Cricut Access Review

Overall Rating

4.1

Introduction

Cricut Access is a subscription service offering over 100,000 ready-to-cut designs, 350 fonts, and project ideas. It is suitable for all skill levels and has an affordable subscription model.

I had always had a problem finding beautiful fonts and images for my projects. Making them myself was always a decent solution, but I’m not a graphic designer, and a lot of my projects require professional-grade imagery.

Then, I found Cricut Access, and the program gave me all of the tools I needed to enhance the quality of my arts and crafts. If you’re having the same problems as I was, it might be time for you to take a look at what Cricut Access has to offer.

Cricut Access Product Overview

cricut access

Are you tired of paying five or more dollars to buy a single image or font for your scrapbooking or art projects? I know I got tired of it. That’s where Cricut Access helped me the most.

You can find a lot of different sources of fonts and images on the internet, but you typically have to pay for each one that you want. Cricut Access doesn’t use that business model. It works with a monthly subscription fee.

Depending on which subscription package you choose, you gain access to varying amounts of content, and you can even get better prices on licensed images. This makes the Access service extremely useful if you find yourself doing a lot of projects.

Speaking of subscription packages, Cricut Access offers three different packages. The first one is made for people who don’t want to make an annual commitment, and the other two are either priced lower or offer more features, but they are billed annually.

The different subscription options have their own pros and cons, but they all offer more than enough value for their price. That’s especially true if you plan on using a lot of their library’s content.

Cricut Access doesn’t have a skimpy library, either. You get access to a little over 400 unique fonts, and their image library contains over 50,000 images. Some of those images and fonts require licensing purchases, but there are also a lot of free ones.

Benefits Of The Service

Cricut Access has quite a few perks, and those are what we’re going to cover now.

1. Price Tiers

The price tiers are both a pro and a con for Cricut Access. We’ll get to how they’re a con later. First and foremost, they give consumers options.

The starter tier allows you to try the service for $10 a month. You don’t have to commit to anything, and $10 isn’t much to lose if you end up disliking the program.

The second tier is cheaper, and it covers all of the same content that the starter tier covers, but you pay a lump sum upfront. It’s an annual billing plan, but that’s okay for people who know they’ll use the service for a year.

The final tier unlocks all of the site’s features, and it is paid annually. It costs $10 like the starter plan, but you pay for twelve months all at once. It’s convenient, and it gives you all of the great features that can really help your next project.

2. Large Library Size

You can find other services that are cheaper, but they often have limited amounts of content. With Cricut Access, you have a massive library of more than 50,000 images to choose from, and they have 400 fonts for you to use.

3. Works With Cricut Design Space

Cricut Design Space is Cricut’s other service. If you’re looking for information about Access, you probably already know about Design Space and how it’s used to format projects.

Access works seamlessly with Design Space. You can send any fonts or images from Access to Design Space, and you can tweak them before you cut them out. It can be a life-saving feature when you find an image that is great but needs tweaking.

4. Cut-Ready Images

Cricut Access does allow you to import images to your Design Space account, but that’s mostly for when you just want to do a little tweaking. Unlike other services, all of Cricut’s content is ready to be cut.

Having cut-ready images at your disposal will easily lower the amount of time you spend prepping for projects, and it’s a feature that I appreciate a lot.

5. Lower Licensing Fees

A lot of the images provided are free for anyone to use, but some premium images require you to purchase a license. This can be a big deal if you plan on using your projects for commercial purposes.

Luckily, all of the plans available for Access grant a 10 percent discount on licensed images and fonts. They may not be free, but you’ll get them a lot cheaper than you would through another service.

This feature also comes in handy when you want to use content that’s made by commercial companies. User-created content is often free, but brands like Disney will place a price on their premium images. Cricut still gives you 10 percent off.

6. Big Partnerships

Handcrafted gifts are great on their own, but a big brand name can elevate your crafts to a new level. However, it can be difficult or costly to legally access content from those big brands.

Cricut makes it easy. They have partnered with a lot of the biggest brands around, and they can grant you access to content created by those brands. Good luck finding licensed Disney or Sesame Street products through other crafting services.

Drawbacks Of Cricut Access

No service is perfect, and I would be doing you a disservice by omitting the drawbacks that come with using Cricut Access.

1. Payment Tiers Are Mostly Long-Term

The starter tier is the only tier that allows you to cancel your subscription at any time. Both of the other tiers require you to commit to the service for an entire year. That’s a long time for a service some people might stop using.

2. You Might Not Get Your Money’s Worth

If you don’t use the service frequently, you won’t get your money’s worth. It will save frequent users a lot of money, but you’re better off buying individual images from other services if you don’t craft a lot.

3. Not Compatible With Other Programs

You can’t use your favorite editing programs to work with their images. Cricut only allows you to edit images with their Design Space program, and that lack of versatility is a major drawback.

4. You Have To Keep Paying

Whatever you make with your purchased images is yours, but you lose your copies of those images when you cancel your subscription. That’s not a big deal at all for single-use images, but don’t plan on saving images forever.

Conclusion

Cricut Access is one of my favorite programs, and it has saved me a lot of money. It also makes it easy to find tons of content quickly. However, it’s not for everybody.

I recommend this program to people who are constantly working on new projects, and I highly recommend using the starter package first. If you don’t, you might end up not using the service, and you’ll have already paid for a whole year’s worth of access.

If you’re interested in using Cricut Access, I suggest checking out their site as soon as possible, and it can’t hurt to try it out for a month. You might find your new go-to source for imagery.