Tech

Creative Market Review

In partnership with Creative Market

About Creative Market

Creative Market Review

It’s tough enough to work in the creative industry. People frequently undervalue your hard work, or they don’t understand it, or they simply believe the words “creative” and “work” don’t belong together. It’s even tougher to set yourself apart from the millions looking to distinguish themselves from other creatives on the internet, something I’ve dealt with as a writer. These days, if you want to succeed, you have to be just as good at marketing yourself as you are at your craft. 

Thankfully, there are marketplaces where you can find the assets to fill the gaps in your creativity. I’m specifically talking about Creative Market, one of the largest marketplaces for design products. There, you can find the following assets in spades:

  1. Fonts
  2. Graphics
  3. Templates
  4. Photos
  5. Textures
  6. Patterns
  7. Icons
  8. Illustrations
  9. Backgrounds
Creative Market Review

Best of all, they’re not generated by artificial intelligence; they come from creators across the globe. You can implement them into your website, social media profile, portfolio, or other projects as easily as I can open a jar of pickles. These designs come from over 20 thousand creative professionals from around the world, meaning there’s an overflowing amount of diversity on Creative Market

Alternatively, you can open your own shop on Creative Market to help others with your artwork. Setting up a digital storefront is simple and takes away many of the woes associated with creating your own website and managing licensing your assets. Creative Market takes care of it all for shops. 

Buyers and sellers alike follow Creative Market online, giving the brand an impressive social media footprint. They boast more than 198k Instagram followers and 340k likes on Facebook. However, that’s likely not enough to convince you to start using the service, which is why you should keep reading my Creative Market review. You’ll learn about the following:

  • How the service works
  • What it’s like from a shop owner’s perspective
  • What’s available on the platform
  • How much memberships cost
  • What customers think about the service

Before I get into all that, I need to share some Creative Market’s highlights. 

Highlights

  • Millions of designs from creators across the world
  • Free weekly assets 
  • Membership subscriptions available with sitewide discounts and monthly free assets
  • Membership isn’t required to purchase assets
  • Robust license purchasing options
  • Can cancel plans whenever

Why You Should Trust Us

Our mission is to help you make better, more informed purchase decisions. 

Our team spends hours researching, consulting with medical experts, gathering insight from expert professionals, reviewing customer feedback, and analyzing products to provide you with the information you need.

One quick glance across Creative Market’s banner and you’ll see plenty of assets to choose from. Illustrations, graphics, fonts, photographs, icons, themes, and mockups are all available. 

Creative Market Review

Creative Market Review

I’ll be going quite in-depth in this Creative Market review since there’s plenty to cover. The process of buying assets is relatively straightforward, but their licensing and payment schemes require some explaining. However, here’s the basic model. You find a design you like, you purchase the licenses, and you use it within the parameters. It’s as easy as one-two-three. 

However, there’s much more to talk about, so let’s keep this Creative Market review moving. 

How Does Creative Market Work?

Creative Market Review

This section of my Creative Market review will examine how the service works from the buyer’s perspective. Would-be vendors will get information in a later segment, but for now, let’s focus on what it’s like if you’re looking to pick up some assets. 

As a consumer, you’ll purchase the license of a piece. Most pieces come with four licenses; personal, commercial, extended commercial, and enterprise + broadcast. Every license costs a different amount. For example, here’s how the prices break down for Triangles Vol. 1 by kloroform.

  • Personal: $22
  • Commercial: $60
  • Extended Commerical: $120
  • Enterprise, broadcast, and more: Must Contact Creative Market

As you can likely guess, each license dictates what you can and can’t use an asset for. Personal licenses can only be used for non-commercial projects or personal social media accounts. Commercial licenses can be used in as many as 5,000 for-sale products, on one business social media account, and streamed for up to 500,000 total lifetime viewers. Extended commercial licenses can be used for as many as 250,000 end commercial products, unlimited business accounts, and one app that can be downloaded up to 250,000 times. 

You can either pay for every asset, or you can sign up for a Creative Market Membership. Memberships grant you a 20% discount on all purchases and net you up to $1,000 monthly on free design assets. You’ll receive a set amount of credits each month you can put towards downloading new assets. 

