Envato makes more than 1300 premium online courses available for free

Would you like to brush up on your photoshop skills? Perhaps you’re looking for some easy-to-use email marketing templates, or go back to basics with a refresher on how to read income and cashflow statements?

Homegrown tech company Envato has recently opened up access to its library of premium online courses, which means there’s now more than 1300 online courses in these subjects (and many more) available to people like you and me — for free. 

The courses are part of Envato’s Tuts+ content library, which has featured free tutorials, tips and trends since 2007 but required a subscription to access the premium courses. 

Those premium courses — covering seven key areas of business, design, code, web design, photography, videography and motion graphics — will now permanently be available for free. 

In a blog post about the change, Tuts+ manager Matthew Cox said the courses are designed for both hobbyists and professionals who want to expand their skills. 

“We know that for many people who are searching for our type of educational content, they aren’t looking to learn from a high-profile celebrity or be connected to a prospective employer,” he added. 

“For these people, the focus is on learning itself.” 

The wider Tuts+ resource was used by more than 70 million on-site users in 2021, according to Envato, and the video tutorials were watched more than 26 million times on YouTube. One of the most popular courses, Adobe Photoshop for Beginners, was watched by more than 5 million people last year. 

The move to open up the Tuts+ library to more users comes as Envato passed another key milestone in March of having paid out US$1 billion ($1.32 billion) to its community of creatives who sell designs via the Envato Market. 

The Australian tech success story, which was founded 15 years ago, surpassed $1 billion in total payout across all its products in November 2020, including Envato Market, the Envato Elements subscription service, the Envato Studio freelancer marketplace and the Placeit templates tool. 

As of the end of March 2022, Envato had more than 900,000 monthly active buyers and sellers across all of its products.