Creating a professional website and marketing a business requires much more than simply writing some text and adding a logo.
You may need photographs, graphics, icons, fonts, website templates, presentation designs, video footage, music and social media assets. Purchasing all of these resources individually can quickly become expensive, while finding good-quality free resources can consume a surprising amount of time.
That is where Envato Elements can be useful.
Envato Elements gives businesses, designers, marketers and content creators access to a large library of creative assets through a subscription.
For Australian small businesses, it can be a particularly useful resource if you regularly create website content, social media posts, presentations, advertising or video.
But is Envato Elements actually worth paying for?
In this guide, we look at what Envato Elements offers, how small businesses can use it, where it can save time and money, and some important things to understand before using it.
Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and make a purchase, Brisbane Business Websites may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.
What Is Envato Elements?
Envato Elements is part of Envato, an Australian-founded company that has become well known among website designers, developers, marketers and creative professionals.
Rather than purchasing every creative asset separately, Envato Elements provides access to a large collection of digital resources through a subscription.
The library includes resources across areas such as:
- Stock photographs
- Website templates
- WordPress themes and templates
- Graphic templates
- Presentation templates
- Fonts
- Icons and illustrations
- Video templates
- Stock video footage
- Music and sound effects
- Motion graphics
- Design resources
- Creative add-ons
Envato has also been expanding its range of AI-powered creative tools.
This means Envato is increasingly becoming more than simply somewhere to find stock photographs or website templates.
How Can a Small Business Use Envato Elements?
You certainly do not need to be a graphic designer or website developer to benefit from a creative asset library.
There are many practical ways small businesses can use Envato Elements.
1. Find Better Images for Your Website
One of the most obvious uses is website photography.
Many small business websites suffer from poor-quality images, inconsistent image styles or the same generic photographs that appear on hundreds of other websites.
Professional stock photography can help fill the gaps when you do not have suitable original photography available.
For example, a Brisbane business might need images for:
- Service pages
- Blog articles
- Landing pages
- Email campaigns
- Social media posts
- Advertising
- Presentations
Where possible, we recommend using genuine photographs when showing your actual team, premises, products or completed projects.
Customers want to see the real business behind the website.
However, stock photography can be extremely useful for supporting content where original photography is not practical or available.
2. Create Professional Website Graphics
A modern website often needs considerably more than photographs.
You may also need:
- Icons
- Background graphics
- Illustrations
- Infographics
- Patterns
- Decorative elements
- Call-to-action graphics
Having access to a large creative library makes it easier to find assets that complement your existing branding.
The important word here is consistency.
Downloading ten completely different icon styles simply because you like each of them individually can make a website look less professional rather than more professional.
Choose a visual style that suits your brand and use it consistently throughout your website and marketing.
3. Access Website Templates and WordPress Resources
This is one of the areas where Envato has traditionally been particularly useful for website designers and WordPress users.
Website templates can provide inspiration or a starting point when developing a new website.
They can also help demonstrate different ways of structuring pages such as:
- Home pages
- Service pages
- Landing pages
- About pages
- Contact pages
- Blog layouts
- Product pages
However, there is an important distinction between using a template as a starting point and simply installing a template and replacing the words.
Your website still needs to be designed around your particular business and customers.
That includes considering:
- Your target audience
- Website navigation
- Search engine optimisation
- Calls to action
- Mobile usability
- Accessibility
- Website speed
- Conversion optimisation
- Your branding
- Your business objectives
A beautiful website template does not automatically produce an effective business website.
The template is the starting point. Your business strategy still matters.
4. Create Social Media Content
One of the biggest challenges for small businesses is producing enough good-quality content for social media.
Envato Elements can help by providing templates, graphics, photographs and other resources that can be adapted for platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Instead of designing every post from scratch, you could establish several reusable visual styles for your business.
For example:
- Business tips
- Customer testimonials
- Blog promotions
- Staff introductions
- Special offers
- Frequently asked questions
- Industry news
- Product promotions
- Events
Once you establish a consistent visual style, producing regular content becomes considerably easier.
This is particularly useful if you manage your own social media rather than outsourcing everything to an agency.
5. Improve Your Video Marketing
Video has become an increasingly important part of online marketing.
Businesses can use video across websites, social media, YouTube, advertising and presentations.
However, producing professional video often requires more than simply recording footage on your phone.
You may also need:
- Stock video footage
- Video templates
- Motion graphics
- Titles
- Transitions
- Music
- Sound effects
- Backgrounds
Envato provides access to resources that can help improve the production quality of business videos without requiring everything to be created from scratch.
These resources can be useful for creating:
- Social media videos
- Website videos
- YouTube content
- Promotional videos
- Product demonstrations
- Presentations
- Advertising
There is one important rule to remember.
Fancy transitions cannot rescue a video that does not have anything useful to say.
Start with the message, then use creative assets to improve how that message is presented.
6. Create Better Presentations and Business Documents
Envato is not limited to websites and social media.
Businesses can also find templates and design resources for presentations and other marketing materials.
These can be useful when creating:
- Sales presentations
- Business proposals
- Training materials
- Conference presentations
- Business reports
- Marketing presentations
- Client presentations
Starting with a professionally designed template can save considerable time compared with designing every presentation from scratch.
It can also help a small business present information in a much more polished and professional way.
7. Find Fonts, Icons and Other Branding Resources
Typography and icons might seem like small details, but they can make a substantial difference to the overall appearance of a website.
Envato provides access to fonts, icon collections and other design elements that can help businesses establish a consistent visual identity.
There is an important caution here.
