It usedto be that when you needed a website, you contact website designers. ThenWordpress and other content management services came around, and you no longerhave to learn HTML or call on your website administrator to add a page. Formockups, it used to involve Adobe Photoshop and a lot of frustration on yourpart, or you would have to call a graphic designer to work on it for you. Thewhole process used to be time-consuming and expensive, which is why mockupgenerators are a godsend.
Create stunning All mockups without Photoshop. Just insert image and your mockup is ready in seconds. Much faster, than using psd templates. 3,917 Followers, 857 Following, 687 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Smartmockups Mockup Generator (@smartmockups).
Two of the best mockup generators are PlaceIt and SmartMockups. But which one is better?
- Smartmockups enables you to create stunning high-resolution mockups right inside your browser within one interface across multiple devices. The fastest web-based mockup tool No experience or skills needed, super easy-to-use Ever-growing library of professional mockups.
- Smartmockups co-founder Andrew Nekvinda said: “With millions of people launching new side hustles and 36% of consumers now shopping online, up from 28% pre-COVID, there has never been a more important time for creating professional and enticing digital products. The acquisition will empower the millions of businesses and content creators.
After trying out both services, PlaceIt is better than SmartMockups forthree main reasons:
- It isvery flexible and gives you a greater degree of control for your mockups.
- It wentbeyond just mockups.
- It ismore affordable than the competitor.
PlaceItmight be the better option, but is it the perfect mockup generator for you?Read on and find out.
PlaceIt vs. SmartMockups: What You Need to Know
Whileit’s easy to say that PlaceIt is better than SmartMockups, this doesn’t meanthat you should just ignore SmartMockups. Before deciding on PlaceIt, youshould first explore its competition.
SmartMockups
Theservice offers a seven-day free trial that allows you to create your ownmockups. The company offers more than 3,550 images that you can use. You canalso use your own videos and images.
Thebeauty of using SmartMockups is that they allow you to use your images, or youcan choose any one of their more than 3,500 stock images. The images arearranged by categories, including:
- Technology, featuring TVs, smartphones, desktops, laptops, and other devices.
- Print, with mockups of business and greeting cards, branding sets, magazines, brochures, vehicles, billboards, and others.
- Packaging, which gives you ideas on how to design packages and labels for food, beverages, vitamin supplements, and cosmetics, as well as boxes and bags that you can customize.
- Apparel, for those who want customers to see how their designs would look like to sweatshirts, hoodies, t-shirts, tank tops, accessories, and face masks.
- Home and decor, allows you to touch up pillows, mugs, and other decorations and accents you find at home.
- Social media, where you can create mockups of how your business page will show up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and others.
The freetrial also allows you to customize your mockups all you want. Further, you candownload your mockups in the following sizes:
- Low – 600 by 400 pixels
- Medium – 1,280 by 853 pixels
- High – 1,920 by 1,280 pixels
- Super high – 5,000 by 3,333 pixels
SmartMockupsis very easy to use. Just choose the template you want to work on, and with a fewtweaks, you can create an attractive mockup.
Pricing
If you do like how SmartMockups work, you can pay for a plan. The company offers three different plans.
Premium
The premiumplan is an excellent choice for individual users who like to have access toall free and premium mockups. They will also have access to all the new mockupsthat are released weekly.
Premiumusers can enjoy URL screenshots, wherein they only have to type a URL for thesite to show up on their mockups. They also have unlimited exports andcustomization capabilities.
Further,you can connect your account to other apps such as Marvel, Canva, or Dropbox.The premium plan costs $14 billable monthly, or $9 per month billedyearly.
Pro
Pro usersget everything that premium users get plus a few extras. For instance, they getcustom mockups where they can use their own photos and images in the mockupsthat they use. They can also use their own videos.
