What is Graphic Design as a Service?

Graphic design as a Service is a subset of CaaS (Creative as a Service), where providers offer a productized approach to graphic design by providing a wide range of design services through a monthly or annual subscription.

Businesses of all sizes are frequently dealing with full capacity design teams that aren't able to deliver high-quality designs. As businesses grow, design needs are often forgotten and projects remain incomplete.

There are various alternatives accessible to tackle this problem while maintaining the quality of the designs. These options are:

• Option 1: Outsourcing to a freelancer or graphic design agency. This involves outsourcing the excess workload to either a freelancer marketplace or an agency. However, managing and onboarding freelancers can consume time, whereas agencies can be costly.
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• Option 2: Hiring in-house talent. This option includes employing more in-house talent, which incurs additional costs and responsibilities such as recruitment, onboarding, and employee retention.
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• Option 3: Subscribing to an online graphic design service. This entails partnering with graphic design services to obtain excellent design work on-demand and to explore unique design skills conveniently.

Many businesses use online graphic design services when they are unable to hire an in-house graphic designer, frustrated with freelance graphic designers, or unable to afford expensive agencies.

To speed up your selection and avoid excessive sales pitches, you can compare the key differences between the available services below. We provide a comparison that separates the marketing messaging from the actual features to give you a clear picture of what you will receive.

Graphic Design Services

These graphic design services are all a great alternative to graphic design agencies for anyone dealing with a high volume of digital assets and creative content. Whether you need logo design, visual identity, custom illustrations, and even web design, the list below will help you find a good graphic designer for your business:

1. Teamtown

A monthly graphic design service established in 2021, Teamtown covers everything marketers and businesses need from video editing to graphic design. That includes digital ads, logo design, print design, ui ux, social media graphics, brand identity, and more.

Teamtown offers an entire design team rather than a singular designer. Our graphic designers specialize in the areas they work best, meaning the designer from your team most suited for your request will always get assigned. Your team also features a design manager and quality control manager to keep your design process smooth and the design quality high, always available to help with any questions or concerns.

The process is simple:

1. Submit design requests in your design portal by filling out a creative brief
2. Provide feedback on the finished copy
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Teamtown has been trusted by some pretty awesome brands including Trader Joes, Evian, Jeep, and Staples. Plus, you can communicate with your Team on Slack without having to leave the workspace.

Pricing: Teamtown is a cost effective solution, with plans ranging from $499 to $1,995 per month depending on the design you need.

Team: We hire designers with a minimum of 3 years work experience as a designer in their specific field. Our team is also comprised of Design Managers and Quality Assurance managers to keep the design quality high. Our team is built from our global community and network that we've grown for years.

Delivery time: 24-48 hours. Sometimes same-day revisions depending on the size and complexity.

Features:

• Live collaboration on Slack
• Design portal for design request submission, design management, asset storage, feedback and revisions
• Monthly subscription model, scale up and down easily as you please
• Brand consistency with a dedicated design team
• Source files with any request
• Unlimited revisions

Scope of work:

• Social media graphics
• Presentation design
• Business logo design
• Landing pages and website design
• Ad creative
• Print design
• Packaging design
• Email design
• Video editing
• Motion graphics
• Most graphic design needs

2. Superside

Superside offers an impressive range of graphic design services with a clear message of quality, efficiency and speed. They create a tailor-made subscription plan to match the graphic design solutions and scale you're looking for.

Like Teamtown, Superside plans provide a vetted design team that includes their own design management team. While Superside is clearly a top notch design service, the prices are much higher than average with plans starting at $5,000 per month (paid annually). Their quality seems to match most top-level graphic design agencies.‍

Pricing: $5,000-$15,000 per month.

Team: Superside hires from top-tier agencies such as Sancho BBDOO, Ogilvy & Mathe, and McCann. Superside's plans also come with Design Directors and Creative Project Managers who assist with the onboarding process and work with your brand.

Delivery time: 12-48 hours.

Features:

• Collaboration platform for brand asset storage, messaging with your team for briefing, feedback and revisions, and storing the assets you created with Superside. You can integrate communication in Slack, too. You can also add as many team members as you like.
• A robust onboarding process.
• Scales with your needs to consistently hit turnaround times and capabilities required, including revisions.

