
When it comes to business, the tools in your wheelhouse can be critical to success. Online graphic design tools are a great way to get mockups generated, graphics done quickly, and even finalize your branding. Two top online tools many people turn to are Placeit and Vexels. When choosing which to use for your business, which is right for you?
Placeit vs Vexels: Placeit is a start-to-finish graphic design tool, whereas Vexels is geared towards stock images for offline editing. Placeit is more user-friendly and cost-effective, but Vexels excels in different areas such as PSD file downloads.
Of course, it will have to come down to the fine details. With both providing great options, things to consider are the skill level needed to use, what features are available, the usability of the tool, and, most importantly, the cost of use. When choosing between Placeit and Vexels, how do they compare? Read on to find out.
The Short Story
In a hurry? Here’s a quick rundown of Placeit vs Vexels.
Both Placeit and Vexels are great tools, but we recommend them for different types of users.
Placeit is recommended for more beginner graphic designers, whereas Vexels is geared more towards advanced designers seeking stock PSD images.
Placeit allows unlimited downloads, Vexels limits how many downloads per month depending on which plan you purchase.
Placeit focuses on creating designs fully on-site, Vexels aims most of their library on stock images that can be downloaded and used on Photoshop of other off-site editors.
Placeit has 4 plans, ranging from 100% free forever, to $12.70 per month. Vexels does not have a free plan, but offers 3 paid plans ranging from $9.99 per month, to $89.99 per month.
Placeit includes commercial use licenses on all downloads, even on it’s free templates, Vexels offers commercial use license in the $29 per month plan and up.
Overall, we recommend Placeit because it provides far more features and benefits, unless you are looking for stock images with Photoshop ready downloads, then we recommend Vexels.
Placeit
From humble beginnings as a mockup generator, Placeit has grown into one of the largest online collections of designs and possibilities. From traditional book covers to Instagram stories, this online tool allows you to upload an image and create a graphic to use for your business needs.
You don’t need to stress over if your team has the design skills to create a great looking design: Placeit does it for you. With easy to use graphic design aspects, its a cinch to arrange, adjust, place and make your graphics picture perfect and ready to post or print. Once completed, the generator even lets you make real-time edits while you preview.
The Placeit team doesn’t stop with just creating designs and templates for the user either. The website is updated regularly with content and blog articles. With the blog articles alone, you can find a wealth of information on marketing and bettering in-house design skills over time to strengthen your online graphic game.
Areas Placeit Excels
If you were going to guess that Placeit is a great mockup generator, you were right. Placeit started as a mockup generator, and it continues to be a strong contender for one of the best options for this online. With a ton of available customization options, it can help a person solidify their vision for whatever graphic they are trying to create.
On top of their already extensive library, Placeit strives to stay ahead of the pack on its offerings. Recent updates have seen them expand their library to include Twitch related graphics, social media post options, and even video asset creation. They add roughly 600+ new templates per week!
It’s designed for anyone of any level to use. This means whether you are an expert just looking for a quick image or a newbie just learning, you can use this application with no problems. Simply checking the reviews of the application can show you just how much people enjoy using Placeit for their needs.
The Run-Down
- Mockup Generator
- Design Maker
- Logo Maker
- Video Maker
- Massive 60,000+ Template Library
- Very Easy To Use
- Commercial Use License Included
- Unlimited Downloads
- Included Tools (Image Resizer, Video Cropper, Video-To-GIF Converter)

Vexels
Have someone on staff with a little bit of design know-how but growing in their skills. Vexels is an online editor that provides graphic stock to those looking to create mockups. With a huge online inventory of designs available for the team to work on, it can create great designs for you in a few minutes.
Using the mockup generator, you can upload an image, change the color and background, and add a filter before you download the image. The upload is automatically placed in the correct location on the image, making less movement, muss, and fuss to get things where they need to be.
While it takes away from the user’s intention, it assumes the intention for the user and makes the decision.
Vexels also allows for downloading many different kinds of files such as PSD, PNG, and SVGs for easy editing outside of their application. Users can take the information, import it and adjust it to their needs using their preferred program.
This website is great for those looking to create an image for their product or business to use for merchandising and application where needed.