Pro usersalso have several features that can make branding a whole lot easier. Forexample, you can use your company’s logo to watermark your mockups. You canalso save your branding’s colors to make it easier to select from the colorpicker. Plus, you don’t have to worry about losing changes to your mockupsbecause of the automatic saving features.
The proplan costs $24 per month, or $19 per month when billed yearly.
Team
If youare a company that does a lot of mockups, you can sign up for the team account,where up to five employees can use the SmartMockups interface. You get all thefeatures you get in the pro plan, but you will have team-based features such asa team library, priority customer support, and user management features.
With thisplan, you get mockups with absolutely no need for third-party imagemanipulation software such as Photoshop. This plan costs $84 per month,or $69 per month billed yearly.
Advantages of Using SmartMockups
SmartMockupsis an excellent way to present your new products, branding, and corporateidentity to the world. It’s easy to use and has several features that allow youto create mockups fast, such as the URL screenshot feature, the alignmenttools, and others.
The goodnews is that you can use your own images and just upload it to the site. What’smore, being able to capture a screenshot that the program will automaticallyfit into the mockup means saving a lot of time capturing and manipulating thatscreenshot yourself.
It alsohelps that the monthly fees are affordable. If you have some ideas on how tomake things easier for you and other users, you can use the user forums andsuggest a feature that you like. You can also ask questions there.
Disadvantages of Using This Mockup Service
One ofthe things that might turn you off is that it only has around 3,550 mockupsthat are ready to use, which is quite low. It also only works online and doesnot allow you to customize the mockups using text.
The Skinny on SmartMockups
SmartMockupsallow you to create beautiful markups without spending too much time on it. Youdon’t even have to be a graphic designer or a Photoshop expert to do this.Everything is easy to use, and you can figure things out with no problems. Youget professional looking and realistic mockups.
What’smore, SmartMockups can be used by graphic designers because of the quality ofthe images it offers. But it is easy to use that even beginners and ordinaryusers will be able to use it.
Pros
- URL screenshot feature
- Easy to use alignment tools
- Responsive developers and open to feedback
- Discounted rates if you commit to a longer contract
- Integration with third-party services
Cons
- Only works online
- No text-based customization
- Mockups done during the free trial have watermarks.
PlaceIt: Everything You Need to Know
PlaceIt allows business owners to say goodbye to Adobe Photoshop or graphic designers. PlaceIt helps you by providing mockups that are so photo-realistic that people will think you conceptualized it yourself in a studio with a top-notch photographer at the helm.
But whatmakes PlaceIt different from other mockup services is that it also offers otherstuff such as:
- Logos
- Design templates
- Animated videos
- Flyers
- Social media graphics
Logos
Logos area big part of your corporate identity, so you must get it right. PlaceIt makesit easy for you to have the right logo. All you need to do is to enter yourcompany name, and the industry you’re in. PlaceIt will make suggest templatesfor you.
All you need to do is to customize everything: from the logo graphic, font used, and the text you want. Some logos for a fictional bakery as suggested by PlaceIt.
Social Media Graphics
PlaceItcan help you create the best banners, Facebook ads, Facebook covers, posts,Instagram stories, Pinterest templates, Twitch banners, YouTube thumbnails,YouTube banners, and just about anything you need to make your social mediaaccounts pop.
Animated Videos
Thisservice allows you to easily make slideshows, intros, Instagram stories,product videos, and more. You can customize everything from product names,images, effects, and even the audio track. You can also feature multipleproducts or images for each video. Or even splice two videos together.
Flyers
Easilyadvertise your events or even get your products moving with easy to do flyersand posters from PlaceIt.
Customization
You maynot be a graphic designer, nor know a thing about Adobe Photoshop or any otherimage manipulation software.
Working with PlaceIt, however, you can take a template and modify everything on it, from the colors of the clipart, the lines, the fonts, the color of the text, and even add another graphic or element to the customized product.
