Stencil focuses on increasing small businesses’ social media engagement through compelling images. Stencil’s services are also useful in creating images for other content marketing strategies, such as emails and articles.

Features

• Social media graphics
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Snapchat
  • Tumblr
• Content marketing images
  • Websites
  • Blogs
  • Emails

Ease of Use

Stencil describes itself as “ridiculously simple and fast.” To get started, first choose the preset social media size you need, or create your own custom dimensions and save them for later use. Work off of a  blank canvas or use one of Stencil’s nearly 700 templates.  Edit your design using Stencil’s library of over a million royalty free stock photos, thousands of fonts and a large collections of quotes.

Upload your own photos, fonts and logos to tailor your design to your brand. Drag and drop your design elements, resize images, and change fonts and colors in just a few clicks. When your design is complete, Stencil allows you to preview your image on multiple social media platforms. Post right from Stencil via Buffer, or schedule your image to post at a later date.

Support

Stencil’s customer support team is available via email through an online form. The website also offers a section of frequently asked questions, as well as a “Knowledge Base” with a compilation of articles to help with some common problems. Stencil also has a blog with business and design tips.

Sample Pricing

Stencil offers a free plan which is perfect for someone who is looking to create images just for fun. This plan limits users to 10 image creations per month, 10 favorite images to save and no templates. There is limited access to stock photos.

Stencil’s Pro plan is $15 a month, or $9 a month when you pay annually, and allows users to create 50 images per month. This plan gives you access to all fonts, photos and templates, as well as 100 favorite images to save, 25 Instagram SMS per month (sending your image to your phone to post to Instagram), premium support and the ability to watermark your designs.

Stencil’s Unlimited plan is $20 a month, or $12 a month when you pay annually. This plan offers all of the Pro plan features plus the ability to create and save unlimited images, and 100 Instagram SMS per month.

Pros

• Stencil has a money-back guarantee that states that if you aren’t satisfied within seven days of sign up, you will receive a full refund.
• You can cancel at any time.
• Stencil has Chrome, Firefox and Safari extensions in addition to its web editor for easier designing.

Cons

• Stencil only allows one user per account, making it difficult to collaborate with a team on a design.
• Stencil’s free plan is extremely limited.
• Users have reported that Stencil’s web editor can occasionally crash browsers.
• Stencil does not offer an app for Android or iOS.
• Stencil can only integrate with Buffer for scheduling posts.