Be careful about using stock design assets as your actual business logo or trademark.
Your logo is a core part of your business identity and ideally should be unique to your business.
Creative libraries are excellent for supporting design elements, but your main brand identity deserves more consideration than simply changing the wording on a stock logo template.
What About Envato’s AI Tools?
Like many creative platforms, Envato has been incorporating generative AI into its services.
AI-powered creative tools can potentially help with tasks such as generating and editing images and producing other creative content.
This is particularly interesting for small businesses.
Traditionally, you might spend considerable time searching through stock photographs trying to find an image that is close to what you imagined.
Generative AI provides another option by allowing creative assets to be produced or modified for a more specific purpose.
However, AI should still be treated as a creative tool rather than a replacement for good judgement.
AI-generated content should always be checked before publication.
Look for:
- Factual errors
- Strange details in images
- Incorrect text within images
- Inconsistent branding
- Unrealistic people or objects
- Content that does not accurately represent your business
AI can make content creation faster, but the business publishing the content remains responsible for the end result.
Understanding Envato Licensing
Licensing is one of the most important things to understand when using any stock asset service.
Downloading an asset does not mean that you own the original asset.
Envato Elements uses licensing conditions that determine how downloaded assets can be used.
In general, assets need to be licensed for the particular project in which they are being used.
If the same asset is being used for another separate project, you may need to register or license it for that additional use.
This is particularly important for website designers, marketing agencies and freelancers working across multiple client projects.
There are also restrictions around areas such as redistributing assets or reselling the original creative files.
Licensing conditions can change, so you should always check the current Envato licensing terms if you are uncertain whether a particular use is permitted.
What Happens If You Cancel Your Envato Subscription?
This is another area worth understanding before subscribing.
Assets that have been correctly licensed and used within completed projects can generally continue to be used for those projects after the subscription ends, subject to Envato’s applicable licence terms.
However, cancelling your subscription does not mean you can continue using previously downloaded assets for unlimited new projects.
If you plan to use an asset in a new project, check the current licensing requirements.
This is particularly important if you are an agency, freelancer or business maintaining your own library of downloaded creative assets.
What Are the Advantages of Envato Elements?
For the right business, there are several significant benefits.
A Large Range of Resources in One Place
Instead of maintaining separate accounts for stock photography, graphics, video, templates and other creative resources, Envato brings many different asset types together.
Potential Cost Savings
If your business regularly purchases creative assets, a subscription can potentially be more economical than purchasing individual assets from multiple sources.
Time Savings
Finding suitable creative assets can consume a surprising amount of time.
Having a large searchable library can significantly speed up the content creation process.
More Consistent Marketing
Access to templates, graphics, fonts and icons can make it easier to establish consistent visual styles across your website, social media and other marketing.
Useful for Regular Content Creation
Envato can be particularly valuable if you regularly produce:
- Blog articles
- Social media content
- Website pages
- Advertising
- Videos
- Presentations
- Email marketing
The more content you produce, the easier it becomes to justify having a comprehensive creative library available.
Are There Any Disadvantages?
Envato Elements will not be right for every business.
You May Not Use It Enough
If you only need one or two stock photographs each year, maintaining a subscription may not provide particularly good value.
Consider how frequently you actually create new content before subscribing.
Too Much Choice Can Waste Time
Having a huge creative library creates another problem: endless browsing.
It is very easy to spend an hour looking for the “perfect” photograph when one of the first five options would have worked perfectly well.
Creative resources are supposed to save time, not create another form of procrastination.
Templates Can Make Businesses Look Generic
Templates are useful starting points.
However, relying too heavily on templates without adapting them to your brand can result in marketing that looks very similar to everybody else’s.
Templates should save time, not replace your identity.
You Still Need to Understand Licensing
Access to a large library does not mean every asset can be used in every possible way.
Always make sure you understand the licence that applies to what you are creating.
Is Envato Elements Worth It for a Small Business?
For businesses that regularly create websites, blog content, social media graphics, presentations or videos, Envato Elements can potentially provide very good value.
It is particularly useful for:
- Small businesses producing regular marketing content
- Website designers
- Marketing agencies
- Freelancers
- Content creators
- Bloggers
- Social media managers
- Video creators
For a small business that rarely creates new content, the value proposition may be less compelling.
The question should not simply be:
“How much does Envato Elements cost?”
A better question is:
“How much time and money are we currently spending finding and purchasing creative resources?”
If you regularly need photographs, graphics, templates, video and other creative assets, bringing these resources together under one service can simplify your content creation process.
Our View: Is Envato Worth Considering?
Envato Elements is one of those business tools that becomes more valuable the more actively you use it.
It will not design your website, develop your marketing strategy or create your brand for you.
What it can do is remove a lot of the repetitive work involved in finding the individual creative pieces needed to bring those projects together.
For small businesses regularly producing website and marketing content, that can mean less time searching for assets and more time creating and publishing useful content.
And that is exactly where a good business tool should provide value.
Explore Envato Elements
If your business regularly creates website content, social media graphics, presentations, videos or marketing materials, take a look through Envato Elements and see whether the available resources suit the way you work.
You do not need to use every feature for a creative resource library to be useful. The real value comes from finding the resources that save your business time and help you produce better-quality content more consistently.
Affiliate Disclosure
This article contains affiliate links. If you click one of our affiliate links and make a purchase, Brisbane Business Websites may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.
Affiliate relationships do not determine the tools we choose to discuss or our editorial opinions. We encourage businesses to consider their own requirements and review the provider’s current features, pricing and terms before purchasing.