Can I claim expenses for business-related stock photos, fonts, or templates?

Understanding what “claiming expenses” really means

When people ask, “Can I claim expenses for business-related stock photos, fonts, or templates?”, they’re usually asking whether they can deduct those costs from their business income for tax purposes. In plain English, that means: can you treat the purchase as a legitimate business cost so it reduces your taxable profit?

In most tax systems, the underlying principle is consistent: if an expense is incurred wholly and exclusively for the purpose of running your business (or primarily for business where apportionment is allowed), it’s generally deductible. Stock images used in marketing, licensed fonts used in client work, or design templates used to produce business deliverables often fit that definition. But there are important details: whether the purchase is truly business-related, whether it’s a recurring subscription or a one-off acquisition, whether it creates a longer-lasting asset, and how you keep evidence of business use.

This article walks through the key ideas that typically determine deductibility and gives practical examples for common situations: freelancers, agencies, e-commerce businesses, content creators, and small companies building brand assets. While tax rules vary by country, the decision logic is usually similar: you need a clear business purpose, correct categorization (expense vs capital), and good records.

What counts as a “business-related” digital asset?

Stock photos, fonts, and templates are digital assets you license, subscribe to, or purchase to create business outputs. The cost may be deductible if the asset is used to generate revenue or support business activities. Here’s how each category tends to show up in real business life:

Stock photos and stock videos are commonly used for websites, blog posts, ads, brochures, email marketing, social media campaigns, pitch decks, client presentations, and internal training materials. If you’re using them to promote or deliver business services, they’re typically business-related.

Fonts may be purchased as a one-time license, a subscription, or as part of a design platform. If you use the font to produce client deliverables, brand identity, packaging, advertisements, or a company website, the business connection is usually straightforward.

Templates may include website themes, slide decks, invoice templates, social media packs, Canva-style template sets, UI kits, email templates, resumes (if you’re in business and the resume is marketing collateral), and project files such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, or After Effects templates. If the template is used in the ordinary course of business, it often qualifies as a deductible cost.

The key is that it must be tied to business activity. A stock photo subscription you use mostly for a personal blog may not be deductible for a design agency. Likewise, a premium font used only for personal wedding invitations isn’t a business expense. The same purchase can be deductible for one person and not for another depending on the context.

Expense vs capital: why categorization matters

A big reason people get confused is that digital purchases don’t always behave like traditional consumables. Some costs are “revenue expenses” (deducted in the year you incur them). Others are “capital expenses” (treated more like an investment in a longer-term asset), which may be deducted differently—often over time through depreciation, amortization, or capital allowances depending on your jurisdiction.

Revenue expenses generally include day-to-day operating costs: subscriptions, short-term licenses, and purchases that are consumed in producing work. For example, a monthly stock photo subscription used for regular marketing is typically a revenue expense.

Capital expenses generally relate to acquiring or creating assets that provide benefit over multiple years—like building a new website, buying an expensive long-term license, or purchasing a bundle that will be used as a core part of your brand for years. Whether a “one-time” font license is capital or revenue can depend on the cost, the nature of the license, and how your tax authority treats intangible assets.

In practice, many small businesses treat most stock image licenses, small template purchases, and modest font licensing as ordinary business expenses, particularly when they’re low-cost and used routinely. But if you’re spending substantial amounts on a brand identity system, a custom type family license for multiple devices/users, or a large library acquired for long-term use, it’s worth checking how your local rules treat intangible assets. Proper classification helps you avoid problems later if someone asks why you deducted everything immediately.

Licensing is not optional: your deduction should match your legal use

Even if you never get audited for tax, you can still run into issues if you use stock photos, fonts, or templates outside the license terms. From a business standpoint, the “expense” is usually tied to the right to use the asset. If you didn’t purchase a license that covers your business usage, you may be exposed to legal claims and may have a harder time justifying the expense if challenged.

