Creative Fabrica is a giant digital marketplace for graphic design assets to download, available with a monthly subscription. It is a company from Amsterdam, Netherlands.
You may have heard of them before as a very popular premium ‘POD tool’, and are wondering whether it is worth it.
In this article I will be giving an in depth and honest review of Creative Fabrica (specifically in the context of POD (print on demand)/merch) how it compares to other similar tools/marketplaces, and many more insights so you are well informed before making a purchase.
ALL ACCESS DEAL – 96% OFF
I currently have a special offer of access to ALL RESOURCES (3 MILLION fonts and graphics) for just $1 (~£0.73) using the link above!
Objectively, this is a CRAZY offer, you’re getting all these basically for free so make sure to take advantage of this month.
Having a look at the designs yourself is the best way to experience what they offer. It’ll give you better context for this review too.
After the first month (plenty of time to try it out) the subscription renews at $19/mo (£13.90) (+ tax unless you are VAT exempt) which is at a 35% lifetime discount.
Creative Fabrica At a Glance
Product Summary
A quick summary of everything they have to offer (as of today):
- 40k+ FREE professional fonts, SVGs, embroidery designs with crafting courses for all levels
- Full library contains 3 MILLION+ assets, which you can get with the link above for just $1
- 70k+ fonts (some of them are REALLY cool)
- 3 MILLION graphic assets
- 200k+ POD graphics & premade designs (you’ll find most of these in ‘crafts’)
- KDP resources
- Logo bundles
- Mockups
- 40k+ die cut files
- 20k+ embroidery designs
- Tools
- FREE font manager, a must have if you download multiple fonts (2GB, 20GB with any plan).
- FREE Shape cloud generator (5 free designs, unlimited with subscription) – perfect to spice up text based designs.
- FREE webfont generator – You can create ttf fonts using free software like Fontstruct, convert it into a webfont so you can use it in web pages and even selling them.
- They allow you to create your own store and sell such digital products on their marketplace.
- Full support contact
Pricing Plans (as of today)
As well as a huge library of free assets, they offer a flexible range of pricing plans and combos.
- 40k+ free things as aforementioned
- One free premium font, craft and graphic every day
- Buy some individual fonts and graphics
- Separate plans for fonts, graphics and crafts
- Designer bundles of combinations of assets
- Deals & discounts on individual crafts (as well as the plan)
- An ALL ACCESS plan that gives access to everything on their site along with commercial licensing
Commercial usage licensing
See the full licensing agreements here.
Pros and Cons for POD
There are not just tools for POD but also embroidery, die cutting, art & crafts and handmade products if you’re interested in that.
This review will focus on POD aspects and while many features are interchangeable, I’ll just be talking about the ones I personally think are relevant.
I’ll be comparing relevant features to similar premium design marketplaces/tools I have experience with such as: Vexels, Placeit, Canva, Creative Market, Envato and stock image marketplaces which offer graphics (e.g. Pixabay, stock.io, vector.me, Shutterstock etc).
Pros:
- Hands down the biggest collection of downloadable assets on any marketplace.
- Biggest collection of FREE assets I have ever seen also.
- They are growing rapidly with new assets added daily.
- General quality of fonts are amazing, professional quality for POD text based design
- Way better fonts than Canva, more detail and greater variety, more “fun” style which is perfect for POD.
- Font quality on par with Creative Market/Envato fonts, but there are 70K+ compared to 10k+ on CM.
- Loads of high quality ‘digital paper’ – great for backgrounds, all over prints. You only really find these on Etsy at massively inflated prices.
- Unlimited downloads with the all access plan (unlike Vexels).
- Downloads in many file formats, mainly .png, .svg, .eps, .dxf which can be used with common design software like Illustrator and Photoshop.
- The cloud word generator tool is super cool!
- Commercial license on everything (unlike CM)
- Full POD usage license lets you sell POD products without modification.
- The $1 month all access offer is an absolute steal.
- You can sell your own designs on their marketplace!
Cons:
- Some of the craft & graphic designs are created by individual sellers, so quality varies. You can see the quality using the link above for yourself.
- While I think they’re definitely better than the basic stuff you get on Canva & things you’ll find on stock image sites, in general they’re not as good as CM or Vexels. You do get unlimited downloads though.
- Lack of easily editable designs
- A very common type of POD design that sells well is piecing text with images. Here’s one from Placeit below – you can edit the text, elements, colors and icons. You can do similar editing in Canva.
- CF lacks these editable designs and you’ll have to piece together font and graphics you download yourself if you want to make such designs. Mockups aren’t as good as Placeit either. Might be a stretch to call this a ‘con’ since you could argue it’s more of an individual elements marketplace, but I think this is an important feature for print on demand that many other tools offer.
- Bit overwhelming – having millions of assets isn’t a problem itself but they’re not that well organized for print on demand, specifically shirt designs which are lumped together with clipart and other random stuff.
- E.g. it took me a while to find the premade shirt designs in the ‘crafts’ section.
- If you cancel your All Access subscription you’ll have to stop selling items with the graphics you used as they’re no longer covered by the Full POD license, unless you purchased that design individually.
My Ratings
Font Quality
Font Library Size
Graphics & POD Designs Quality
Graphics & POD Library Size
POD Specific Tools
Pricing
For the All Access plan with discount compared to other premium tools:
- First month is basically a free trial
- Renews at $19/mo (you get 35% off with my link above). More expensive than Canva/Placeit but a lot cheaper than the Vexels merch ultimate plan. Also much better value than buying individual fonts and designs.
Conclusion
For print on demand, Creative Fabrica shines above most other premium tools when it comes to fonts and library size. If you’re looking for fonts specifically, I’d recommend them for this purpose over Creative Market and Canva Pro.
However, considering their extensive marketing as a ‘print on demand tool’ they lack POD specific tools offered by other tools.
Nevertheless, they are an awesome generalized design assets marketplace.
Make sure to take advantage of the $1 deal and have a look for yourself.
