I know there are a lot of online mockup generators available now, but I’ve used mockup generator for 5 years now and it’s still my favourite tool.
It’s easy to use, free to use and you can create the most unbelievable graphic designs in no time. They have great tutorials on their website too if you need help learning how to use it! Their support is excellent – which is so important when you’re stuck on an issue.
Mockerie
Mockerie is a web-based app that allows you to create interactive mockups. This feature allows you to upload a URL and create an embeddable mockup. This feature feels a bit like a gimmick. We couldn’t think of many use cases for wanting to embed a website inside a computer image and then put that image on a website that is on a computer. A little too Inception for us.
We had issues getting the software to correctly render the URLs that we entered. In addition, you need to install their Chrome plugin to download. Only 722 users have added the plugin which makes us question the success of this product. Products with few users are always concerning as they could shut down at a moment’s notice.
At the time of publishing, they offer a monthly fee of $15 to access their library. This seemed expensive as you can get access to Smartmockups for $9 a month. They do offer a few free images and you can demo the app with them.
The library has 362 images at the time of publishing. You can filter these by the type of image (laptop, tablet, desktop). They offer no product or apparel mockups. Their website claims that the library is being expanded though there is no publishing schedule. The quality of the images varies greatly. Some of them look like they were taken on a cellphone. This could be beneficial if you are looking for a more realistic image. Yet, for most users we spoke with, they were looking for high fidelity mockups.
Another feature that is unique is the ability to add a filter on top of your mockup. Think of it as Instagram for your mockups. For us, this feature would not be very useful as we want crisp and realistic-looking images.
Yellow Images – Create Custom 3D Mockups
Yellow Images is a powerful mockup generator that lets you easily create a fully customizable 3D mockup from over thousands of popular devices and object, including
- Create realistic Book Mockups
- Display your UI design on Apple iPhone mockup
- Showcase your amazing design on apparel & sports mockups (T-shirts, pants, hoodies)
- Visualize your idea on vehicle mockups (cars, helicopters)
- Make packaging mockups (cups, jars, boxes, bottles)
- and more
Simply use your own uploaded screen captures and Yellow Images will show what they’ll look like in the real world. Its gallery of devices, for example…
…can easily be turned into beautifully photographed mockups:
Yellow Images offers limited free mockups that are completely free to use and download.
You can also opt to pay as go to access the premium mockup designs (Use Promo Code YMG for 10% Off).
If you want unlimited 3D Mockup Blueprints, become a Yellow Image Member. You can save more! Get 90% Off. Premium Members are getting Mockups for just $1.5.
Formats: PSD, JPEG
Free/Paid: www.yellowimages.com
App LaunchPad – Create Fully Customizable Mockups
As its name suggests, App LaunchPad is originally built for app developers and designers.
But it can be hugely beneficial for authors, freelancers, bloggers, marketers, publishers, designers and any content creators.
This platform offers two free tools:
- Screenshot Builder: Create free beautiful App screenshots for App Store and Google Play pages.
- Mockup Generator: Create quality mockups with just a few clicks!
Here, we’ll focus on its free mockup generator, which offers over 1000+ professionally designed templates for your product mockups. All templates are sorted into easy-to-browse categories: iPhone iPad, Macbook, Android, Multi-device, Smartwatch, Windows and more.
What makes App LaunchPad different is that it gives you all the tools you need to design. This basically means that you can create fully-customized (rather than a generic mockup) design:
- Add text with catchy fonts, style and color.
- Upload your own brand logo, app store or google play icon.
- Add image, color or transparent background to help you get more attention from audience.
Ready to make a mockup for your book, website or product?
Sign up for a free account with your email ID.
Choose a template, drag and drop any element you want to add to your template, adjust fonts, colors and then click download to get a quality mockup image.
Their free account allows you to create unlimited, high-resolution mockups.
The only downside is the ugly watermark right at the center of the mockup!
To remove this watermark and unlock advanced features, you’ll need to upgrade to their paid plans, which start at $19 per month.
Format: PNG
Free: www.theapplaunchpad.com/mockup-generator
Mockup Photos – Free Real-Life Mockup Generator
Mockup Photo is a great tool that allows you to showcase your products in a real-life environment.
There are over 1540+ mockups to choose from, Androids, Apple, desktop, iPhone to woman and workspace.
Not only that, they will handpick a few special mockups every week.
These weekly freebies will be available for use during that particular week, after that they’re gone. This helps give your mockups that creative and unique touch.
