Envato Elements vs Icons8 Comparison 2026
Envato Elements bundles footage, music, fonts, mockups and Premiere and After Effects templates on one unlimited-download subscription, $16.50 a month billed annually or $39 month to month. Icons8 covers icons, illustrations, photos, music and AI generators instead, credit-metered from $6.50 a month for the AI tools alone, with hand-drawn graphics starting on the $24 Icons Included tier. Icons8's own guidance concedes the point for anybody needing footage: Envato Elements is the better buy when video and audio need to be in the same subscription as everything else.
Unlimited stock assets on one subscription
Icons, photos and AI generators on one plan
At a glance
- Icons8 starts cheaper, at $6.50.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
Envato Elements | Icons8 | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $16.50 | From $6.50 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
Envato Elements
Unlimited stock assets on one subscription
One subscription covers footage, music, sound effects, fonts, mockups and project templates for Premiere and After Effects, and the licence on anything you have already used survives you cancelling. For somebody publishing weekly it replaces four stock accounts. Quality is uneven, and finding the good file takes longer than the price suggests it should.
Our note
Worth it at the annual price and hard to justify at the monthly one. Count how many separate stock bills it actually replaces first, because the honest answer is usually two rather than the four the pitch assumes.
Only on this side
- Covers music licensing
Icons8
Icons, photos and AI generators on one plan
Icons8 sells one subscription across icons, illustrations, photos, music and a set of AI generators, which is a wider spread than an icon library usually covers. The cheapest plan is the AI tools on their own and buys credits rather than downloads. Hand-drawn graphics begin on the tier above that. There is an API, a desktop app and a design tool called Lunacy in the same account.
Why people weigh these two
- Icons8 instead of Envato Elements
- Icons8 at $7 covers icons, photos and AI generators on one plan, narrower than a full stock library and priced accordingly.
- Envato Elements instead of Icons8
- Envato Elements bundles unlimited stock assets on one subscription from $16.50 a month, a higher starting price than Icons8's $6.50 for downloads spanning design, footage and music together.
Which one should you pick
Pick Envato Elements for footage, music and editing templates on one unlimited subscription, $16.50 a month billed annually, with a licence that survives cancelling on anything already published. It is not an icon or AI-generation specialist; count how many separate stock bills it actually replaces first, since the honest number is usually two rather than the four the pitch implies.
Pick Icons8 if icons, illustrations and AI-generated images are the actual need, since credits rather than downloads are the unit and a generated icon costs 200 of them. The AI tools alone are $6.50 a month for 10,000 credits, and Icons Included at $24 adds 100 hand-drawn icons, 25 illustrations, 50 photos and 15 3D models. Read the credit costs before the plan price; that arithmetic decides which tier actually fits.
Common questions
- Is Icons8 cheaper than Envato Elements?
- At the entry tier, yes: Icons8's AI tools alone are $6.50 a month against Envato's $16.50 billed annually. But Icons8's cheapest tier excludes hand-drawn graphics entirely, and neither tier includes the footage and video templates Envato bundles in.
- Does Envato Elements include AI-generated icons like Icons8?
- Envato states that AI generations are covered under the same licence as its stock files, but it is not built around credit-metered icon generation the way Icons8 is. Icons8's entire cheap tier, $6.50 a month, is specifically the AI generators.
- Does Icons8 include video footage the way Envato Elements does?
- No, and its own guidance says so directly: Envato Elements is the better buy for video and audio in the same subscription. Icons8 covers icons, illustrations, photos, music and AI generators, not video footage or editing templates.
- How does Icons8's credit system actually work?
- Credits are spent per generation or download rather than counted as a flat number of files; a generated icon costs 200 credits, and extra credits cost $2 per 1,000 if a plan runs out. Envato Elements has no credit system at all; downloads are unlimited on the one plan it sells.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.