Plus, the amount you pay monthly on your membership equals how much you can download without paying extra. For example, if you pay $25 for the basic plan, then you can download $25 worth of designs each month without paying extra. 

I’ll cover the costs of membership plans later in this Creative Market review. 

What’s Available on Creative Market?

Creative Market Review

Although earlier in this Creative Market review I briefly summarized what’s available through the service, I drastically undersold how much is there. I don’t think you can blame me, considering that more than 20 thousand artists have submitted their work to Creative Market, so trying to cover everything in a single sentence is like threading an ocean through a needle. 

First off, there are graphics, which include everything from textures to objects to patterns to backgrounds. They can be applied to digital and physical projects. Then there are over 73,000 fonts you can choose from, running the gamut of whimsical all the way to cover letter professionalism. Creative Market’s illustrations and photography archive is quite deep as well, showcasing the works of creators from all walks of life. 

The category I believe most people reading this Creative Market review will enjoy the most is templates/themes as many of the assets there are perfect for digital marketing. There are landing pages, wireframes, UI kits, software-based templates, social media layouts, and much more. You’ll also find treasure troves of logos and badges in this reservoir, meaning you can find a complete package for your e-commerce brand. 

If all of that sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. Creative Market sorts through their selections to find what’s trending. Plus, their staff selects new pieces each month to showcase under their “Staff Picks” label. 

Lastly, there are four free design assets released every week. To redeem them, all you need to do is create a Creative Market profile. You don’t need to pay a cent for them. These free designs are high-quality assets. At the time of writing this Creative Market review, the four free downloads were:

  • Ingo Display Font by Up Up Creative
  • 10 Vintage Americana Logos by Steinberg Design Co. 
  • New Naturalism Social Media Post by The Good Store
  • HOKIME – Zen Font With a Retro Vibe by ME_COLLAGE

These free downloads showcase the talent on Creative Market and inspire new users to sign up. However, it’s totally okay to check what’s available each week and download as you see fit. 

Selling on Creative Market

Creative Market Review

Creative Market can boost vendors’ items to a global audience of millions of potential customers, removing many of the hurdles associated with marketing on other sites. Luckily, you’re not locked into an exclusive deal with Creative Market – you can still advertise and sell through your own site, Instagram, or even other websites. 

There are other benefits to selling through Creative Market. For instance, they don’t control your prices. You have total freedom with how you value your products and when you want to change the prices. Additionally, Creative Market allows you to launch assets at your discretion, meaning you don’t have to wait for them to approve your work. 

Furthermore, Creative Market supplies three key tools to ease the selling process:

  • To-the-minute stats on your purchases, sales, and products
  • Open communication channels with customers
  • Clear messaging with Creative Market Support

Creative Market splits sales with their shops 50/50 but shops get an opportunity to earn up to 80% on new products that they launch in the marketplace for a limited time.  

One shop owner on Creative Market said, “Quite simply, Creative Market completely changed my life. Not only did it propel my design work to a global audience, but it gave me complete freedom in both my working and my personal life. It allowed me to work purely on my own projects in my own time, and provided an ongoing revenue stream which allowed me to spend more time with my young family.

How Much Does The Creative Market Cost?

Creative Market Review

Creative Market offers four different membership plans to choose from: Growth, Freelancer, Pro, and Studio, with prices starting at $19.95/month. Memberships provide discounts of up to 20% on all purchases, as well as access to a monthly drop of free design assets worth up to $1000.

However, if you do not want to join any plan, you can purchase individual creative assets starting at just $1 each.

Who Is Creative Market For? 

Creative Market Review

Creative Market is for brands trying to develop their identity, freelance designers increase their creative output, and creatives who want unique assets for anything, really.

Creative Market Reviews: What Do Customers Think?

Creative Market Review

Let’s take a look at customer Creative Market review scores from multiple websites to see how they feel about the service. 

  • Facebook: 4.2/5 stars based on more than 1,000 pieces of customer feedback
  • G2: 4.2/5 stars based on more than 15 pieces of customer feedback
  • Trust Pilot: 4/5 stars based on more than 1,100 pieces of customer feedback

I should note that most of those high ratings come from people who used Creative Market to purchase design licenses. They loved the service’s price, selection, and speedy process, with one user on Trust Pilot saying, 

It’s always a joy shopping on Creative Market. The purchase process is easy with quick access to files after payment. The zip files are easy to download and there’s a lot to choose from on the site.