That doesn’t mean you need to become a licensing expert. It does mean you should be able to show that you paid for the appropriate license for the way you used the asset. For example:

Stock photos: some licenses cover standard marketing usage, while extended licenses may be needed for resale items, merchandise, product packaging, or high-volume distribution.

Fonts: font licenses often specify the number of users, devices, or seats; whether the font can be embedded in websites/apps; whether it can be used in logos; and whether it can be included in client deliverables.

Templates: templates may be licensed for single-use, multi-use, or for use in client projects. Some marketplaces restrict redistribution or require separate licenses per end product.

From a tax perspective, the practical point is this: your business expense should reflect legitimate business use. If a purchase is made for business but used in a way that violates the license, you can create downstream problems. So keep license confirmations and align your usage with what you paid for.

When stock photos are clearly deductible

Stock photos are often the simplest to justify because they are directly tied to marketing and content production. Here are scenarios where the business link is typically clear:

Marketing materials: paid ads, social posts, landing pages, brochures, flyers, posters, event materials, and newsletters that support business sales or brand awareness.

Website content: images used on a company website, service pages, blog posts created to attract customers, case studies, and portfolio pages.

Client work: if you’re a designer, marketer, or content creator and you use stock photos as part of deliverables you sell to clients, the expense is generally integral to earning revenue.

Internal use: training slides, internal documentation, or presentations used for business operations can also qualify, particularly if the images are necessary and not purely decorative.

It gets trickier when the same subscription is used for both business and personal projects. In that case, you often need to apportion the cost based on usage. If 80% of the downloads are for client work and 20% are personal, you may only claim 80%. The best approach is to keep a reasonable record of how you determined the split.

When fonts are deductible—and what makes fonts complicated

Fonts can be a standard cost of doing business for designers, agencies, publishers, and brand-focused companies. In many cases, font expenses are deductible because they enable you to produce the work you sell. If your product is design, branding, marketing, or content, fonts are often like tools.

However, fonts are also an area where classification and licensing can get more nuanced. Consider these common font-related expenses:

Desktop font licenses: you install fonts on your computer to use in documents and designs. If those designs are business outputs, the cost is typically business-related.

Webfont licenses: you pay to use fonts on a website. If the website supports your business, the expense is typically business-related. If you’re building a website for a client, the cost may be a pass-through expense or included in your project pricing depending on your billing model.

App embedding licenses: if you’re embedding fonts into software, that may be a specialized license and could be more substantial in cost. This can start to look more like an intangible asset investment, depending on the size and nature of the project.

Typeface subscriptions: recurring fees for font libraries are often straightforward operating expenses, similar to software subscriptions.

The complication is often not whether fonts are business-related, but whether the purchase should be treated as an ordinary expense or something more enduring. Another complication is whether the license is held by you or by the client. If a client must own the font license (common in branding projects), you might bill the client for it and treat it as a reimbursed cost rather than your own business expense. Clarity in your invoicing and bookkeeping matters here.

Templates, themes, and digital packs: deductible in many cases

Templates are frequently purchased to save time and ensure consistent output—two very business-driven reasons. They are widely used across industries, from consultants buying slide deck templates to e-commerce owners buying product listing templates to developers purchasing UI kits.

Typical template expenses that may be deductible include:

Website themes and plugins: if your business relies on a website, the costs to build and maintain it often count as business expenses. Depending on how significant the project is, some components may be treated as part of a larger capital project, but many routine theme/plugin costs are treated as ongoing expenses.

Presentation templates: used for client proposals, training, sales decks, and pitches. If these contribute to winning work or delivering services, they’re business-related.

Design templates: social media post packs, ad templates, brochure templates, and branding kits used to create marketing output.

Document templates: contracts, policies, onboarding documents, and invoice templates can be business-related, especially if purchased from reputable vendors to support operations.

One area to watch: if the template is purchased primarily for personal use and only incidentally used for business, a full deduction may not be appropriate. For example, buying a wedding invitation template and also using the design style for a business flyer doesn’t make the whole cost business-related. Your purpose at the time of purchase matters.

