Envato Elements Review – Bloggers and Designers Heaven

I use Envato Elements almost daily, there are so many parts of the service that I find useful that it has become one of my most useful resources.  I have started umpteen blogs, websites, ecommerce stores and social profiles, I need a resource for graphics, icons, photos and much more.  Read on to find out why I recommend Envato Elements so highly.

UPDATE: 06/2018 – Envato Elements now offers free stock videos and motion graphics.  60,000 free stock video and motion graphics are now included.
UPDATE: 10/2018 – Envato Elements have released a new plugin for WordPress for importing Templates.
UPDATE: 11/2018 – Exciting news – Envato Elements will soon be offering stock audio.  Update coming soon!
Update: 02/2019 – Finally, Collections is here!! Thousands of new assets and Envato Elements WordPress plugin update
Update: 10/2019 – Welcome Twenty20 – 50 MILLION more photos!
Update: 06/2021 – Re-subscribed to EnvatoElements – review to be updated!

I have updated some of the figures representing the October 2019 total assets.

What is Envato Elements?

Envato Elements is a fairly new, all-encompassing service from the people behind the popular marketplaces GraphicRiver, ThemeForest, CodeCanyon, PhotoDune and several others.  Envato Elements brings together some of the popular resources into a single subscription package.  If you regularly write blog posts, create websites run ecommerce stores, Envato Elements will prove to be an invaluable resource for popular, high-quality icons, graphics, photos, logos, templates and much more.

The resources or digital assets, as Envato call them, are updated all the time, they feature the total weekly additions on the front page.  Several thousand digital assets are added weekly, the categories allow easy sorting to find new and fresh assets.

[affiliate_video_pro id=”vi15cd551f85e123″]

What are the features of Envato Elements?

Envato Elements has several categories of resources available for UNLIMITED download at any time during your subscription.  What do you get for your money?  Quite a lot actually.

The categories of assets are:

• WordPress
• Photos
• Graphics
• Add-ons
• Fonts
• Graphic Templates
• Presentation Templates
• Web Templates
• CMS Templates
• 3D
• Ebooks & Courses
• Stock Video (added 06/2018)
• Motion Graphics (added 06/2018)
• WordPress Template Kits import (added 10/2018)
• Audio Files – Music and Sound Effects (added 11/2018)
• WordPress Plugin (added 02/2019)
• Twenty20 Photos 50million+

I don’t use all of these digital assets but this is quite a valuable resource for bloggers and designers.  They recently added WordPress plugins and themes to the monthly and annual subscription packages.  When I joined at the inception of Envato Elements, there was no hint that WordPress plugins and themes would be available, they later offered this to existing users who signed up for an annual plan, it is now on both plans.

WordPress

The WordPress category is fairly young and is growing gradually.  They have two sub-categories, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes.  At the time of writing, there are 619 1,044 WordPress themes and 334 475 WordPress plugins.  The themes are high-quality ready-made themes available in a variety of styles aimed at all sorts of markets.  These are great to deploy your site quickly and get a professional look without too much effort.  There is a live preview feature so that you can see what the theme looks like in action.

The WordPress plugins sub-category has a wide range of plugins available to download for free.  There are Woocommerce plugins which would cost from $20-50 that I would have bought as I needed to solve a problem but luckily there was a plugin to solve my problem.  You get loads of forms, social media, Woocommerce, gallery, video players and much more.  There is a filter option to shortlist plugins that are Woocommerce compatible for example or Visual Composer compatible and so on.

Documentation and updates are provided but there is no direct support from the plugin author as this is provided as part of the Envato Elements subscription, not a separate premium plugin.  Most plugins and themes are straightforward but a quick Google search will solve most issues.

Photos

This is one of the main resources I use in Envato Elements, I have over 900,000 free quality photos to choose from and in high resolution.  This is perfect for bloggers or website designers, you get quality shots to use within your content and you don’t have to waste time scavenging Google images for re-usable images. 

The photos are split into categories such as beautiful landscapes, fashion, stay active, summertime and many more.  I usually just search for an image and use the related tags if I need to. 

There are filters for colours, orientation, blurred and so on, this is useful to drill down to the image you need for a particular post.

Twenty20 Photos Added

As of October 2019, Envato have added Twenty20 to the Envato family giving access to an ADDITIONAL 50 MILLION high-quality stock photos – for the same subscription!