Mockup Photo is different from App LaunchPad:
(1)You’re not required to create an account to start using this free tool, (2) you can’t edit the existing template, and (3) you can’t upload your own logo or add text.
Here’s how it works:
- Select a template that you’d like to use.
- Click “Place Image here” to upload your own image. It will show the recommended size for each device. In this example, you’ll need to upload image with size “2880×1800” for best result.
- That’s it. Click “Download now” to save a copy to your computer.
And there’s no watermark.
Formats: PNG, JPEG, PDF
Free: www.mockup.photos
Magic Mockups
If you like using Mockup Photos, you might want to check out Magic Mockups too.
Magic Mockups is one of my favorite tools when it comes to creating real-life mockups. Often, I used it to create book covers in a real-life environment for social media sharing.
You can get good quality 3D mockups for personal and commercial use, without any attribution.
Although the available mockups are quite limited, they all look great, professional with the highest resolution.
Formats: PNG
Free: www.magicmockups.com
Smartmockups
With Smartmockups, you can create stunning high-resolution mockups right inside your browser within one interface across multiple devices.
It offers some advanced features like multiple upload options, various customization options, and 5K high-resolution export.
Smartmockups custom mockup editor 2.0 has been completely rebuilt & redesigned to improve the experience of creating mockups.
With its ever-growing library of professional mockups, you can create Apparel, Home & Decor, Packaging, Print, Social Media, and Technology mockups.
Smartmockups can be integrated with apps like Canva and Dropbox to improve the workflow.
Pricing – Free account gives you access to some basic features and 200 mockups to choose from. Paid plans offer you premium features and additional users. They start from $9 /month and go all the way up to $69 / Month.
Facebook Creative Hub
If you’re looking to create Facebook or Instagram ads that stand out then you should take advantage of Facebook’s creative hub which allows you to create mockups of your ads before they go live.
It’s Facebook’s own ad mockup generator and is fairly easy to use, allowing you to create, preview, and share ads before you hit the publish button.
The mockup generator allows you to see how your creative will look on all the possible placements on Instagram and Facebook, and you can easily toggle between ad placements for individual videos and images, or carousels too.
Once you’ve generated your mockups you can easily create a link to share them with your team (or clients) so they can give feedback before anything goes live.
Social media mockup we made with Facebook CH:
Pricing:
- 100% free (but you need a Facebook account/page to use it)
Shotsnapp- Free Device Mockup Generator
Shotsnapp is a simple DIY tool that allows you to quickly create beautiful device mockup images.
It offers a wide range of device mockups such as laptops, tablets and phones.
You can use it to make beautiful pictures for social media, device mockup presentation for your app, website design, product and more.
To start creating a mockup:
- Go to Shotsnapp page, and choose a pre-designed template that you want to use.
- Add a screenshot or an image of your design.
- Edit it. Add a background image, change color etc.
- Preview and download your mockup image.
However, its free option only lets you create one object per canvas. In other words, you can’t create multiple device mockup (for instance, iPhone+Macbook) with the free plan.
If you prefer, you can get their 1 year PRO access which lets you add an unlimited number of objects per canvas, including text for just $36 a year. That’s $3 a month.
Formats: PNG, JPEG
Free: www.shotsnapp.com
Admockups
Unsurprisingly, Admockups is a website where you can create ad mockups for most of the major social media platforms.
Their templates cover Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Snapchat. They also have a Google search ad generator that you can utilize for free too.
Like Adparlor, Admockups gives you variations of ads or sponsored post placements on the various social media platforms.
So you can create mockups for Facebook newsfeed posts, lead forms, even messages. All you need to do is choose the device type, ad type, and ad format. Once you’re done you can download your mockup as a PNG or SVG.
It’s a really simple and easy to use tool and it’s also 100% free, so it’s well worth checking out.
Social media mockup we made with Admockups
Pricing:
- 100% free
Conclusion
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Right? Actually, there kind of is. And it’s not a scam, either! There are plenty of legitimate ways to create beautiful images for your website—all without paying a cent. How is this possible? You can create mockups of real products using tools that make it easy to simulate what a new design would look like on a shelf, or on a postcard.
I’m one of those folks who like to fiddle around with things. As such, I enjoy creating my own mockups. And more often than not, these mockups are geared towards apparel and other merchandise. So I decided it would be a good idea to keep track of all these mockups in their own post.