Cricut Design Space: Why you should buy Cricut Access

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When I bought my Cricut Maker I was excited to learn but I wasn't ready to subscribe to any type of membership. I wanted the machine and I wanted to make beautiful projects, that's it. But that's not how life works, right? I had to decide whether Cricut Access was worth purchasing after the free 30 day trial.

Did you recently buy a Cricut machine and now you're on the fence if you should buy Cricut Access? Are you mad because you paid so much money for your machine and now you have to pay a membership fee? Are you wondering if you can use Cricut Design Space without the paid membership?

After I bought my machine these were all the feelings and questions I had so I can relate. I knew I couldn't convince my husband to pay for Cricut Access because I already used his credit card to buy the machine and I knew I didn't want to pay for it either.

Believe me, I understand your frustration but let me talk to you about the pros and cons of the membership plan and why I don't regret getting it. My goal is to provide you with enough information so you can make a well-informed decision.

What is Cricut Access?

Cricut Access is Cricut's paid membership that gives you instant access to images, fonts and hundreds of ready-to-make projects. With your membership, you get exclusive deals on licensed artwork.

Perks further explained

Unlimited access to their library that has over 100,00 images
Access to over 500 fonts
10% discount on anything you purchase from Cricut Design Space or Cricut.com
10% Discount on licensed content from huge Brands such as Disney and Marvel
Free shipping on orders over 10%
Less wait time when you call customer care

How much does Cricut Access cost

There is a Standard Subscription Plan and a Premium Subscription Plan. I grabbed this table from the Cricut website so you can see the different benefits each subscriptions provides you.

Can I cancel my subscription anytime?

Your subscription will renew automatically so if you want to cancel, you would have to go into your cricut.com account and remove the auto-renew feature. In the event you do cancel, your subscription will remain active until the end of that billing cycle.

Pro: How you can benefit from buying Cricut Access

The membership gives you the necessary tools (graphics and fonts) to design your projects and bring them to life . You can also work with ready-to-make projects which are the best when you don’t have a lot of time to design. I find it convenient to use an ever-growing library rather than search the internet every time I need an image.

Con: Why you don't have to buy Cricut Access

There are graphics, images and fonts available all over the internet that can be used in Cricut Design Space. Not only are there thousands of graphics and fonts on the internet, you can find many that are free to download. I personally use Etsy and Creative Market. In addition, you can also download fonts for free on various websites. The most popular one is Dafont.

Isn’t Cricut Design Space the same thing as Cricut Access?

No they are not the same thing. Design Space is the grid canvas you design and organize your projects on before you cut. This is a software you have to download on your computer. You do not need a membership to use Design Space because it’s free. Cricut Design Space can be used without a membership.

On the other hand, Cricut Access is the membership fee which allows you to use the images and fonts in Design Space.

When you are a member, you will see a green and white symbol on the images that looks like this. This symbol basically means it costs you no extra monies to use the graphic. The cost is covered in your Cricut Access subscription plan.

If there isn’t a symbol, then you have to pay per-use. Cricut will show you the price right beside the image. There are two reasons why you may see a price beside an image. The first reason is you don't have Cricut Access and you have to pay separately for each image you want to use. The second is you have Cricut Access but the cost of the image is not covered in your subscription plan and you still have to pay for it separately.

How does pay-per use work in Design Space?

If you don’t have a membership, Cricut doesn’t block you from using images and font in your projects. They can inserted on the canvas and into your project as much as you like. You are only required to pay when you send your project to cut.

A payment window pops up, and you are unable to cut your project until you pay. If you use the images and fonts a lot, it can get very expensive to buy them all the time. You would save much more money by subscribing to a plan.

In addition, Cricut also releases alot of free images every week so you can take advantage of those. A free image means whether or not you have Cricut Access you can use the image in your projects for free.

Still on the fence if you should buy Cricut Access?

For me, the membership is worth it because I use the images and fonts all the time. It's a great resource library to have at my finger tips and I use it inspire my creativity. It it would be way more expensive if I only bought on an as-needed basis.

I design in Illustrator and I still depend quite a lot on the membership benefits. If you are a graphic designer or any type of designer, you may want to consider if Access is worth it. It may not be because you have the skills to create your own images. In this case, having access to Design Space -which is free- may be enough.

It's important to note that I have friends who do not have the Membership, neither are they designers and they have no complaints about anything. The benefits of using Design Space to upload and cut images serves them well.

To buy the Membership is a decision only you can make. I hope the information I provided paints a clear picture of the pros and cons of Cricut Access.

Let me know in the comments section if you have the membership. How did you make the decision if you should buy Access? Or why did you decide against it?