Mockups by PlaceIt
But thestar of the show is PlaceIt’s mockups. For instance, for t-shirts, you only needto choose the template and then upload your design. Then select the shirt color and othermodifications and presto–you have a t-shirt mockup ready for printing.
Pricing and Plans
PlaceIt gives you a chance to get an unlimited subscription for only $14.95 per month or $99.95 per year. If you get the yearly subscription, the monthly rate is reduced to only $8.33 per month.
BONUS: All Free Mockups users get 15% off any plan!
Or youcan choose to buy only a single mockup, logo, or other designs. There aredifferent single purchase prices, depending on what you want to buy:
- Mockups: $7
- Videos: $9
- Logo: $39
- Design template: $2
Getting Started with PlaceIt
It’s easyto use this service. You only need to visit the site and click on the signupbutton and then fill out the form. You will need to agree to their privacypolicy, terms, and conditions before you can sign up. After that, you will getto try every feature on the site so you can evaluate their service.
Templates
PlaceItcurrently has more than 43,900 templates for you to choose from, and more areadded regularly.
Free Tools
Apart from these, PlaceIt also has several free tools that will help you manipulate images without having to open Photoshop or other image editors.
Image Cropper allows you to crop images online. Just upload your photo and then crop and resize it. Download the cropped images or share them. This helps you resize your images to get the right size and proportions. It can also help you create easy banners and take out parts of an image that you don’t want to use with your mockups.
The Video Cropper works the same way, only that it works with your videos rather than images. Meanwhile, the video to GIF converter allows you to create GIF files from your movies. You can crop your videos before converting it, ensuring that you have the perfectly-sized and great looking GIFs.
What You Will Like About PlaceIt
PlaceIt makesit very easy for you to create logos, flyers, mockups, and videos. It’s alsostraightforward to customize things as the site allows you to use text andimages.
Also, thePlaceIt site is easy to navigate. On top of services (mockups, designs, logos,videos, and gaming), you can choose subcategories as well. For instance, formockups, you can easily click on free mockups, t-shirts, apparel videos,hoodies, tank tops, mugs, tote bags, hats, and others.
Once youfind the template you like, customizing it is easy. This service also allowsyou to customize everything, colors, fonts, text, images, and even add images.
Mockupsnow take only minutes instead of the hours that they once did. Can’t find whatyou’re looking for? You can suggest content and features to the team.
What Can Be Better About PlaceIt
One ofthe biggest disadvantages of PlaceIt is that they do not have a large libraryof images and templates. Some of these templates are also quite dated. What’smore, the subscription is set to auto-renew, so you need to cancel yoursubscription before the next payment cycle starts.
Some ofthe templates here feature some old devices such as iPhone 6. It would havebeen a lot better if the company removed these templates, instead of keepingthem on to pad the 13,000+ library.
The Last Word on PlaceIt
PlaceIt is aimed at business owners and individuals who may not have the graphic design skills to create compelling graphics for their use. It is easy to use, and you can quickly create images that are professional looking.
What’smore, this service is not limited to mockups. You can create logos and othermarketing and branding collaterals using PlaceIt. But the biggest wow factor isthat you can create your own branded videos with this service.
Why is this a big deal?
Video is an excellent way to engage customers or visitors to your site. According to HubSpot research, 54 percent of consumers in four countries wanted brands to release videos, beating out emails and newsletters, as well as images. Meanwhile, 34 percent said they want to see more social videos from their favorite brands.
Videos are an excellent way to attract your target market and convert your audience from potential customers to buyers. You can use them to connect with consumers or audience. If your product needs explaining, a video does that better than an ad.
Pros
- Can be used not only for mockups, but also logos, videos, and other visual content.
- It allows you to customize using text and images.
- Very easy to use
- Professional-looking mockups, logos, and videos.
Cons
- Image library can be quite limited, with some templates looking dated.