I was satisfied before as I always had enough photos for my blogs but now I am spoilt for choice. The quality and variety are truly outstanding, I have found quality photos on every topic.

Graphics

If you are design challenged as I am, this is a useful resource full of amazing digital assets that are professionally finished and ready to use or edit to suit your project. 

There are flat icons and images that you can use on infographics or for presentations, leaflets, posters, social media packs and so much more.  There are full vector sets that you can use to tell a story and use different props and characters because the vectors are in a set, the design flow is perfect and in sync with what you are trying to present.

Some of the new highlights of Twenty20 are the curated collections. These are collections of high-quality images all-around a topic such as Amazing Animals, At The Cafe and so on.

There are plenty of collections for almost any niche blog or article – there is a whole collection on Millennial Life – just 3,500 photos!

Add-ons

Add-ons are a load of brushes, layer styles and actions to enhance your graphics production.  They are supported in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Lightroom and can easily be imported for use in your own projects. 

These add-ons can really enhance your graphics and provide an extra edge and make your graphics stand out from the mundane.  You have retro tools, wave effect, blur effects, winter actions, watercolour looks, light leaks, sketch, the list goes on and on. Currently 1,824 addons.

Fonts

Why not jazz up your presentation with a few special font styles?  I have used some of these fonts for logos, infographics, in presentations.  Some of the fonts are quite special and can easily upgrade a presentation or infographic by integrating with the content.  At the time of writing, there are over 3,300 5,928 fonts available to download for free.  If you go through the pages of fonts, you get an idea on what can work for you as they are displayed in a graphical format with some sample content really giving you a feel on how or where to use the font.

Graphic Templates

This is another section that I use quite a lot, the two main sub-categories I use are logos and infographics.  I struggle with logo design and sometimes I just want the outline so that I can tweak the logo and use it on a site. 

I have created a number of different sites, in the double figures but less than 100 sites and a WordPress site without a logo looks a bit dry. 

The logos provided are fully editable and customisable even for a graphically challenged person like myself.  There are currently over 7,121 logos available on Envato Elements.

If you create presentations, you know that you need some graphical elements to keep the audience interested, the infographics sub-category has almost 400 1,652 styles of infographics that you can use to create great looking infographics with your own content.  It is great for social media such as Pinterest or Facebook.

Presentation Templates

The presentation templates available are split into templates compatible with Keynote (Apple) and PowerPoint (Microsoft), there are massively more for Keynote at 2,929+ whilst only 4,097+ for PowerPoint. There are currently 7,454 templates for Keynote and 10,801 for PowerPoint – quite a drastic and welcome increase. And there is now a new section for Google Slides with more than 2,150 6,355 templates.

The presentation templates are very professionally designed and use great graphics and colour schemes to make them eye-catching.  They contain everything you need including the title page, table of contents, loads of inner slides with graphics and images to use, then the ending slides – all in the same theme and using consistent colours and graphics.  As a PowerPoint user, I am glad to see that the slides are available in both PPT and PPTX formats.

Web Templates

If WordPress or any CMS is a little much for a simple site, Envato Elements has over 2,166 site templates ready out of the box.  There are landing page templates, site templates, email templates and admin templates. 

I have used the one-page site templates of a few simple sites that just needed a bit of company information and did not need WordPress.  The templates are great, responsive and have all of the files and graphics required to create a great looking site. The templates are responsive for mobile browsing and also available as Retina Ready for high image quality.

CMS Templates

The CMS templates available cover a broad range of CMS and ecommerce platforms.  From Drupal to Joma CMS to OpenCart, PrestaShop, Shopify and Magento ecommerce stores.  At the time of writing, there are 780+ templates available, all professionally done and all ready to download and import into your CMS or ecommerce platform. 

I am in the process of building a Magento 2 ecommerce store and I will definitely be using one of the templates available to get my store looking great with just a few clicks.

3D

The 3D digital assets look amazing and will definitely add value to any graphics project.  You select your image, then you can rotate the image to an angle that you need and download that angle as a PNG or PSD file. 

There are over 19,200 24,483 3D models to choose from, including a treasure chest, rubber duck, clownfish (Nemo), retro gear, plants and so much more.  They look absolutely fantastic and add value to any presentation or graphical work.  I love the rotate tool as you can pinpoint any angle and just download that angle.

