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Placeit is a fantastic branding and design website made to allow anyone to create beautiful designs quickly. It has grown to include an enormous library of options for almost any creative or internet user comprising both free and premium assets. The number of features on the site can be staggering, and first-time users may be confused about some options.
Placeit uses a subscription pricing model or the ability to purchase individual designs. It hosts templates on a wide variety of subjects ranging from logos to videos to design mockups. There are some fantastic alternatives available out there, but Placeit has the most extensive easy-to-navigate library.
This review will cover a significant portion of the website and its options so that users can make an informed decision about what Placeit offers them. For more details about pricing, features, and alternatives, keep on reading.
Pricing
Placeit offers a few different pricing models so that users can make the best choice for what they need. Placeit offers a wide selection of free templates and assets that can be used for any purpose, but most of the site includes paid content. These free templates and mockups are perfect for learning how the site works and experimenting with various styles before moving on to paid services.
When you are ready to take the next step, Placeit offers payment for templates through two different models. The subscription model is the most popular and, generally speaking, the best deal. Placeit also allows for the purchase of individual designs if you only need one or two cheaper purchases.
Reading through the details on pricing and the differences is essential before dedicating to one over the other. Purchasing one higher-priced design before realizing you need more will ultimately result in more money spent, while paying for a subscription and only using one cheaper design will also be a bit of a waste.
To optimize your pricing model, try to make a list of all the graphics and designs you will need before starting. You can then easily compare the price of purchasing designs individually to the price of a subscription and make the best choice.
Paying for Individual Designs
Paying for individual designs allows for Placeit’s online template tool to craft a custom image and purchase it. There are a few key things to note about choosing this pricing route:
- You purchase the design, not the template
- Price may vary significantly between categories
- Designs are saved online through an account and downloaded to your computer
When you decide to pay for one design you need, you are purchasing the finished design you created, not access to that template. This means that if you want to make even minor changes in the future, you will have to purchase the design a second time. As such, it is best to create the final design before moving on to purchase. You can experiment with Placeit’s entire library of assets before paying anything, so take the time to get it right!
While some templates are cheaper to buy once than a monthly subscription, some are not. When you are ready to move on to payment, be sure to look at the design price and compare it to the price of either a monthly or yearly subscription.
Examples such as:
- Animated logos
- Most Mockups
- Flyers
- Business cards
Are cheaper than paying for a subscription. However, some designs, such as most normal logos, cost more to purchase than access for one month. In this case, consider why you are interested in a one-time purchase over a subscription.
Finally, a small benefit of using a one-time purchase is that Placeit will save the design to your online account forever, in addition to letting you download it. On a subscription model, designs are lost when the subscription ends. This means that, using a one-time purchase, you could theoretically come back and find the design at any point in the future. Placeit’s specific licensing terms can be found here.
Choosing the Subscription Service
Placeit also offers a subscription service, a popular option that allows full access to all of the site’s templates and assets. There are a host of benefits to choosing the subscription service, including:
- Lower overall price
- Monthly or yearly payment plans
- Unlimited use
- Access to all templates and mockups
When looking at the subscription models Placeit offers, comparing the yearly and monthly plans is essential. If you will use Placeit’s services for the majority of the year, even on an irregular basis, choosing the yearly plan will ultimately save over 50% over a monthly subscription of the same period.
A per month subscription costs $14.95, and a yearly subscription costs $89.69, or $7.47 per month. When deciding between the two, it is best to consider how long you will use Placeit’s services.
Pro Tip: Placeit also offers an additional 15% off any plan with this coupon.
People like UI designers or T-shirt designers who will create designs or mockups continuously throughout the year will benefit from choosing a yearly subscription. People who are looking to establish branding and design for a business, for example, may only need the service for one to two months at a time.
It is worth noting that, with monthly subscriptions, you can cancel immediately when you feel that your work is complete, ensuring that you will not get charged extra. Additionally, all licensing rules are the same whether you are currently paying for a Placeit subscription or not.
Unlike an individual payment, either form of subscription unlocks the entire site for unlimited use. This is especially great for people who want to test out multiple designs off-site or who need to make multiple images. Pricing and details can be found on Placeit’s website by clicking on the “Pricing” button in the top left.
Features
Placeit offers a host of different features and categories for creating designs and is one of the largest mockup libraries, offering over 50,000 templates. The massive number of options can be generally split into four categories, but there is some overlap between them. They are:
- Mockups
- Designs
- Videos
- Logos
In addition to the number of templates and availability, Placeit makes it easy to actually use their services. Editing any template is surprisingly simple and allows for a significant amount of control over the process. Plus, if you do not like a template, it is easy to backtrack and select a new one.
Any part of a template can be changed to perfectly fit your needs, so you can get a unique product that represents whatever you are making this for. Specific parts of a design change depending on what category you are designing, but some options include:
- Font
- Colors
- Imagery
- Background / background color
- Text
Using Placeit is as easy as uploading an image for a mockup or choosing from design assets to create a logo or video. They easily list recommended sizes for uploads to get high-quality mockups and provide all logos in high-quality sized files.