The vendors themselves were frequently praised in Creative Market reviews. Customers had great experiences with them, complimenting their professional manner, flexibility, and communication. This is all without praising the artwork which, obviously, was unanimously adored. Seriously, just look at what’s available on Creative Market’s front page and you’ll see what the hype is all about. 

But let’s look at a short review from a customer who had a positive experience with a vendor. “The quality of the cushion mockup templates, as well as the personalized service provided by the vendor, were both excellent. I would definitely buy from this vendor again.

Great graphics, great prices…love the artists on this site. I’ve never ever had a problem with any of my orders and the artists are always prompt at answering my questions and helping with orders. This is a great site!” said another Trust Pilot user. 

One high point in the eyes of customers was that they didn’t have to commit to full membership if they only wanted one asset. They could pick what they liked at their leisure. This flexibility was apparent in Creative Market’s cancellation plan too. 

Here’s how one customer described this freedom. “It has everything designers need. It’s also good because you can go by subscription or just pay for something you need. That way, if you just want on thing, you don’t have to buy the subscription, which most sites make you do.”

Overall, customers seem to love using Creative Market. Here is one last customer quote to finish up:

I design books and book covers so got creative market for the fonts and was very happy with the number of fonts I received and ease of downloading. But there is much more to explore. A designers paradise. I can’t wait.

Creative Market vs. Canva

Creative Market Review

Another popular designer-friendly website is Canva, so you may wonder how they stack up against one another. The thing is, isn’t so much of a competition as it is a comparison. Creative Market is, as their name suggests, a market for assets. You can buy or sell them. Meanwhile, Canva has properties you can buy, but they’re more renowned for their editing capabilities. 

You can edit assets inside Canva and even import them from Creative Market into your Canva projects. Creative Market doesn’t feature any editing software. You simply download the assets and use them per your licensing agreement. 

While there are plenty of templates to choose from on Canva, they pale in comparison to Creative Market’s. That’s why I said it’s not a competition between the services; they serve different purposes and can be used together rather than separately. 

Is Creative Market Legit?

Creative Market Review

Creative Market is a 100% legit marketplace for graphics, themes, photos, fonts and templates. It serves millions of people a month and is well loved in the industry.

Is Creative Market Worth It?

Creative Market Review

What distinguishes Creative Market is, simply put, the quality of the art. There are pages and pages of high-quality art from diverse artists. Fonts, themes, templates, and wireframes are available for those trying to develop websites and, for the most part, these assets all have their own identity. Overall, I would say Creative Market is definitely worth it.

Creative Market Promotions & Discounts 

Creative Market Review

The main Creative Market discount comes with a membership, as members earn up to 20% discounts on all downloads as well as access to up to $1000 in free assets every month.

How To Sign Up On Creative Market

Creative Market Review

You can sign up for a Creative Market account on their website, www.creativemarket.com.

FAQ

Creative Market Review

Who owns Creative Market?

Although Chris Roberts is the Creative Market CEO, the company was acquired by Dribbble in 2020.

What is Creative Market’s Privacy Policy?

You can edit your privacy settings on your Creative Market profile, like displaying your location and showing whether or not your profile has likes or comments. 

What is Creative Market’s Refund Policy?

Creative Market offers a 3-day refund window under the following circumstances: you bought the incorrect product license, you bought the wrong version of a product or the wrong product entirely, or you used the wrong credit card. In these instances, Creative Market can help you complete the exchange process. 

They also have a 3-day refund window for memberships that only applies in cases wherein new members wish to delete their newly-created accounts. 

How To Contact Creative Market

Creative Market Review

 

You can file a customer service request on Creative Market’s website concerning account services, billing, technical issues, return requests, and more. 


Looking for more artistic pieces? Check out Ikonick, a digital wall art company that specializes in creating inspirational designs.

Still not sold? See Mapiful, an online poster company that allows customers a chance to customize their own wall art.

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