We recently made a couple of important changes to the way our licensing works, as of May 1st, 2024. Read on to see how the changes may affect you.
1. Changes made to when a license is needed
Previously, we allowed all users to use Visual Capitalist graphics for various personal and commercial use cases, such as embedding our graphics in a newsletter, report, video, presentation, or on your website.
These uses cases were free as long as they followed three guidelines:
- Users must link back to the original source on Visual Capitalist’s website,
- Users must provide attribution to “Visual Capitalist”
- Users cannot make edits or changes to the graphic itself, including altering its contents, its size, or general format.
Now, only individuals and small organizations (5 people or less, or <$1 million in revenue) may continue to use graphics for free in this manner, according to the same guidelines listed above.
In all other cases, a license may be required.
If you are not considered an individual or a small organization, you will need to purchase a license to use our graphics.
If you are seeking to make edits to the visuals, such as resizing the graphic, translating content, adding your logo, changing colors, etc., then you need to purchase a license regardless of whether you are an individual or an organization.
Social media is generally exempt from licensing and you can share Visual Capitalist content for free on social media platforms, as long as the three guidelines listed above are followed. This applies to all social media account types, from personal to corporate accounts.
If you’re not sure if you need a license or you have other needs not listed, please contact us with your query.
2. Changes made to the files you receive after licensing
Previously, we provided the image file (.jpg), design files (.ai), and data files (.xlsx) immediately upon completion of the checkout process. Our internal system of preparing and storing these large files for licensing is unfortunately a laborious and time-consuming one, and it negatively affected our ability to keep the content library constantly up to date. For this reason, we have simplified the download process.
Now, after completing the checkout process for a visualization, you will receive immediate access to the main image file (.jpg) of your newly-licensed graphic.
The associated design files (.ai) and data files (.xlsx) of the graphic are available upon request via our contact form. We’ll respond to all file requests as soon as we can.
The good news is this change means we can add new content to the library at a rapid rate, so you’ll always be able to access the latest content.
