There are many royalty-free platforms that offer stock photos, footage, and music. But there are very few that are an excellent choice for getting all three at the same time—Envato is one of them.
Following a rebrand that gave it a much-needed cleaner look, Envato improved the value of its subscription by adding an array of AI tools at zero cost. Hence, I think it’s only a matter of time before the cost of the plans increases for the first time in years.
If you think unlimited access to 26 million royalty-free files and several AI tools (image, video, audio, and music gen) are what you need, then Envato is definitely worth paying for. And since the prices will likely increase soon, don’t wait too long. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
And now, here is my updated opinion of Envato.
Envato review summary:
- What’s new with Envato?
- Cost: The best value-to-price platform
- Licensing: A royalty-free license that covers everything you need
- Content library: The most diverse unlimited downloads collection
- User experience: Much better after the rebranding
- Integrations & extensions: Use Envato inside popular creative apps
- Envato Labs: A complete AI suite
- Customer support: Almost perfect, but misses a live chat
- Verdict: Envato provides excellent value for a low price
What’s new with Envato?
The AI boom has pushed many stock media platforms to innovate, and Envato is no exception. In the last year, Envato added a suite of AI tools, acquired them from Shutterstock, and released new extensions.
- In 2024, Envato was acquired by Shutterstock and went through a visual rebrand.
- The suite of AI tools called “AI labs” includes all the top AI generators, a photo editor, generative icons for Figma and Canva, and AI search.
- New plugins and add-ons for Premiere Pro, Adobe Express, Figma, Canva, and WordPress.
- In 2025, Envato expanded its AI Labs significantly: VideoGen now features Veo 3.1 and Seedance 1.5 Pro with audio, MusicGen gained lyrics support via ElevenLabs, VoiceGen expanded to 35+ voices, and three new tools launched—MockupGen, SoundGen, and GraphicsGen. In December 2025, project assignment became optional, simplifying the licensing workflow.
I’ve been covering Envato for Photutorial for 5 years. Here are all the latest Envato articles I’ve written.
Cost: The best value-to-price platform
Envato offers a single subscription plan at $16.50 per month with an annual commitment, paid upfront at $198 per year. Paying month-to-month increases the price to $39 per month.
Photutorial readers can get a 10% discount on their first payment, bringing the annual rate to $14.85 per month. Students who qualify pay about $10 per month.
I’ve used and tested many Envato alternatives. Some of the most similar options include Motion Array at $24.99 per month, Artlist at $39.99 per month, Vecteezy at $9 per month, and Freepik at $24.50 per month. These prices reflect the everything plans that the most closely match Envato’s Individual plan.
By subscribing to Envato, you get unlimited access to over 26 million assets with no daily download limits. Subscription includes also all AI tools (video, image, and audio gen), and extensions that allow you to browse Envato within many creative apps.
For teams of up to five, the Teams plan is cheaper than buying an Individual plan for each member. The annual term costs $29 for two members and $54 for five. Month-to-month plans cost twice as much. This plan also has an admin dashboard that offers an overview of all downloads. Larger teams should get in touch with sales.
Licensing: A royalty-free license that covers everything you need
When you download assets from Envato, you get a royalty-free commercial license that protects your projects forever, even after ending your subscription. Once your subscription ends, though, you can’t use those assets in new projects.
Envato used to work on a project-based system where you needed to connect each download to a specific project. As of December 2025, project assignment is now optional—licensing happens automatically when you download, so you’re covered without the extra admin. When you do need that extra layer of organization, the option is still there, but it’s no longer a blocker.
For example, if you use a music track in one video, you register it for that video. If you want to use that same track in another video later, you’ll need to register it again for the new project. This helps Envato track usage and pay creators fairly.
Envato’s legal protection is limited to the value of your last six subscription payments. This is better than many competitors who offer no protection at all. For large commercial projects, sites like Shutterstock and Adobe Stock offer higher coverage ranging from $10,000 to $250,000.
You may
With Envato’s royalty-free license, you can use assets for websites, blogs, social posts, online ads, marketing materials, and presentations.
Envato doesn’t restrict the number of views or impressions your projects can receive. Other services like Shutterstock and iStock require an expensive extended license if your video gets more than 500,000 views. Envato doesn’t have this limit.
You may not
You can’t use Envato assets for logos, merchandise, broadcasting, theatrical films, or reselling as standalone files. You also can’t claim them as your own work.
Assets can’t be used in “on-demand” services where customers customize products with the asset, or for items where the asset is the main selling point (like T-shirts or calendars).