Mixed-use purchases and apportionment

Many creative tools blur the line between personal and business use, especially for freelancers and sole proprietors. You might run your business from the same laptop you use for personal projects. You might maintain both a personal Instagram and a business account. You might create client work during the day and personal art at night.

If you buy stock assets and use them for both, you may need to apportion the cost. Apportionment means claiming only the business portion of the expense. How do you do that in a practical way?

Use a reasonable method: you could base it on the number of downloads used for business vs personal, the percentage of time spent on business projects, or the proportion of revenue-generating work that required those assets.

Document your logic: you don’t need to create a complicated spreadsheet for every purchase, but it helps to keep notes that show how you arrived at the percentage.

Be consistent: if you apportion internet costs by a certain method, use a similar logic for other mixed-use costs where possible.

For example, if you have a stock photo subscription and your download history shows 120 assets used in client projects and 30 used in personal projects over a year, you might claim 80% of the subscription. You don’t need perfect accuracy, but you need a defensible rationale.

Client reimbursements: who “claims” the expense?

Another common situation is purchasing assets for a client project. Suppose you are building a website for a client and you need stock photos, fonts, or a template. You have a few ways to handle the cost:

1) You buy it and include the cost in your fee. In this case, it’s typically your business expense, and your income includes whatever you charged the client. The expense and the income both sit in your books.

2) You buy it and bill it separately as a reimbursable expense. You still record the cost and the reimbursement. Some businesses record the reimbursement as income; others net it off against expenses depending on accounting practices. The important part is clarity and consistency.

3) The client buys the asset directly. In this case, it’s the client’s expense, not yours, and you avoid licensing confusion about ownership. This is common for fonts and some template licenses that are intended to be owned by the end user.

Which approach is best depends on your workflow and the license terms. If the license requires the end client to be the license holder (common with certain font licenses and marketplaces), then option 3 may be the cleanest. If the license allows agency use across multiple client projects (common with subscriptions), then option 1 or 2 can work well.

Subscriptions vs one-time purchases

Digital assets are increasingly sold through subscriptions. Subscriptions tend to be easier to treat as ongoing business expenses because they are recurring costs that provide ongoing access. One-time purchases can be equally deductible, but they sometimes raise questions about whether you’ve acquired an enduring asset.

Subscriptions may include monthly or annual access to a stock library, a font service, or a template platform. These costs are typically operational: you pay for access during a period, and if you stop paying you may lose access to new downloads (though you often retain license rights to what you downloaded during the subscription, depending on the provider). Operational costs are usually the bread and butter of deductible expenses.

One-time purchases can range from a $15 template to a multi-thousand license for a type family across many users. For smaller purchases used routinely in business output, people often treat them as normal expenses. For larger purchases that become part of the long-term brand infrastructure or a significant product build, you may need to consider whether the purchase is more like an investment in an intangible asset.

A practical rule many businesses follow is materiality: if it’s low-cost and routine, treat it as an expense; if it’s substantial and long-lasting, consider capitalization. But “substantial” is context-dependent. A solo freelancer might treat $300 as substantial; a growing agency might not. Your local tax rules and accounting standards can also set thresholds or expectations.

What if I use the assets in a logo or brand identity?

Brand identity work is an area where expenses can feel both operational and long-term. A company logo, brand guidelines, and core typography may last for years. So can you claim the stock photos used in the brand refresh? Can you claim the font license for the brand typeface? Can you claim the template that formed the basis of a brand deck?

Often yes, these costs are business-related because they support your business identity and marketing. The bigger question is timing and categorization: should you deduct them immediately or treat them as part of creating a longer-term intangible asset?

From a practical viewpoint:

Stock photos used in a brand launch (website hero images, campaign imagery, social graphics) are commonly treated as marketing expenses.

Fonts used as core brand typography are business-related, but whether they’re treated as a routine expense or capitalized can depend on cost and how the font is acquired. A modest annual font subscription used for brand work often stays in the expense bucket. A large, perpetual license purchased specifically for long-term brand infrastructure could be treated differently.