Due to the number of templates available and the categories they fit into, each section also includes additional features. These make using templates easier and finding the perfect one a breeze.
Easy to Use Mockups
Placeit’s mockup offerings are some of the best on the web. Simply put, a mockup is any image that a design can be placed on top of to show how the design would look in the real world. For instance, a design for a t-shirt can be created and then placed on a mockup of a woman wearing it to show how it fits and would look.
Mockups are extremely useful for many reasons. They can be used as marketing materials for sellers, showcase designs to stakeholders or clients, or test out visibility in different locations.
Due to the number of applications these have, the mockup section of Placeit is quite large. You can find the general section here, but it is often in your best interest to employ the website’s search and tags feature to narrow down results.
App Design
Showcasing an app or webpage design is one of the most common ways that mockups are used. They allow people to actually see what the app would look like on a real phone screen or other device and are essential for presenting final work and testing.
App, UI, and UX design are growing categories that are becoming more and more essential to the success of new companies. Placeit’s broad library of app design mockups is excellent for showcasing how essential the work has been, and they offer several different options.
Subcategories on Placeit that encompass app design include:
- iPhones
- iPads
- Android Devices
- App Store Screenshots
- App Videos
- iMacs
- MacBooks
Each of these categories (and more) includes multiple photographs of the phone or device in many settings, featuring some different people or objects. By including many options, specific mockups that match the tone of the app or website can be selected to showcase the project better.
Merchandise
Merchandise mockups are some of the most popular templates featured on Placeit. This is likely due to the growing number of people and businesses starting to create their own t-shirts, mugs, pins, and other apparel. Like the app design mockups, these are meant to show the merchandise being worn and used as usual.
Thanks to the popularity of this category, there is a wide variety of subcategories and mockups available. Using Placeit’s search function or category search shows a number of them. A small selection of highlights includes:
- Apparel
- Beanies
- Face Masks
- Hoodies
- Mugs
- Tote bags
Almost any physical product you can create and place a design on has a mockup on the website. Plus, the details of various mockups can be changed to better match the merchandise you are selling, including things like the background color of a shirt, mug, or tote bag.
Packaging
Package design mockups are also a feature of Placeit that allows graphic designers to test how their designs will look on real objects and boxes. This is often an essential step in both testing out your work and presenting it for review.
The number of different package mockups available is staggering and ensures that you will almost always be able to find the right image. A quick look at the category reveals just how many are out there, along with the customizability that Placeit allows for.
Covering packages from chip bags to shipping boxes, these mockups allow designers to showcase every part of the complicated package design process. Ultimately, as with any other mockup, these will help to imagine, refine, and sell the design you have created.
Ready-made Designs
Placeit’s mockup library is one of its biggest draws for designers with work to showcase, but their ready-made design templates are transformative. These templates allow anyone, regardless of their graphic design knowledge or background, to produce fantastic-looking and usable designs.
Thanks to the number of templates available, designs can be created on just about anything. Things like Facebook ads to album covers have multiple templates available to start with.
While subcategories are helpful in the design realm, this is a case where it is probably best to search for what exactly you are looking for. That way, you will avoid the paralysis of choice that can often come from having so many options in front of you. Still, using categories before the search can help even more.
Apparel
Designs for apparel such as t-shirts, hoodies, and tote bags can be crafted directly on Placeit. Thanks to the number of assets and fonts available, you can easily create a unique design that fits what you are looking for and is perfect for selling.
For example, these t-shirt templates are excellent mockups. It is possible to edit the graphic, colors, text, and font, ultimately resulting in a unique product in a process that likely takes less than 5 minutes.
The design template process can be opened up even further, however; images from Placeit’s entire asset gallery can be pulled up and placed on the shirt, or you can even upload your own. This is especially useful for people who currently have apparel that they want to update or upgrade through Placeit.
Things like apparel designs can also benefit from being placed on a mockup that is also available on Placeit, bringing the whole ecosystem of options together. This is one of the most powerful parts of Placeit: everything can quickly be done on one website.
Business Needs
Businesses often need a surprising amount of design work done, especially while the brand is establishing itself. From large categories like a logo and wordmark, to smaller details like business cards and custom stationery, Placeit has templates for every step.
Logos are generally considered their own category thanks to the number of options that Placeit has just for them, so an exploration into those will be done a bit later. Everything else, however, is covered here.
Getting the details right for any business can help drive traffic and present the image you want out to the world. Leaving things like a business card design to the end of the process may feel like the right decision, but remember that it is the first thing many people will see about your business. It must make a good impression.
Carrying over that impression to the rest of your work is also essential, and where the rest of the business designs come into play. While using these designs, remember to keep things consistent; use the same colors and font, and place your logo tastefully.
The designs for business needs are just as varied as the rest of the site and support any sized business, from a freelancer to a thousand-employee plus operation.
Tech & Social Media
Designs in the technology and software space are hugely popular, and Placeit offers a number of templates that fit in this category. Ranging from social media post design templates to dedicated designs for placement on the back of phones, there are several templates that Placeit features to help.
This category is so popular that there are even specific categories for Instagram stories and posts as well as Facebook ads. Anything that an average person or even a small business may want for their social media needs can be found here.