- No refunds and the subscription auto-renews
PlaceIt vs. SmartMockups: How We Evaluated and WhatFeatures Should You Consider
Whenyou’re comparing two services, it always helps to have a set of criteria thatyou can use to evaluate each. For this comparison, we took note of these:
- Image quality
- Cost
- Size of image quality
- Other features such as export and import technologies and integration with third party services.
Image Quality
You willbe using mockups for your business, so it has to be compelling. Consumersprefer high-quality images when they are choosing or buying a product: two outof three say that it is very important in their purchasing decisions.
In fact,63 percent of consumers say that product image quality is more important thanproduct information, and 54 percent prefer images to long product descriptions.Meanwhile, more than half, or 53 percent, say that images are more importantthan product reviews.
Cost
You canuse free mockup software, but you get what you pay for. Some deliverunrealistic images, while others put their watermarks on the mockup that youcreate.
Next toimage quality, a mockup service should also provide value for money. Considerhow the cost compares to the image quality you get, as well as other deals suchas discounts for higher levels of usage.
Large Image Library
Yourchosen mockup service should also have a large collection of templates that youcan use. These images should come in a variety of file formats as well. Moreimportantly, the images used should be royalty-free. You don’t want to run intocopyright-related legal troubles!
Conversely,the image library should be easily searchable. Not having a useful searchfunction means that you will be spending minutes or even hours looking for theperfect image for your mockup.
Other Features You Should Consider
Whichbetween SmartMockups and PlaceIt have it better when it comes to:
- Export options, or being able to download the finished mockup in the file format you wanted.
- Customization options, or how much flexibility do you have when it comes to manipulating the image so that you can create the perfect mockup.
- Import options, or how easy it is to upload the image you want to use for your mockups.
- Integrations, or how well does the mockup service work with other software such as Adobe Photoshop.
The Power of Images: Why It’s Important to KnowWhich Service Is the Best
Why should you include mockups? Images, in general, help you get more eyeballs and helps you engage your audience. According to top social marketing guru Jeff Bullas:
- Articles that contain images get 94 percent more views.
- Press releases that have photos and videos have more than 45 percent more views.
- Around six out of 10 consumers say that they are more likely to contact a business if they have a photo in local search results.
- Articles that contain images get 94 percent more views.
- Facebook engagement rates are higher for posts with photos than those with only text.
As such,using a mockup will help you engage your own audience. It’s a great way to hookthem to your content, and even help you sell more. For instance, it’s challenging to describet-shirt designs, which is why top brands have catalogs wherein models wear thecompany’s clothes. But not every business can afford this, so mockups arenecessary for them.
SmartMockups vs. PlaceIt: Which Service Is Better?
Let’stake a more in-depth look at these two services:
Image Quality
When itcomes to image quality, SmartMockups have some of the highest resolutions inthis space. You can get resolutions of up to 5,000 by 3,333 pixels.
However,both SmartMockups and PlaceIt give you high resolutions that are Web-ready.This means that your mockups done on PlaceIt will probably look as good as theones you create with SmartMockups.
Smartmockups Vs Placeit
Cost
At its lowest rates, SmartMockups charge $9 per month, while PlaceIt charges only $8.33. What’s more, PlaceIt allows you to buy single mockups if you don’t have plans to use images and videos as part of your marketing.
PLUS: All Free Mockups users get 15% off any PlaceIt plan!
Image Library
BothSmartMockups and PlaceIt have thousands of images and templates that you canchoose from. However, there are complaints that PlaceIt has dated designs.
Integrations
SmartMockupswork with Canva, Marvel, and Dropbox, which means that images that you store onthese third-party services can be used for your mockups, without needing toupload it to the service. SmartMockups also have agreements with othercompanies that allow you to use their content for your projects. For instance,you can use Unsplash photos as backgrounds for your mockups.
PlaceItdoes not offer any integrations. However, you can easily import photos fromyour own computer and use them.
