10 Sites for Free and Cheap Fonts
I’m a bit of a lettering geek, and the topic recently came up on Twitter about where to get cheap or free fonts that are legitimate and quality.
It might be overstating it a bit to say that tweet has gone viral, but it has had intense interest and lots of likes. Clearly, this is information people are looking for.
I’ve spent way too much time shopping around font sites for a guy who doesn’t do design for a living. I have this knowledge. I should share.
Here we go:
One Quick Pedantic Point
Yes, there’s a difference between fonts and font families and typefaces.
I’m basically just going to use the word “font” throughout this article. At times, it might not be technically correct, but at least everyone will understand what I’m talking about.
A Licensing Warning: You Want Cheap and Free Fonts for Commercial Use
Even when purchasing fonts from legitimate sites, make sure you know what you’re getting. If you ever want to use a font for commercial purposes — say, on a website with ads on it, a comic you’re planning on selling, etc. — you need a commercial license.
You get that with most of the fonts on the sites I’m about to list, but pay particular attention to the freebie fonts. Sometimes, they’re free because they’re for hobby purposes or home use only (like that scrapbook you keep in the back of your closet).
Some cheap font packages are free because you only get a couple styles — regular and bold, for example — and have to pay to get the rest of the weights or styles. (In researching this piece, I saw one “free” font family where it was only the dingbats that were free. The A-Z characters were paid only.)
Webfonts are an additional charge. It gives you license to include the font on your website and have it be displayed with the proper markup.
In other words, a regular license will let you create a JPG graphic with an image created using that font. You need a webfont license, though, to embed the font on your website to make the H1 tags use those letters in that style of font.
Font Styles
If you’re looking for dialogue fonts for your comics, this will be a tricky path to get there.
Most of the fonts I’ve seen on the cheap or free sites are script style fonts, often touting their special ligatures. That will work for some cartoonists, particularly those looking for mixed-case fonts, or perhaps something that resembles journal entries, etc.
For example, I see a lot of autiobiographical comics on Instagram by French women that use script or mixed case fonts. (See Margaux Motin or Mathou or la_banAnne.) That seems to be a specific style for those. Those are often paired with colored balloons behind the letters. For that particular genre, the script style is a good choice.
But if you’re looking for block capital letters for dialogue purposes, those are fewer and farther between. You might be better off waiting for the next Comicraft New Year’s Sale and getting one of their fonts for just over $20.
The first site I’ll get into carries some of those, though, so stay tuned….
You can also find lots of cheap signage fonts. Those are the ones that will look good on signs in buildings in the background of your Times Square wide angle shot, or on a soda can on the desk next to your autobio avatar. They’ll work well for story titles, too.
Let’s take a look at some sites you can go shopping at today!
And, yes, I’ve actually bought fonts at most of these sites.
Font Quality
Not all fonts are built alike.
Generally speaking, it is true that you get what you pay for.
I’ve seen and downloaded a lot of these fonts and found plenty that have awkward kerning and limited choices as far as weights and styles goes.
But, hey, if you’re looking at a free font, go ahead and download it and try it first. Just don’t get attached to it until you’ve used it and can see whether it’s good or not.
I’ve had a much better track record with fonts I’ve paid as little as $5 for. Honestly, even the dollar fonts are better, on average.
10 Sites for Cheap Fonts and Free Fonts
1. Blambot.com
Nate Piekos’ Blambot foundry specializes in fonts made specifically for comics. Of all the sites mentioned here, he’s the guy you want to go to for a comic book dialogue lettering font that’s affordable.
He has a large backlist of free fonts. While there is a font index, that just gives you the names. You’ll need to click through on the three different collections (from the “Font” tab at the top of the page) to see what they look like. Look for the “F” in a word balloon next to the font for the free ones.
You’ll recognize a few of these fonts, as they’ve been used by webcomics and small press people for years. (“Anime Ace” feels particularly popular to me.)
The license for the fonts is described like this:
Free for small press/indie comic creators and non-profit use.
So if you’re working on your own comics project, you’re free and clear.
2. The Hungry JPEG
The Hungry JPEG sells all manner of design elements and fonts. They range in cost anywhere from $1 to about $20.
You can jump straight to their selection of dollar fonts.
If that’s too much for you, try their list of freebies.
These all come with the site’s “Complete License,” which allows for use commercially, though you can’t embed it or redistribute it. Click on that link for more details, but it’s pretty straightforward.
They accept credit cards and PayPal for payment.
3. Free Design Resources
Fonts, graphics, templates, and even mock-ups — they’re all free on this site, as you’d expect.
There are a few exceptions, but just about every item I clicked on here is offering a Personal License only with a link to go buy the commercial license.
This feels like a portfolio site — creators have their demos available here to invite you to come visit their larger portfolios and their own sites, or to buy commercial licenses.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is an important distinction for your font usage. Don’t use a Personal License font on a commercial project.
4. Creative Fabrica
Similar to Hungry JPEG, Creative Fabrica offers a wealth of design elements and fonts. In 2018, they had a mailing list that gave you a free font or design element a day for 300 days. I downloaded a few of those…
They have a special Discount Deals page with a rotating series of fonts for a dollar.
Regular fonts range up to about $15. You also get some freebies and some bundles that have ridiculously good offers.
You can buy store credit and get some extra money, too. If you pre-pay $10 or more, they’ll give you an extra 10% bonus. If you go over $100, they’ll spot you 15%.
They also have a subscription deal. For $19, you can subscribe to all their fonts, but there are limits to what you can do with them after your subscription lapses. (Basically, whatever you created during the subscription can be used forever, but you can’t make anything new with those fonts.)