As the business needs designs, it is best to maintain a consistent look and feel across your social media and technology templates, which Placeit makes it easy to do. Creating your own style from the templates will help you stand out from the crowd.
Video and Animation Capabilities
Among similar websites, Placeit is relatively unique in offering video and animation capabilities on its website. Rather than learning complicated video editing and animation software, Placeit has a growing number of templates that cover everything from animated GIFS to video introductions for YouTube.
Customizing these videos is a bit more complicated than the simple designs and mockups previously mentioned, but it is still easy enough for anyone to get started with. As always, you can customize the text, font, colors, and visuals of each template to make them your own.
Online Video Maker
Placeit has a fantastic online video maker that walks users through the entire process of creating slideshows, Instagram stories, video intros, product demos, and Instagram videos. It is an easy-to-use tool that simplifies an often difficult to understand process into just a few minutes.
This tool eventually takes users to the classic template editor of Placeit with the original choice’s added tools. For example, creating an Instagram story also allows users to add or find sound to accompany the animation and set up animation frames.
The number of videos and animations available on Placeit is consistently growing and even adding new categories like streaming screens and services.
While this tool is likely best suited for small business owners or designers looking to expand into animation, it is just as usable for the average person looking to step up their social media presence with some fantastic looking effects.
Logos
The number of logo templates is one of the best features that Placeit has. The available options are high-quality and span across a large number of fields, professions, and interests, all but ensuring that any business or person in need of a logo can find precisely what they are looking for.
The number of subcategories in logos that Placeit has is staggering and includes categories ranging from law firms to moving companies. Choices for logos are incredibly similar to how other designs on the site work, allowing users to customize each aspect to get what they are looking for.
Searching logos can also be done by look rather than sector. For example, if you are particularly interested in abstract logos, it might be better to search that way instead of looking through your most related sector.
Gaming
Gaming logos are trendy on Placeit for anybody looking to start a stream or YouTube channel around the topic. Alternatively, even actual games can create their logos on the site and use them.
Business
Placeit offers logos for a wide variety of businesses and supports assets that cover all sorts of aesthetics. The sheer number of options ensures that you can combine looks and businesses until you get a logo that truly represents what you want to represent your business.
Searching the logo section can be daunting at first, especially if you do not have a solid idea of what you want at first. In this case, there are a few good options:
- Use Placeit’s search and tags features to find what is popular right now
- Organize by field
- Use Placeit’s “save” feature to create a collection that you think could work
Any of these methods alone or in combination with the other should ultimately narrow the list down to a workable option. Then, if you are still unhappy, you can reset and start at a larger filter to find what you are looking for.
Alternatives
There are a few available alternatives to Placeit, although very few cover the same number of topics and features that Placeit offers. For those looking to standardize an ecosystem that allows them to design, brand, and mockup an entire business, Placeit is likely the best offering.
However, people interested in a single category can find some alternatives out there.
Creating Designs Without A Template
Creating designs, logos, or mockups without a template is undoubtedly an option for many people. Doing this is often more work but allows for excellent control over every possible aspect.
Creating your own designs from scratch is a good idea for designers already confident in their skills and handling of technology. For small business owners interested in easily getting some options out quickly, this is a significant amount of work to learn.
There are a few different options for those looking to get seriously into design. Some of the most popular include:
These are programs or groups of programs that specialize in important parts of the process, such as image manipulation, creation, editing, and additional utility for animation and video. Each of them also costs either a monthly fee or a one-time purchase.
Using Similar Services
Similar services exist online that can do many things that Placeit can, often with smaller libraries or while specializing in one part of it. For those looking for an alternative or to simply compare, there are a few popular options.
Artboard Studio Works Wonderfully for Mockups
Artboard Studio is a similar website that offers a variety of mockups and image editing for those interested. It is a more powerful customization tool than Placeit and highly specialized. Their website can be found here.
Like Placeit, they also offer some free templates and a host of assets, as well as a possible upgrade to a premium subscription for $15 per month. As they are more focused on professional teams and designers, the cost is for each team member added.
This is a great option for those exclusively interested in mockups who wish for more control over their templates, including options to introduce layers and additional items. However, the tool may involve too many options for those who want a quick way to create product mockups.
Canva Includes A Host of Templates
Canva is a popular choice for creating quick animations and designs using templates that function similarly to Placeit. They include many different plan levels for using designs for personal use, small businesses, and even non-profits. Their website can be found here.
Their categories are similar to Placeit’s and include social media posts, videos, and designs.
Upgrading past their free plan can quickly get expensive for large teams, but the service works exceptionally well on the free level.
Recap
Placeit is a service for design, logo, and mockup templates that is meant to be easily usable and feature a host of different categories. It includes free templates as well as a subscription model or a pay-by-piece model.
The website is built to be easy to use for everyone, so no previous design experience is necessary. It has a huge number of templates, over 50,000, to ensure that anyone can find what they are looking for and make it unique.
Alternative choices exist but are often more complicated or do not include the entire ecosystem of products that Placeit does.
Important Links: Placeit also offers an additional 15% off any plan with this coupon.
