The Noun Project

The Noun Project sells icons and photos on a royalty-free worldwide licence that the page says never expires, which is the part that matters for work shipped once and left alone for years. Contributors are paid from subscriptions, and the library is moderated rather than open, so quality is more even than an open marketplace. Plugins for Figma, Adobe and Office plus a Mac application mean an icon can be dropped in without a download step. A single icon can be bought outright for those who need one thing and not a subscription.

The free tier gives icons with attribution. Noun Pro is $3.33 a month paid yearly for unlimited icon downloads, the editor, custom kits and the plugins. Noun Pro Plus at $9.99 adds photos, one-click icon sets and the right to crop and make derivatives. Individual assets can be bought without a plan at $4.99 for an icon and $10.99 for a photo, both on the same royalty-free commercial licence. Team, education and developer plans are quoted separately.

Anybody shipping work that will sit untouched for years, because a licence that does not expire is the difference between owning the artwork and renting it. The single-purchase option suits somebody who needs one icon and has no use for a subscription. A team churning through hundreds of icons a month will find the per-icon price irrelevant and should compare the unlimited plan against Flaticon on volume alone.