Ebooks & Courses

If you want to learn how to edit logos or shoot better videos, you can learn via the envatotuts+ courses and ebooks.  There are over 1,260 video courses and 170+ ebooks – that is a massive amount of content available at your fingertips for the same subscription.

I have used some of the Premiere Pro courses to help me a few features, the courses are aimed at beginners to advanced users.  You get straightforward how-to tutorials to teach you about particular applications, full courses taking you through every step of a particular task such as building websites, and hundreds of ebooks for download or online reading.  You get thousands of dollars worth of material in your subscription, incredible value.

Stock Videos

Envato Elements have added stock video and motion graphics as of June 2018.  At the time of writing, there are approximately 132,000 467,802 stock video assets available to download for free immediately within the Envato Elements subscription.

The stock video assets are split into categories for easy browsing, the most populated categories are buildings, business, food, lifestyle, nature and people.  These have 800+ assets to browse and download, you are sure to find the best video for your application.

The video assets can also be split into specific frame rate options, the most common is 25fps followed by 29.97fps, 30fps and 24fps.  There is also a handy slider to find the length of video you need.

Motion Graphics

At the time of writing, there are 22,300+ 50,952+ motion graphics available to download, the most populated graphics are backgrounds and elements.  As with the stock video, the list can be filtered by frame rate, length but also resolution.  There are 5000+ 4k(UHD) motion graphics available.

Envato Elements Template Kits Plugin for WordPress

This is a fantastic new addition to Envato Elements if you use WordPress and either Elementor or Beaver Builder.  The plugin is still in beta and has been so since July 2018 but has had several updates.  The current position is quite impressive and as a keen Elementor user, very useful for creating new unique websites.

The plugin is split into two categories:

• Elementor
• Beaver Builder

Elementor Template Kits

Elementor is absolutely massive and growing daily, if you want to read more about Elementor, read my Elementor review here.  At the time of writing, there are 350+ full site templates and 400+ Elementor blocks ready to import.  Some of the templates require Elementor Pro which requires a licence but offers fantastic value.

The Elementor templates are divided into clear categories:

• Education & Non-Profit
• Creative & Design
• Corporate & Business
• Health & Medical
• Events & Music
• Food & Drink
• Sport & Fitness
• Travel & Accommodation
• Miscellaneous
• Beauty
• Beauty & Medical
• Trade Services & Construction

How to import Envato Elements Elementor Template kits?

The process of importing page templates into your WordPress blog is very straightforward.  The page templates are scrollable at the bottom of the page, simply select the desired template, enter the page name and click create new page.  The assets and template will be imported immediately and be ready to edit.  If you want to impor the template to the Elementor My Templates list, simply click the import template button.

I created a quick video showing the imported template and showing how easy it is to edit with Elementor.  The assets are all included but they can be switched out with your own content very easily.  Everything can be customised to suit your own style and content, that is the advantage of starting with a pre-built template, the time saved can be used creating content or on other tasks.

Elementor Template Blocks

Elementor introduced blocks a short while ago, most likely in anticipation of WordPress 5 Gutenberg’s release.  The beauty of blocks is that just a small section can be added anywhere rather than a complete page.  The Elementor blocks are free but most are now pro which requires Elementor Pro as there are more advanced design features available.  These are spread amongst several categories:

The process is to import is straightforward, simply click on Import Template and the template will be imported to Elementor My Templates for use wherever you choose.  If you want to edit straight away, simply click on Edit Template and you will be taken straight to Elementor to edit the block.

Blocks can be used anywhere on a page and in multiple places, this saves time and produces a consistent brand across the entire site.

Audio

Envato Elements have upped their subscription offering further but now offering audio assets along with all of the other fantastic asset download options.

This is not a game changer for me as I always intended to renew, at the time of writing I had just renewed 🙂  If you are looking for the all in one package, Envato Elements is it – no doubt!

Royalty Free Audio Tracks

Currently, the total number of royalty free music tracks is 11,600 15,599+ tracks.  That covers a range of audio from music, backing tracks, vocal audio tracks, fast tempo and so on.

I am no audiophile but the tracks sound great and the range for a new launch is impressive.  My audio preferences are slow/medium tempo background audio for YouTube videos, as these are royalty-free they are perfect for YouTube projects and monetised videos.