Some music tracks are registered with Performing Rights Organizations (P.R.O.s). If you use these tracks in public performances, you might need to pay extra fees directly to the P.R.O.
Fonts and Add-ons follow different rules. You can install them on up to two devices per subscription seat, and use them in unlimited projects while your subscription is active. If your subscription ends, you must remove them.
Content library: The most diverse unlimited downloads collection
Envato has the most diverse library I’ve seen among unlimited subscription platforms. Vecteezy and Freepik have larger collections, but they focus mainly on photos and vectors. Envato provides a broader mix that includes videos, audio, and 3D assets all in one place.
The library holds over 26 million files as of my last check (I verify the count monthly). This includes 12.1 million images and 7.5 million videos, along with hundreds of thousands of music tracks, sound effects, templates, fonts, add-ons, and 3D models.
Having all asset types in one location simplifies working on mixed-media projects. After getting Envato, I dropped several other subscriptions I didn’t need anymore. For specific items not found in their library (like certain music styles), I buy individual assets from other sites.
One limitation I’ve run into is the lack of 8K videos—Envato’s maximum resolution is 4K. If you need higher resolution footage, you can use other video subscriptions like Artlist or Motion Array.
The library grows by about a million files each month. This quick growth means less strict curation. I often spend extra time filtering search results to find the right files. (The new AI search helps with this—it found me a perfect tech background in half the time.)
The collection grows by about a million files each month. This rapid expansion results in less rigorous curation, which you may need to spend extra time sorting through search results to find suitable files. But the new AI search helps with this.
Don’t expect the quality you’d get from Shutterstock or Getty Images. To be fair, even Artlist and Motion Array have higher curation standards at the expense of smaller selections. So I see Envato as a platform that focuses on quantity and affordability rather than premium content. Compared to Freepik or Vecteezy (similar price range), the quality is about the same or slightly better in some categories.
Envato fonts used to be very popular. Now with great free options from Google Fonts and Adobe Typekit, you don’t need Envato’s fonts for basic design work. I still use their collection for unique display fonts when creating special event graphics or logos.
User experience: Much better after the rebranding
After a 2024 redesign, the Envato website now has a clean, modern look. The basic layout is familiar if you’ve tried other stock media sites before. There’s a search bar at the top, filters running down the left, and thumbnail previews filling most of the main area.
While the main search rarely shows unrelated items, the platform offers several tools to narrow things down.
The new AI Search, now renamed to AI Assistant, lets you describe your project and the asset needed in conversational text. I use this approach when I lack the inspiration or idea of what kinds of media would best fit my project.
For instance, I’d type in, “I’m cutting together a fashion reel for Instagram. It’s fast-paced, trendy, and needs bold, animated text overlays that pop with each beat.” In my experience, this returns more relevant results than the standard search and shows just eight results, which helps with choice paralysis.
To use AI Search, you need at least a free Envato account, but downloading assets still requires a paid subscription.
While I like using AI Search, if I needed a video matching exact technical details like a specific resolution or frame rate, I would use the standard search filters. AI Search doesn’t always get these parameters right from a text description.
Similarly, searching for music has an extra tool called “Search with ‘Sounds Like.’” You can paste in a YouTube or Spotify link, and Envato will try to find similar tracks from the library. Sometimes this pulls up a batch of tracks with a similar vibe or instrumentation, which is useful if you want to match an audio mood you already know.
Filtering works differently depending on the type of asset. For example, when searching for videos, you’ll see filters for orientation, resolution, frame rate, length, loops, and alpha channel. For fonts, you get style choices like serif, sans serif, script, or decorative, as well as spacing options such as normal or condensed.
Music filters cover choices like mood, genre, theme, tempo, instruments, vocals, time period, and properties such as looping or P.R.O. status. (If you’ve ever tried finding the right background music for a video project, being able to filter for “uplifting, acoustic, no vocals, under one minute” saves time.)
These filters work well for trimming huge search results down to something you can actually scan. For example, it’s easy to go from thousands of assets to just a couple of dozen that fit your project.
Browsing is quick. When you hover over a thumbnail, you get shortcut buttons for “Show similar,” “Add to collection,” or “Download.”
Clicking on a thumbnail opens a detail page with info like file format, compatible software, a description from the author, and other details that match the filters.
Scrolling down, you can find assets from the same series or photoshoot and similar assets. For videos, Envato’s also testing Recommend Music, which recommends audio tracks related to video. For instance, for the video titled “Woman and Colleague Monitoring AI Company Systems Using Computer”, I got recommendations for music tracks named “Artificial Intelligence” and “Corporate AI Technology.”