Customization
When itcomes to customization, both of these services do an excellent job of makingthis entire process easier. Both services allow you to upload a photo, and youcan work with that and create the best mockups.
However,SmartMockups only lets you upload images for your mockups, unlike PlaceIt,which also allows for text-only changes.
PlaceItalso has more powerful tools for personalizing your mockups, logos, and otherprojects.
So, Which One Should You Get?
Takentogether, it’s easy to see where each service excels and which one is betterthan the other.
Get PlaceIt, if you:
- Want an easy time creating logos, mockups, flyers, social media images, videos
- Want a greater degree of control when it comes to your projects
- Want to save money on a yearly subscription
Get SmartMockups, if you:
- Plan to focus on creating only mockups
- Need the highest resolution images for your mockups
- Are an experienced graphic designer that wants to have an easy way to work with images you have stored in Canva, Dropbox, and Marvel.
Other Services You Should Try
Ofcourse, SmartMockups and PlaceIt are not the only ones that offer mockupgeneration services. Here are two that are worth checking out:
- Mediamodifier is well-known for having lots of templates and easy to use. It also stands out for offering PSD downloads. This service costs $19 per month, or $9 a month if billed yearly.
SmartMockups vs. PlaceIt: The Final Word
Mockupgenerators free you from having to spend time in front of your computer, tryingto figure out which icon to press in Adobe Photoshop. Instead of spendinghours and suffering through agony and confusion, you only need a few seconds orminutes to come up with a mockup you have in mind.
For most people, PlaceIt is the better option for this comparison. Businesses will be able to engage their customers and sell more with the mockups, videos, and other types of images that they can create with this service. SmartMockups is somewhat limited to its offerings. What’s more, PlaceIt allows businesses to create their own logos and other branding materials. Plus, it also offers free tools that guarantee you may completely ignore image editing tools.
This isnot to say that SmartMockups is a slacker. It’s also an easy to use servicethat gives you great mockups. However, that’s all it does: mockups. If you needsomething else like a social video greeting for your business page on Facebookor a flyer for an upcoming rave party, you will need to look for and pay foranother service.
With a community of more than 40 million users across the globe, online design platform Canva has made not one but two acquisitions in Europe, picking up both Vienna-based Kaleido AI and Librec, Czech Republic-based Smartmockups.
The first one, Austrian startup Kaleido, will enhance Canva’s platform with new integrations for advanced photo editing and AI-driven automation tools, to try and turn it into a ‘one-stop-shop for every design need’.
Kaleido is the company behind remove.bg and Unscreen, which remove backgrounds from photos and videos, respectively, with the click of a button.
Mockupbro
Following the deal, Canva-owned Kaleido plans to recruit an additional 30 employees in Vienna to continue servicing clients such as The New York Times, Samsung and Alibaba.
Http://smartmockups.com
Kaleido co-founder and CEO, Benjamin Groessing, added an interesting tidbit of info, which is that the Austrian company has never raised a dime in funding, and has been profitable from day one.
Also joining Canva’s ecosystem of apps and integrations is Smartmockups based in a small city in the Czech Republic.
Founded in 2016 by Lukáš Zajíc and Andrew Nekvinda, Smartmockups lets people quickly create realistic design mockups ranging from t-shirts to flyers, mugs, books, magazines and devices.
The startup says more than 3 million mockups have been created by Smartmockups users in 2020 alone.
Smartmockups Alternative
Smartmockups co-founder Nekvinda said: “With millions of people launching new side hustles and 36% of consumers now shopping online, up from 28% pre-COVID, there has never been a more important time for creating professional and enticing digital products. The acquisition will empower the millions of businesses and content creators using Canva to build engaging digital storefronts with realistic and enticing mockups with the click of a button in response to the dramatic shift towards e-commerce.”
Following in the footsteps of Canva’s acquisition of Pexels and Pixabay in 2019, both Kaleido and Smartmockups will continue to operate autonomously from their existing locations in Europe.