Areas Where Vexels Excels
As Vexels sports one of the largest merch-ready design repositories, it is great for those who know what they are looking for and what they want to make. Gone are the days of scrolling mindlessly through Google with an abstract search, just to find you can’t use the image you had in mind. Now simply log on to Vexels and start searching as soon as you have an idea.
Using Vexels, you can find the image and use it with the licensing they provide. This ensures businesses do not infringe on copyright or run into any legal concerns for using a graphic. While it sounds like that shouldn’t be an issue, it does tend to happen, and having a way to avoid such issues can be a godsend in the long run.
This platform does provide those who have design and Photoshop backgrounds to find and download graphics they can then take into PS and easily manipulate. While this means that a certain level of skill is required, it also means your business gets total control over the image they are looking to put out there on top of the capacity to do it.
The Run-Down
- Photoshop Ready Files
- Large Stock Image Library
- Less On-Site Customization/More Photoshop Customization
- Limited Amount Of Downloads Per Month
- Commercial Use License Available For Purchase
Website Interface
When using a website for your business, you want to make sure that you can navigate and get where you are going easily. This can be something that can make users stay on a website or leave fairly quickly. As a business, the last thing you want is to have your users or potential clients flee from your site.
In the same vein, when trying to set up graphics for a business, it’s crucial that you enjoy your time on a website when you are using it. Online mockup generators need to be comprehensive, allow for change, and not make the user dread every moment they are using the tool. How do Placeit and Vexels stand up when facing scrutiny on their interfaces?
Placeit
When you first access Placeit’s website, you are greeted with a simple phrase of “Branding and Design Made Easy.” This carries through all aspects of site navigation. The top navigation is broken down into specific areas of Designs, Logos, Videos, and Gaming, allowing the user to identify where they want to be and what they are looking for with two simple clicks.
Clicking through allows the user to see the library of available designs and select one to edit. This immediately takes one to the mockup generator, where edits can take place to make an image perfect. Here, images, video, and more can be uploaded, or a Placeit designed aspect can be added!
You can also adjust any animations, filters, or text that is present. Once done, simply click download in the top right corner. That is all you have to do. Placeit makes it easy to click around, get an image ready, and get it posted or to the printers without any time wasted on the other end of the computer.
Vexels
Vexels shows off one of its best features as soon as the website is loaded. That feature is the extensive gallery they support and update regularly. Initial looks make the website appear to be simply an image download site. Limited navigation directs the user to investigate pricing or to simply “discover.”
It can be difficult to find designs if the user is unsure what they are going for in the first place. Once they do enter a keyword into the prominent search bar, the library populates corresponding graphics. Clicking one immediately leads to a download option to take the editing offline.
To get specifically to the mockup generator, one must hover over Discover and select it. Mockup Generator immediately loads a T-shirt design to be edited. To change this selection, “Browse Categories” must be selected, which reveals options of:
- Men’s Clothing
- Branding
- Devices
- Food and Drinks
- Signs
- Seasonals
Selecting any category populates possible mockup options. After selecting, one can upload a design from their device. Vexels will automatically put it in the specified area. The other available options are to change the color of the specified area (i.e., T-shirt or phone), change the background, and finally, to add a filter.
Pricing
The cost can be a determining factor for many businesses when it comes to the tools they use. It’s no different when it comes to online tools.
That being said, Placeit and Vexels offer different plans for users. When reviewing prices, the initial cost may seem to say something is a great deal, but the key is in the fine print. Knowing what you are being offered can show just how far your dollar will go in the end towards your graphic design goals.
What are the subscription plans, and what do they include to benefit the user? How expensive are they overall? It is time to compare the available subscriptions and other avenues one might be able to get graphics from these services.
Placeit
Placeit keeps it’s pricing simple.
Placeit has 4 different pricing options:
- Free Account: Limited free library
- Single Download: From $2.99-$39.99 per download
- Monthly Unlimited: $14.95 per month
- Annual Unlimited: $89.69 per year
Pro Tip: Placeit offers an additional 15% off any paid plan with this coupon code.
Any of these plans will grant you top-notch designs with no watermark and commercial use is absolutely okay!