Integrations & extensions: Use Envato inside popular creative apps
The ability to browse a content library within a third-party tool or application improves your workflow by eliminating the need to switch between workspaces.
Envato keeps adding new integrations all the time. Currently, there are plugins for Premiere Pro, After Effects, Canva, WordPress, Figma, and the newly added Adobe Express. These workspaces are all extremely popular among Envato creators.
The Premiere Pro and After Effects integration is available via a plugin that you can download through Adobe Exchange. It lets you browse all Envato assets without leaving, including using their new AI-assisted search. While the plugin works well, it’s not as convenient as Adobe Stock’s native integration and sometimes stops working for a few days when Adobe releases new versions.
Other integrations have a similar purpose—browsing Envato without opening a browser window. Canva’s and Figma’s plugins also allow you to generate custom AI icons.
Envato Labs: A complete AI suite
Like almost every other stock media platform nowadays, Envato also released its own AI tools as a part of what they call Envato Labs, previously called AI Labs.
Envato started out simple with AI Search, which helped you find assets in a more natural, conversational way. Soon after, they added an AI image generator, and now, in 2025, new tools are added monthly.
Currently, Envato Labs consists of nine AI tools and features, all of which are included with every subscription plan. Note: As of February 2026, AI generations will be limited to 10 per month, but unlimited generations are available until then.
ImageGen
Envato launched ImageGen in March 2024. Unlike AI Search, ImageGen only works with an active subscription, but you get 5 credits when you create a free account to test it.
You will find the interface immediately intuitive if you’ve ever used a text-to-image generator before. There’s a place for your prompt, buttons to choose image orientation, and a Generate button.
There’s also an option called Enhance prompt. This uses an LLM (large language model) to make your prompt descriptive if needed. It’s good for inspiration and ideas, but not if you already have a specific image in mind. I found a similar feature with Freepik’s AI tools.
Upon clicking Generate, the tool spits out eight images combined from various popular text-to-image models. Currently, the models include DALL·E 3, Stable Diffusion, ImageFX, and Flux, to the best of my knowledge.
By hovering over an image preview, you will see several options. You can download it, like or dislike, edit with ImageEdit, report, or generate new images in a similar style.
While good for inspiration, I miss the advanced features I saw with Freepik AI Suite, such as controlling the seed number, selecting the model, and applying various presets.
ImageEdit
Envato includes an AI photo editing tool called ImageEdit with its subscription. As a subscriber, you can use it without extra charges to make quick edits to images.
You can access ImageEdit in a few ways. If you find a photo in the Envato library you want to modify, click the Edit button directly on the photo’s page. Alternatively, if you create an image using Envato’s AI ImageGen tool, you can select Edit by hovering over the preview.
You can also go directly to the ImageEdit tool through the AI Labs menu or by uploading your own image using the “+ Upload Image” button within the tool.
ImageEdit combines several AI-assisted functions you can use to modify or enhance Envato’s images or your own AI creations.
- Remove background: Takes out the background of an image. Works best when the subject is clearly distinct from the background.
- Upscale: Increases the image resolution, useful for printing or large displays.
- Expand: Lets you change the canvas size and uses AI to fill in the added space based on the existing image.
- Replace: Allows you to select an area or object and have AI generate something new in its place.
- Erase: Removes unwanted elements from a photo. Careful selection with the brush tool helps achieve clean results.
- Generate similar: Creates variations based on the current image.
- Crop: Standard tool for trimming images or adjusting dimensions.
Some quality of life features include keyboard shortcuts for common actions like undo/redo, zooming, panning, and adjusting brush sizes.
One thing that I feel like is missing from such an image editor is the option to save your work. No, ImageEdit does not automatically save your work. You need to download the edited image to keep your changes.
VideoGen
Envato released its own AI video generation tool called VideoGen. This tool now uses multiple state-of-the-art models including Veo 3.1, Seedance 1.5 Pro (with audio), Luma Ray 3, and Kling, with presets for 14 different camera movements and the ability to extend clips.
VideoGen offers two ways to create videos. The first is Text-to-Video. You access this through a specific Envato Labs page (labs.envato.com/video-gen). Here, you type a description of the scene you want, like “a robot painting a masterpiece.” After you submit the prompt, the tool generates a 5-second video clip. You can choose between a 16:9 (widescreen) or 9:16 (vertical) aspect ratio for the output.