Templates used to create brand materials are typically business-related. If they are part of a major website build or product launch, they may end up grouped into the broader project accounting.

If you’re unsure, the safe approach is to keep detailed notes showing business purpose and to seek professional advice when costs become large or the project is clearly long-term infrastructure rather than day-to-day operations.

Common industries and how these expenses show up

Sometimes it helps to see how different businesses legitimately use these purchases.

Freelance designers and agencies: stock images for mockups and campaigns; fonts for branding and layouts; templates for faster production and consistent quality. These are often core input costs.

Content creators and marketers: images and video clips for blog posts, thumbnails, ads, and social posts; templates for repetitive content formats; fonts for consistent visual identity.

E-commerce stores: stock photos for lifestyle imagery where product photography isn’t available; templates for product listings, ads, emails, and landing pages; fonts for packaging and website styling.

Consultants and coaches: slide deck templates, workbook templates, and branded document templates; stock images for presentations and lead magnets; fonts for branded materials.

Software and app businesses: fonts and UI kits for product interfaces; templates for landing pages; stock media for marketing sites and onboarding content. Licensing can become more specialized here, especially with embedding fonts in apps.

Records you should keep to support your claim

You don’t need to build a paper fortress, but you do need enough evidence to show the expense is legitimate and business-related. Good records also save you time when you’re doing bookkeeping, preparing returns, or working with an accountant.

Here’s what helps:

Invoices and receipts: keep proof of purchase showing the vendor, date, amount, and what was purchased. Many digital platforms provide downloadable invoices—save them.

License confirmations: keep a copy of the license terms or at least the confirmation of the license type (standard vs extended, number of seats, web/app use). If terms change later, having a copy from the purchase time can be valuable.

Business purpose notes: a short note in your accounting software can be enough: “Stock images for spring campaign ads” or “Font license for client brand identity project.”

Client project links: if it’s for a client, reference the client name and project. If you use project codes, include them in the transaction memo.

Apportionment method: if mixed-use, keep a simple record of the business percentage and how you arrived at it.

Good documentation isn’t just about audits. It helps you make better pricing decisions because you can see your real cost of delivery and marketing.

VAT, sales tax, and cross-border purchases

Depending on where you live and where the vendor is based, you may pay VAT, GST, sales tax, or other digital services taxes on stock assets, fonts, or templates. Whether you can reclaim that tax depends on your registration status and local rules.

From a practical standpoint:

If you are registered for VAT/GST and the purchase is a business expense, you may be able to reclaim input tax, subject to the usual conditions.

If you buy from overseas vendors the invoice may show reverse charge mechanisms, local VAT rules, or no tax charged. How you record it depends on your tax system.

If you are not registered you typically treat the total cost (including any VAT/sales tax charged) as the expense.

This topic can get technical quickly. The key takeaway is to store invoices properly and ensure your accounting records capture the right tax treatment. If your business frequently buys digital services from international vendors, it’s worth getting advice on how those purchases should be handled in your bookkeeping system.

Grey areas and frequent mistakes to avoid

Even when the overall answer is “yes, you can usually claim those expenses,” people still stumble in a few predictable ways.

Calling personal spending “business inspiration”: buying a bundle of templates because you like the aesthetic, without a clear plan to use it for business, is risky. The clearer the business purpose, the safer the claim.

Claiming costs that are primarily personal: if you run a business but use assets mainly for personal projects, claiming the full amount can create problems. Apportion where appropriate.

Ignoring license restrictions: using a standard stock license for merchandise, or embedding fonts in an app without the right license, can lead to legal issues. Tax deductibility doesn’t fix licensing noncompliance.

Double counting reimbursed costs: if a client reimburses you for a font license and you also claim it without recording the reimbursement properly, your books may not reflect reality. Record both sides of the transaction.

Lumping everything into “software” or “misc” without notes: broad categories aren’t automatically wrong, but they can make it harder to justify a deduction later. Add clear memos.