They accept a bunch of different credit cards as well as PayPal.
5. DesignCuts.com
Design Cuts likes to sell bundles that’ll come in at $20 or $30. There’s lots of good fonts and design elements in there, but it’s a little bit more of a premium if you’re used to dollar fonts and freebies. When you’re ready to move up, here’s a good stepping stone.
I bought some vintage maps images from this site once. I used it once, so far, on an Asterix-related story’s header image. During their fifth anniversary sale last year, I was able to buy a legitimate license for Futura for $5. I jumped at that chance.
They accept credit cards (via Stripe) and PayPal.
6. CreativeMarket.com
This site is good for bundle deals. Individual fonts usually start around $12 or $14 and go up to $40. They’re really pushing you towards bundles that run between $15 and $30 that I see up there right now.
You’re paying a bit more than the rest of the sites I’ve listed so far, but the quality is there. There are no cheap slapdash fonts up there that I see at first glance.
There’s one twist with this site when it comes to paying for your fonts. There are two ways to pay. You can straight up use a credit card. Or, if you want to use PayPal, you have to buy at least $20 worth of credits. This, of course, is annoying when you just wanted to buy one $12 font. That kind of problem hit me once and that’s the reason I now have a dollar’s worth of credit at the site. (I needed to own the Belgium font.)
It’s a bit more to buy stuff on the site, but it sure is fun to look around. They have some great fonts up there.
7. FontBundles.net
Stop me if this sounds familiar: FontBundles offers cheap fonts, frequent deals, and bundles.
Their big twist is their Dollar Deals. (These are done through their sister site, DesignBundles.net.) Every now and then, they put a couple dozen products on a flash sale. There’s a limited supply of each item, and the popular fonts will sell out relatively fast.
Get on their mailing list so you hear about when they start. There is a preview of the sale so you can see what it is you’d like in advance and can jump right on it. They do sell out of the most popular ones, but it’s usually not instant. It’ll take a few hours, that I’ve noticed.
You don’t need to, but you can buy store credit in advance and get a little bonus here, too. It starts at $20, but you get special 10% off pricing when you have that credit.
They accept credit cards, PayPal, and Apple Pay (!).
8. Pixel Surplus
Pixel Surplus has a big list of freebie fonts. You need to give them your email address to subscribe to their newsletter to download them, but it’s a small price to pay. They also have plenty of upsells in the way of font bundles, which is what they really want you to buy.
Some fonts are personal use only, while others do include commercial licenses. It’s usually noted in the description at the top of the screen.
They accept credit cards and PayPal.
9. Mighty Deals
This is a Deal of the Day type site for designers. They often include font bundles.
The link I included here is for the search for fonts. You’ll find some single fonts for less than $10, and some bundles between $10 and $20. Some have an insane number of fonts in them, so this could be a good running start for you.
They even give you the option of paying a few bucks more to get the web font license so you can use it on your website.
You can pay through the usual credit cards, but also PayPal and Apple Pay.
10. YouWorkForThem.com
This site has a huge directory of fonts, many of which you also can find on the other sites I’ve mentioned.
Aside: I haven’t done a thorough review of this, but I bet there’s a ton of overlap amongst these sites. There’s only so many font creators out there…
To my eye, it’s the best-designed site on this list. It’s got a strong grid layout from the individual fonts through to the checkout and download screen. It’s impressive. The type is very small, but I have a big screen so it didn’t bother me.
It’s a great directory, also, with categories like Decorative, Blackletter, Wood Type, and always my favorite, Distressed. (Sadly, there’s no “Comics Dialogue” category.)
And checkout FontPath, which is their amazing way to give you a quick look at a ton of fonts they offer. It’s the single best way I’ve seen to comparison shop fonts.
Yes, there’s even a Free category. Again, read the licensing information carefully. This site is good about mapping it out, with a green button specifying your buying options. A lot of times you only get one weight for the font. You’re not getting the whole family, though this site will let you do that à la carte. Of all the sites on this list, this one has the most granular control of what you’re buying.
The rest of the fonts I clicked through on are approachable, though. They usually come in between $6 and $16. I even saw a couple on sale for less than $5. Again, those are usually for a very limited portion of the overall font family. But, then, you probably won’t be needing ten different weights for a font. You might be able to get away with just the $5 weight and call it a day.
They take credit cards and PayPal
Newsletter Tip
For all of these sites, subscribe to their newsletters. I can’t emphasize that enough. If you’re in the font market, you want to get their emails. Yes, you’ll get a lot of them, but every now and then you’ll find a nugget of gold in there.
If you’re looking to build a font collection, this is a good way to start.
You’ll eventually get tired of it and want to unsubscribe, but that’s easy enough to do. (The very bottom of any email, usually in small, grayed out type, there’s an “Unsubscribe” link. It has to be there by law.)
TL; DR: The Ultimate Free Font Directory
Here’s a quick cheat sheet. I went through all ten sites mentioned above and looked for a specific freebie font page. Here are the sites who have such a thing:
Blambot Font Index (Look for fonts with the “F” balloon next to it)
Creative Market Free Goods of the Week
Free Design Resources Font Page
As always, with all of these, read what the licensing options are before using in a commercial setting of any kind.
P.S.
Would you like an “Alternatives to Photoshop” article next? I have a few ideas for that, too. I had a killer Illustrator replacement, too, though it might not be right for lettering comics, exactly…
Personally, I think an article on comics software would be interesting, yes. Maybe even another article on the whole process / different styles (e.g. hand-painted versus all digital, etc.)