The second method is Image-to-Video. This starts with an existing image, either from the Envato photo library or one you created using Envato’s ImageGen tool. On the image, you select “Edit with AI,” which opens an editing window.
From there, you click “Generate Video.” VideoGen then animates the static image, creating a 5-second clip with motion effects like panning, tilting, zooming, or more complex animations. This method does not require a text prompt. Like Text-to-Video, you can select a 16:9 or 9:16 aspect ratio.
VoiceGen
Envato added VoiceGen to its Envato Labs suite in 2025. This text-to-speech tool creates voiceovers within the platform itself, eliminating the need for external services. It’s similar to voiceovers I tested at Motion Array, Artlist, and Epidemic Sound.
The layout is clean and easy to use. You’ll see a text box for your script (limited to 400 characters per generation), a panel to pick voices, and sliders to adjust how your voiceover sounds.
VoiceGen offers 12 different voice characters. For example, Maya speaks clearly and precisely, Logan talks with energy and quickness, and Amara has a warm, confident tone. Each voice comes with a short description to help you pick the right fit for your project.
After choosing a voice, you can tweak your voiceover by changing:
- Speed (slower for step-by-step instructions, faster for ads)
- Tone (to match whether your content is serious, upbeat, or somewhere in between)
I tested a short product description with the Maya voice set to medium speed. After clicking “Generate,” VoiceGen created the audio in about 10 seconds, ready to download as an MP3.
The 400-character limit can be a bit short for longer scripts. To work around this, I broke my 2-minute narration into six smaller chunks and processed them separately. While not ideal, this method works well enough for most short-to-medium projects.
You can create as many voiceovers as you need with your subscription. This helps when you’re testing different voices or making revisions to find the right sound for your project.
MusicGen
Envato introduced MusicGen in early 2025 as part of its AI Labs suite. It’s an AI music generator that turns text prompts into short music clips. It gives you the ability to create custom soundtracks from scratch, no music skills needed.
The interface is minimal and beginner-friendly. You type a description (e.g., “dreamy ambient synth for background video”), pick a few presets like mood, genre, or tempo, and click Generate.
MusicGen then creates a short audio snippet between 10 and 15 seconds long and displays it as a waveform. You can play it back or download the file as a high-quality WAV file. I miss model selection or advanced parameters, but that’s in line with Envato’s ease-of-use focus.
The clips are instrumental only (meaning no vocals) and meant to be used in videos, podcasts, reels, or social content. You can think of it like an AI-powered version of AudioJungle, but for micro-clips made on demand.
Customer support: Almost perfect, but misses a live chat
Customer support is notoriously poor among stock media platforms, especially when it comes to more difficult questions.
Envato’s gotten much better over the years, and I give it a solid 4 out of 5 right now. They only lose one point for not having a real, live customer support.
For your general questions, Envato has an excellent Help Center page that is divided into different sections. These short answers will help you answer most of your questions, such as licensing, subscription, account settings, and terms.
If you have a question that Help Center and this Envato review don’t answer, you can submit a ticket. Click the black cloud icon in the bottom right corner, and start a new conversation with Envato’s assistant (it’s AI). It’s trained on all of Envato’s data, so it has a good chance of resolving your issue.
If it doesn’t, like in my case, it will instantly offer to create a ticket for you. I was relieved. (At Adobe, you sometimes have to battle the assistant for several minutes to get it to give up and connect you with an agent.) I got the answer to my question through email an hour later. And it was spot-on.
Verdict: Envato provides excellent value for a low price
Envato does a lot for a relatively small monthly fee: you get unlimited downloads from a library of over 26 million files, you can use the assets for commercial and even client projects, you get plugins for software like Premiere Pro, Canva, and Figma, and as of late, you get AI image, video, and audio generators.
This puts Envato aside from some of the industry giants like Freepik and Artlist. Both of them also offer similar AI tools and unlimited downloads from their libraries. Compared to Envato, Artlist is better for video editors with a more curated and up to 8K footage collection, while Freepik is becoming a behemoth in AI tools.
If you want, you can test Envato 57% off for a price that works out to just half a dollar a day.
Related reading:
- How to get Envato free: the only 2 options
- Envato pricing, explained
- Envato discounts
- The 5 cheapest stock video sites in 2025
This article was originally published in January 2023. The most recent update was in January 2026.
Note: “Envato Elements” is now called just “Envato”. This review has been renamed to “Envato review” and moved from “/envato-elements-review/” to “/envato-review/”.