What do you get on the Placeit free account? The Placeit free account is one of their best features. It’s the first tool of it’s kind to allow users to download unlimited templates (mockups, designs, logos, videos, etc.) and even use the downloads commercially. Although there are unlimited downloads included, the free account only gives users access to a limited free library.
What do you get for the Placeit subscription price? To put it simply: everything. Placeit gets that a subscription to their service should give you the whole kit and kaboodle, especially when they offer a very capable free account. The subscription plans give users access to Placeit’s full library of over 60,000+ templates, that grows roughly 600+ new templates per week.
Not really sold on a subscription plan? Placeit has something for that. Instead of getting a subscription, you can sign up for a free account and if you find a template in the paid library that you really need, you can pay a one-time use fee to download it. This option pops up once you click download. The costs on these vary depending on the graphic being generated, but the user only pays for the design they need and then can carry on with their posting or printing tasks for the day.
Pro Tip: If using the one-time fee option, check the price of the template you want to download first. Some templates cost upwards of $39.99 to download with the one-time fee option. If you find yourself in this situation, we recommend signing up for a single month of the unlimited subscription for only $12.70 instead. This will give you unlimited downloads of all templates for a full month, for a third of the price.
Vexels
Vexels is very keen on their subscription plans. This is obvious from just looking at their navigation bar, where Pricing is the first available option. If you ignore it, there are little reminders throughout the site, from a chatbot that asks if the user has questions about plans to a fire graphic that pops up on the left suggesting one check out the pricing.
So what are their plans and pricing? Vexels has 3 plans that break down with “Pro” for freelancers and small businesses, “Merch” for print on demand and merchandisers or retailers, and “Business” for corporate users. Below are the key features of each plan and their monthly cost.
Pro | Merch | Business |
One Design Request a Month 200 downloads a month Non-Commercial Use License Online PNG Editing Standard Support | Two Design Requests a Month 200 downloads a month Commercial and Merchandising Licenses Up to 1000 designs and prints Exclusive Mockups in PSD Access to Vexels Merch Digest POD Licenses for Redbubble, Printful, Zazzle, and Merch by Amazon | Seven Design Requests a Month 2000 downloads a month Requests are a Priority and Priority on Support Commercial and Merchandising Licenses Up to 5000 designs and prints Exclusive Mockups in PSD Access to Vexels Merch Digest POD Licenses for Redbubble, Printful, Zazzle, and Merch by Amazon |
$9.99 a month | $29 a month | $89.99 a month |
If you choose to go annually on cost, prices go down by 25%. However, as it is billed annually, the Pro plan, as an example, goes from just $9.99 a month to $90 flat out. On top of that, the Pro plan does not allow you to use graphics for merchandise or commercial use, simply as a professional asset. They also offer one use cost, but it ranges and offers different licensing capacity, so read the fine print.
How Do They Compare?
When looking between the two sites, they both offer great solutions for small business owners looking to step up their marketing with graphics, but they are definitely intended for different users.
Placeit allows the user to easily create graphics from start to finish on the site. Vexels, on the other hand, seems more interested in being an online repository for graphics that one can purchase and edit in their own software.
While Placeit helps walk the user through creating their images and offers assets to improve, Vexel again seems to want the user to use another application to create their idea. While having access to the original PSD file on Vexels allows for great flexibility in design, it requires a certain level of skill and know-how to use.
Finally, the cost and what you get for it drastically sets these two apart. Placeit simply wins this category by offering not only a free plan, but including a commercial use license with every single download at no extra cost.
Which Should I Choose?
There is no right or wrong answer for making strides to improve a business’s branding or online content. It all comes down to which is the best choice at the time for the business owner. Knowing the cost and what the team will need to successfully use a tool ensures that the best choice is made.
If you’re looking for a great library of stock images that download in PSD files ready for Photoshop, then Vexels is a great choice.
However, if you are looking for an all-around solid online mockup and design tool, Placeit is the clear winner. From initial branding to connecting with potential clients on social media, the small business owner can find it all here. The simple to use interface allows for fast, quality products at a reasonable cost, or even free.