Scope of work:

• Social media graphics
• Presentation design
• Logos
• Landing pages and websites
• Ad creative
• Print design
• Packaging design
• Email design
• Video editing
• Motion graphics
• Almost all graphic design and video design services

3. Design Pickle

Design Pickle is the original monthly graphic design solution. They have their own proprietary software that puts design requests in a queue system, and their customer base is mostly made up of small to medium sized businesses.

Design Pickle pairs you up with a singular graphic designer or motion designers that you work with on a regular basis. If your designer stops responding or goes on vacation, they'll pair you up with a new designer. This can create issues when it comes to brand consistency (although this is the model that most graphic design services follow).

If your business needs more volume and more active requests than what you currently have, Design Pickle gives you the ability to onboard a new designer. This can once again cause problems if you need something designed specifically if your designer doesn't specialize in that area.

All in all, Design Pickle is a simple answer for a business needing quick design, they have one of the best design portals on the market, but you may run into issues with quality and consistency.

Pricing: $499-$1695 per month.

Team: Design Pickle uses a communication and skills assessment test to sift through application. Applicants only need to pass the test, have advanced knowledge of Adobe tools and have a good internet connection to join. Their team cons.

Delivery time: Usually 24-48 hours (More complex projects can take much longer).

Features:

• Top notch design portal, allowing you to store assets, provide feedback, request revisions, and some useful integrations with popular work tools
• A self service system and onboarding, allowing you to get started with little friction
• 30 day money-back guarantee

Scope of work:

• Social media graphics
• Presentation design
• Logos
• Landing pages and websites
• Ad creative
• Print design
• Packaging design
• Email design
• Motion design
• Almost all graphic design services, and motion graphics on their most costly plan

4. Designed.co

Designed.co is a monthly design service that hires out of North America only. They have their own design portal that allows you to collaborate and organize design requests, and their team comes with a project manager and design director in addition to their designers.

Unlike most unlimited graphic design services, Designed.co offers one-off designs for $750 each. That can be a huge help for digital marketing agencies experiencing overflow.

Pricing: $2500-$10,000 per month.

Team: Located in North America, ability to provide professional graphic design services, ample knowledge of the Adobe creative suite, viewable social media, website or portfolio.

Delivery time: 1-2 days on most projects.

Features:

• Design portal to collaborate, manage your account, and store assets on.
• A design team to support designers, including a project manager and art director

Scope of work:

• Print design
• Branding
• Digital
• Packaging
• Presentations
• Photography
• Most graphic design requests

5. Design Joy

Design Joy was founded by Brett Williams in 2017 as a way to offer professional graphic design and Webflow development as a subscription. Customers will be surprised to find that Brett takes care of all the design services personally, with occasional help from partner designers.

Design Joy will get you effective graphic design, but at a price. Their plans start at $4995 for monthly and $3955 for yearly. This can be a great option if you're looking for web development, as they offer in-house Webflow development as an add-on service.

Pricing: From $4995 for monthly plans to $3955 for yearly.

Team: You work directly with the founder, with occasional help from partners.

Delivery time: 48 hours or less, sometimes longer depending on the size and quality of your request:

Features:

• Work one-on-one with the founder
• Webflow development for $999/mo (Only if you're already subscribed to a base plan)
• Beautiful website design
• Design portal built into Trello, allowing for all of Trello's capability to be used

Scope of work:

• Most graphic design services from logos and brand identity to billboards and event banners.
• Website design and development (development as an add-on).

6. ManyPixels

Manypixels offers a wide range of digital design and graphic design services by pairing you up with a singular dedicated designer that you directly work with on all of your requests. If you need more output, you can easily upgrade to their middle plan and get access to an extra active design slot.

Each plan comes with access to their design portal, where you can submit unlimited design requests and organize their queue based on priority.

Pricing: $549-$1199 per month.

Team: Applicants require a minimum of 3 years experience as a designer and expert knowledge of the Adobe creative suite and good design.

Delivery time: 1-2 day delivery.

