What is Creative as a Service (CaaS)? A Comprehensive Guide

Are you tired of juggling a million tasks and struggling to keep up with the demands of creating killer content for your business? We feel you! And if you're a small business, the challenge can sometimes feel even greater.

But what if you could have access to a dream team of top-notch creatives who will make your brand shine, all under flexible subscription plans, tailored to your needs? Say goodbye to the headache of managing multiple freelancers and hello to hassle-free, high-quality content creation. Let's get creative!

What is Creative as a Service (CaaS)?

Creative as a Service, or CaaS for short, is a service model that combines a variety of quality creative talent available at a fixed subscription cost, all in one place through one provider. By covering a wide range of creative services, including video editing, graphic design, branding, copywriting and more, CaaS allows companies to scale and sustain growth at the necessary rate to meet demands for today's design.

The CaaS provider takes care of everything from ideation to production and delivery, allowing businesses to focus on those important core activities.

Why is there a Need for Creative as a Service?

The demand for quality content is on the rise, and with no end in sight, creative teams are oftentimes overwhelmed as the company starts to scale. Design needs come flooding in at a rate that requires a compromise on quality, price, and speed.

In a 2020 survey by the WFA and The Observatory International, 48% of marketers noted that in-house creative teams have expressed the need to expand their skills and ability to handle numerous projects with fast turnaround times. With the constant expansion of technology and competition, there is a definite need for these gaps to be filled.

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But there’s a catch. How can you afford to hire so many experts in so many different niches? Cue flashbacks to scrolling through UpWork, bartering on prices that don’t feel fair for either party, and the dreaded process of onboarding every time a project arises.

Most of the time companies end up paying well over what they can afford just to cover the basics, with no time or money left for growth it can feel like you’re drowning.

How Creative as a Service Works

Enter the lifeboat, CaaS. CaaS providers like Teamtown are full of talented creatives that specialize in everything you need, now or as the need arises, for a flat monthly fee.

The process is as frictionless as possible: create a request for whatever you need, branding, social media graphics, video editing, website design, you name it - and your dedicated account manager will assign the best-suited designer for your project. Once they’ve been assigned, your designer looks over the request, gives you an estimated time of arrival, and gets to work.

Speed is everything nowadays, you need to be able to be ahead of the curve, like way ahead of the curve, and we get that; that's why we aim to deliver your request back to you each time in 24 hours, and just like your in-house team, our designers can assist you with any last minute needs you have.

What Sets a Creative as a Service Provider Apart

While CaaS typically includes a wide array of talent to complete your projects and a dedicated creative project manager, creative-as-a-service platforms like Teamtown go the extra mile by using a quality assurance team, providing exceptional expertise with everything in check and balance.

Since CaaS covers so many services, creative-as-a-service providers often have a wide array of processes and principles for every aspect of the business to follow. These processes are then integrated with a dashboard, to act as a home base for all your graphic design needs.

It's like having a whole team of creatives at your fingertips, ready to whip up some amazing creative projects content whenever you need it. And with providers like Teamtown, you don't have to break the bank to get the quality you require. Most CaaS providers provide flexible subscription plans on a subscription model, so you can pause or cancel anytime.

Understanding Creative Bottlenecks

We hear it all the time: growth is essential.

We also see firsthand how often design and marketing gets pushed to the side.

But here's the thing: Creative bottlenecks obstruct growth, and it's deeply important to address them sooner than later. The impact of creative bottleneck can vary from project timeline delays to a potential loss of clients, and these things often go unnoticed before it's too late.

The modern reliance on social media and technology has given birth to various outsourcing services, agencies and freelancing platforms that aim to eliminate the headache of content creation from your team's plate. Yet, these bottlenecks often stem from these very solutions. Paired with a lack of information sharing and non-transparent communication, teams can become frustrated while their design requests sit on the back burner.

Whether it's monitoring creative KPIs, optimizing campaign performance, or something as core as concept development, the traditional ways of hiring and outsourcing creatives is becoming more and more problematic and obsolete, which is where Creative as a Service comes into play.

Here's more reasons why there's a need for inherent scalability, and why the CaaS model fills in those gaps:

Freelancers/Agencies Are Only Temporary Solutions

Hiring freelancers, or partnering with a design agency on Upwork, might seem like the solution you need right now. After all, it is right now. But after looking closer and planning for the future, it starts to become a highly disjointed solution.

To start, hiring individual freelancers and agencies for different parts of your business is a time sink, not to mention the design bottlenecks that come with it. Having different team members own different freelancers, operating in their own silos, is a sure shot way to foster unsustainable design operations.

"Can you send me the new logo?", "Where can I get this design done?", "Is your freelancer available?"

These questions may seem like seconds to ask and answer, but can quickly add up to hours of time per day.

All of this creates hiccups throughout the whole process, slowing the creativity of your marketing team.

That's what CaaS eliminates. It creates a hassle-free process that lets businesses align their creative process, and mitigate the risks of hiccups.

You Can’t Hire Your Way Out

When times are tough, hiring gets even tougher. But even when times are easy, hiring can remain a slow and expensive process. If you're going to be hiring an expert for every single capability that you might need in your company, you'll be hiring until bankruptcy, and that's not something any of us want.

Most Creative Teams Are Already Overwhelmed

With the sea of compelling marketing creative growing larger and larger, the need for scroll-stopping creative is stronger now more than ever. Studies suggest that 77% of creative teams are already overwhelmed with the sheer number of design requests they have.

You can hire a diverse range of strategic talent with exceptional expertise as much as you want, but in the long run, there's a high chance you'll still have to deal with design bottlenecks and poor design operations. That's where the CaaS model makes things easier.

The Benefits of Creative as a Service

CaaS offers businesses an affordable and scalable way to grow and sustain design, allowing them to focus on their core activities while the CaaS provider takes care of everything from ideation to production and delivery.

Plus, the flexibility of a monthly subscription gives teams the freedom to cancel or pause anytime.

Whether you’re building your creative team from the ground up and looking for a graphic designer or video editor, tired of going over budget by hiring freelancers for random projects, or maybe your already amazing in-house team could just use a little support — CaaS is the next step to elevating your content and your business and offers a wide range of benefits for any marketer or business owner.

All-In-One Service Model

CaaS is an all-in-one model that offers teams access to a range of creative services, usually for a fixed monthly fee. From branding and advertising design, to web design and social media, CaaS offers an array of services that can help businesses stay ahead of the competition when it comes to creative.

Instead of hiring several different agencies to handle different aspects of their creative marketing, businesses can turn to a single CaaS provider to cover all their creative needs, and only deal with one singular and predictable fee.

Easy To Scale

A good CaaS provider will offer the flexibility needed to bring your design operations up or down. Monthly subscriptions and plan alterations give you the breathing room needed to stay lean and effective.

Whether you need one designer or a dozen, CaaS can accommodate what most businesses need.

Subscription-based pricing

Unlike traditional methods of hiring freelancers and agencies, paying them on a milestone or project basis, CaaS companies like Teamtown help you cut down costs with a subscription pricing model. Just subscribe to a plan that fits your needs and get started. You don't have to worry about sifting through resumes, hit-and-misses on their performance, or training them on your brand guidelines.

All these benefits and more make using a CaaS graphic design service provider an option worth considering.

Getting Started with Creative as Service

Getting started with CaaS is as easy as subscribing and submitting your requests. Book a demo with Teamtown to get started right away, or check out our curated list of creative as a service providers to make your choice.