Practical examples

Example 1: A social media manager buys stock photos
A social media manager pays for a monthly stock photo subscription to create posts and ads for clients. The subscription is used solely for business. This is typically a straightforward operating expense. The manager keeps invoices and notes like “Client social content production.”

Example 2: A freelancer buys a font for a client logo
A designer purchases a font license to create a logo and brand system for a client. If the license is meant to be owned by the client, the designer may ask the client to purchase it directly or invoice it as a reimbursable cost. If the designer purchases it and uses it legitimately within the license, it is still a business-related cost. The bookkeeping should reflect whether it was reimbursed.

Example 3: An e-commerce owner buys a website theme
An online store purchases a theme and a few premium plugins. The purchases support the business website. Many businesses treat these as deductible expenses, especially when they are routine costs for maintaining the site. If the theme purchase is part of a major rebuild that creates a substantially new website, some may treat it as part of a larger project cost. Keeping notes on the purpose helps.

Example 4: A creator uses stock footage for both business and personal use
A YouTuber uses stock footage for monetized videos and also for personal projects. They track downloads and determine that 70% of footage was used in monetized content. They claim 70% of the subscription cost and keep a simple record of the calculation.

Example 5: A startup embeds fonts in an app
A software company licenses a font for embedding in its app interface. The license fee is significant and covers multi-year use. The expense is business-related, but it may need careful classification and correct licensing. The company keeps the license agreement and invoices, and the finance team decides how to treat it based on local rules and materiality.

How to categorize these expenses in bookkeeping

Bookkeeping categories vary, but you’ll make life easier if you group these costs in a logical way. Here are common approaches:

Marketing or advertising: stock photos used in campaigns, social media ads, and promotional materials often fit here.

Cost of goods sold (COGS) or direct costs: if you sell design services and the assets are direct inputs into client deliverables, some businesses treat them as direct costs.

Software and subscriptions: if the assets are acquired via platforms that function like software subscriptions, this can be a tidy category.

Design resources or creative assets: some businesses create a separate category for clarity, especially agencies and creators.

Consistency matters more than perfection. Choose a structure that helps you understand your business costs and stick with it across the year. Add transaction memos so you can quickly identify what the cost was for.

If you’re a sole trader, freelancer, or limited company: does it change the answer?

The core logic—business purpose and proper records—doesn’t change much, but the way you document and report expenses may differ depending on your business structure and local tax rules.

Sole traders/freelancers: mixed-use issues come up more often because personal and business life can overlap. Apportionment and clear notes are especially important.

Limited companies/corporations: expenses are typically recorded within the company accounts. The separation between personal and business spending is often clearer, but you still need to ensure purchases are for company purposes and properly authorized.

No matter the structure, the question “Was this purchased for business?” remains central.

Checklist: a simple way to decide if you can claim it

If you want a quick practical test, run through these questions:

1) What is the business purpose? Can you explain how the asset helps you earn income or run the business?

2) Is it used for business, personal, or both? If both, can you reasonably apportion the cost?

3) Do you have proof of purchase? Invoice, receipt, and payment record.

4) Do you have evidence of the license? Confirmation of the license type and terms relevant to your usage.

5) Is the cost routine or significant? If significant and long-term, consider whether it should be treated differently than a normal expense.

If you can answer these cleanly, you’re usually in good shape.

Conclusion: yes, usually—if the business link is real and you keep good records

In most cases, you can claim expenses for business-related stock photos, fonts, and templates because they are legitimate costs incurred to market your business or deliver work to clients. Stock photos used in advertising and content, font licenses used in professional design output, and templates used to create business materials are often ordinary operating costs.

The main things that change the answer are not the type of asset, but the context: whether the purchase is genuinely for business, whether it’s mixed-use, whether you’re following the license terms, and whether the cost is part of a larger long-term project that might be treated differently in accounting.

If you treat these purchases like any other business input—buy the correct license, keep invoices, write a short note about the purpose, and apportion where needed—you’ll have a clean, defensible position and a clearer picture of what it really costs to run your business.