Features:

• Design portal that allows you to collaborate with your designers, store assets, add additional users, and manage your account
• Free illustration library
• 14-day money back guarantee
• Self-service onboarding

Scope of work:

• Most graphic design services, anywhere from blog graphics and business cards to illustrations and logos
• Website design services

7. Dark Roast

DarkRoast offers graphic design projects for DTC and CPG brands. Their pricing plan is simple, with one singular plan at $1995 per month. They offer design services specialized in several industries such as cannabis, beverages, e-commerce, and CPG.

You get paired up with one full time designer to help you through all your digital assets. Their turnaround time is on par with most unlimited design services at 1-3 days for most designs.

Pricing: $1995/mo.

Team: Dark Roast hires graphic designers that specialize in CPG and e-commerce.

Delivery time: 1-3 days.

Features:

• Simple one plan, flat rate pricing
• Work with one dedicated designer
• Photography

Scope of work:

• All graphic design services that a CPG or e-commerce brand would need

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8. Reel Unlimited

With startups as their target audience, Reel Unlimited can be a great choice for fast growing companies and those looking to build brand identity. They'll cover most of your graphic design needs, but they also offer content writing and video editing services which is something most graphic designer services don't do.

Pricing: $945-$1755 per month.

Team: Designers need a minimum of 2 years design experience to apply, and get paid based on the number of projects they deliver.

Delivery time: 24-48 hour turnaround time.

Features:

• A design portal to organize design projects and collaborate on designs
• Optimized SEO content

Scope of work:

• Copywriting
• Video editing
• Website design services
• Most graphic design services that a startup would need

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9. Penji

Penji is a great unlimited graphic design service for small businesses and agencies that have straightforward design requests. They have a design portal that clients can use to collaborate on their design requests, and Penji's plans get you paired up with 1-2 designers depending on what subscription you choose. Similar to Design Pickle, they've been in the industry for a very long time with straightforward and simple plans. Penji works on opposite timezones, often making revisions complicated. This also means Penji can't offer live-collaboration on Slack.

Pricing: $499-$1995 per month.

Team: Only the top 2% of designers that complete Penji's design test are hired.

‍Delivery time: 1-2 turnaround (same-day turnaround available on costlier plan.

Features:

• Design portal to organize design services
• 1-2 dedicated graphic designers depending on which plan you choose
• 15-day money back guarantee

Scope of work:

• Animation
• Branding
• Digital
• Prints
• Illustrations
• Presentations
• Web and app

10. Shuttlerock

Shuttlerock specializes in designing video ad creatives for Pinterest, Amazon, Tiktok, Meta, and Linkedin. Their plans come with access to a design portal for the organizing and management of their design services, but most impressive of all, an API connection that allows you to post your creative assets to your social media channels without leaving the portal.

A unique feature that they offer is Shuttlerock Live, where you and your designer can sit together live in order to co-design your next ad. This is huge for live collaboration, which you normally wont find with a digital agency.

Pricing: $7,500/month for an annual membership when billed quarterly. If you bill annually, the price is reduced to $6,500 per month. You also have the option to commit to three years, which lowers the price to $72,000 per year.

Team: Shuttlerock hires full time designers from a wide range of skills and areas. Depending on the level of skill you need, your graphic designer could either be a seasoned expert or fresh out of school.

Delivery time: 3-5 days, unless you use Shuttlerock live.

Features:

• Robust design portal that enables collaboration for design services and the ability to post directly to your social media channels via an API.
• A Design Strategist dedicated to your account, trained on social media best practices
• Innovative formats such as AR, VR, and motion ads.

Scope of work:

• Static ad creatives
• Motion/video ad creatives
• VR
• AR

Graphic Design as a Service vs Graphic Design Agencies

GDaaS platforms are challenging traditional graphic design agencies by offering cost-effective, subscription-based pricing models and faster turnaround times with automated, AI-driven design tools. The choice between the two comes down to specific business needs and budget, with agencies often better suited for large, complex design needs and GDaaS platforms more suitable for consistent design needs and smaller budgets.

How to choose the right graphic designer for your business

Choosing the right design solution for your business is often an unwanted headache, albeit an important one. We've put together quick guide on how to choose the the right graphic design service for your business to make it easier for you.