Use Policy, AI Product Terms and Claim Clear help articles, all checked October 18, 2026. Sub-scores are provisional pending editor approval.
The Field
Envato vs The Competition
Competitor prices are as listed in their BestStacked reviews, checked on each vendor's own pricing page between October 8 and 14, 2026, in USD.
| Tool | Starting Price | Free plan | Best Feature | BS Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envato | Core $16.50/mo billed annually ($39 monthly); Plus $39/mo billed annually | No | Unlimited stock downloads across asset types | 8.1/10 |
| Canva | Free; Pro US$144/yr (US$18/mo); Business US$250/yr per person | Yes | A browser design editor with its own template and media library | 8.7/10 |
| Adobe Express | Free / Premium $9.99/mo / Teams $7.99/seat/mo (annual) | Yes | Quick social and marketing designs with Adobe Stock and Firefly | 9/10 |
| Epidemic Sound | Creator $9.99/mo billed yearly ($17.99 monthly); 30-day free trial | No | Music and sound effects it owns outright, cleared per channel | 8.4/10 |
| Artlist | Music & SFX from $9.99/mo | No | Music, SFX and footage in one subscription | —No BestStacked review yet |
Canva: Canva is a design editor rather than a download library: you build designs in the browser from its templates and stock media. Envato also sells templates made for Canva, so some teams use both.Read our Canva review →
Adobe Express: Adobe Express is Adobe's browser and mobile design app, with templates, Adobe Stock assets and Firefly AI. It suits quick social content; Envato suits work in full editing and design software.Read our Adobe Express review →
Epidemic Sound: Epidemic Sound focuses on music and sound effects and licenses them by connected channel. It's a closer fit if audio is all you need; Envato covers audio alongside video, templates and graphics.Read our Epidemic Sound review →
Artlist: Artlist sells music and sound-effect plans with bundles that add stock footage and AI tools. Compare the license scope for your channels and clients side by side. BestStacked hasn't reviewed Artlist yet.Visit Artlist
In The Wild
How People Actually Use Envato
A freelance video editor
Core at $198 a year billed annually covers templates, footage, music and sound effects for client edits. Register a license for each client project, and use Claim Clear ready music for videos that go to YouTube.
A two-person design studio
Teams Core at $29 a month billed annually covers both designers for less than two individual plans. Remember that fonts stay with each subscriber and can't be handed to clients.
A marketer making AI visuals and voiceovers
Plus at $39 a month billed annually adds 200 AI credits a month for images, mockups and voiceovers on top of the stock library. Check the credit cost of video generation before relying on it.
The Ecosystem
Envato Integrations
Envato works mainly through files you download and open in your own software. Its catalog is organized by the tools templates are made for.
- →Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
- →Final Cut Pro and Apple Motion
- →DaVinci Resolve
- →Figma, Sketch, Affinity and Canva
- →PowerPoint, Keynote and Microsoft Word
- →Blender and Spline (3D)
- →WordPress themes, plugins and Elementor template kits
- →YouTube (Claim Clear safelisting)
Envato documents compatible software for each template category; check an item's page for the exact application and version it was built for.
Common Questions
Envato FAQ
The Final Word
Should You Use Envato?
Envato suits creatives who use many kinds of assets: footage, music, templates, graphics and fonts under one subscription, with AI tools on top for those who want them. Core billed annually is the plan most people need; choose Plus or Ultimate only if you'll use the AI credits. Before subscribing, read how the per-project license works, note that music isn't licensed for broadcast below Enterprise, and plan for annual billing, since cancelled subscriptions aren't refunded. If you mainly need a browser design editor, look at Canva or Adobe Express; if you only need music, compare Epidemic Sound and Artlist. We score Envato 8.1/10, provisionally.
Yes, if
you regularly use stock video, music, templates and fonts across client or social projects and want them under one license
No, if
you need broadcast music rights without an Enterprise plan, or want a browser design editor rather than downloadable assets
About the reviewer
Carlos Gil
Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Carlos Gil is the Founder & Editor of The Best Network, bestselling author of The End of Marketing, and a LinkedIn Top Voice. His digital marketing career began in 2008 and spans corporate roles at LinkedIn and BMC Software, consulting for global brands, creator partnerships, and building his own businesses.
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