There are several filter options to narrow down your choice of audio.  The length filter narrows down in 1 minute increments. You can choose looped audio but if I wanted to use the same backing track, I just re-add the same audio.

There is a filter for something I have not heard of before P.R.O.  This is a filter for Performing Rights Organizations music.  This means that music in this category may require a licence to use in public broadcasts. 

According to the licence terms for PRO audio from Envato, YouTube has a blanket agreement with PRO music so you should be fine.  If there is an issue you can appeal and provide the Envato Elements audio details.

Envato recommends uploading YouTube videos unlisted at first in order to allow the system to content match the audio and if there is an issue you can appeal straight away before making the video live.

I had one issue with an AudioBlocks backing track being caught by YouTube, I filed a simple appeal with the licence text and link to the file and the video was released.

Royalty Free Sound Effects

The audio doesn’t end at music, there are 78,400 99,094+ royalty free sound effects available right now.  They are categorised to make it easier to pinpoint the sound you want:

• Game Sounds
• Transitions & movements
• Domestic sounds (phones, clocks)
• Human sounds
• Urban sounds
• Nature sounds
• Futuristic sounds
• Interface sounds (devices, errors)
• Cartoon sounds
• Industrial sounds
• Sound packs (bundles of similar application sounds)
• Miscellaneous
• Sounds

The last two categories seem redundant as they could have been merged into Miscellaneous but that is just my opinion.

There is a handy filter to search for audio by length in 5 seconds increments.  You can also select looped sound files only.

WordPress Plugin

The Envato Elements WordPress plugin (Envato Elements Template Kits) was added late 2018 but has this month been updated to include a teaser for direct access to 600,000+ premium stock photos for early 2019! This is something I am very much looking forward to as I spend a lot of time looking for great photos for my other blogs, then I have to resize them and upload them. I am expecting that the plugin will allow for resized photo download directly to the media library.

Envato Elements Collections

This might not be a massive upgrade for some users but if you use Envato Elements daily as do, you will understand that there are so many amazing digital assets and as you browse, you spot items that might be suitable for a particular blog post or project. Finally Envato have listened and added a collections (or favourites) facility to help track and sort noteworthy items into a neat and organised fashion.

This has been a feature I have used on the main Envato sites for adding items to projects. I add the site name and asset type i.e “Travel Blog Photos” and “Travel Blog Stock Footage” to keep the list smaller and more manageable

How much does Envato Elements cost?

Envato Elements is available at $29 per month $33 per month (before local tax) or the better value package, and the package I have is the annual plan which works out at just $16.50 per month (before local tax) $198 annually (before local tax). 

This covers everything mentioned earlier, from the WordPress plugins, graphics templates, logos, high-quality photos, ebooks and much much more.  The library of digital assets is evergrowing, offering greater value every month and giving you more bang for your buck!

Envato have changed their prices a little, the monthly package is now $33 per month rather than $29 which highlights the 50% saving on the annual plan. which is no doubt the best option.

My opinion of Envato Elements

I love Envato Elements, I feel very satisfied paying an annual subscription to get access to digital assets that I can use on any number of my own sites.  I know my limits and I am not blessed with great graphical ability. 

Having a resource like Envato Elements available with such a vast array of digital assets ready to use is greatly helpful in my blogging process.  I used to trawl through Google images and struggle to find reusable photos that were high quality and fitted the content, there are so many available within Envato Elements that I am never stuck.  I rely on the graphical templates for logos and infographics so often, Envato Elements is my go-to resource for anything requiring graphics.

There is not much that I don’t like about Envato Elements but there is one minor issue I have.  I use Code Canyon and the other Envato group sites, I like the favourites and collections options to add any digital assets to a custom folder to view later on. 

Unfortunately, Envato Elements have not implemented this.  I have requested this a couple of times but so far, there is no sign of it happening.  As a workaround, I create a bookmark folder with my browser and add the item page to my favourites for later viewing.

As of 02/2019 the collections feature has been added to Envato Elements – happy days! This was quite annoying and it became tedious having to have bookmarks in my browser for assets I wanted to use.

The new additions of stock video and audio just adds to the value and the price has remained the same which is great to see.  Envato Elements is my go-to resource for creative assets and I don’t see that changing anytime soon!