99Designs has been a trusted online marketplace for businesses seeking graphic design and illustrations since 2008.
Because of its business format, however, when your needs grow, you might find yourself looking for a more robust solution to grow with you.
99Designs alternatives aren't exactly hard to find. But with so many on the market, making the choice can stop at not knowing where to start. Crafting a captivating and lucrative brand story is no walk in the park. It involved curated graphics and personalized aesthetics that breathe life into your brand—leaving a lasting impact on every interaction with your customers.
Whether it's your company logo design, the visuals on your social media banners, the artistry of your ad campaigns, or the finesse of your UX/UI design, each element plays a pivotal role in forging emotional connections with your customers.
A 99designs alternative needs to live up to that standard.
Quick Links to 99designs Alternatives
Why Consider 99Designs Alternatives?
While many businesses and individuals still heavily rely on 99Designs for graphic design services, some think it curbs a designer’s creativity. I think we can all agree that not all talented and creative minds can perform at the fullest under the pressure of competition.
An important disadvantage of using design contests is the guarantee that the winner will meet your requirements.
Businesses and teams often spend large portions of budgets on a design contest, only to find that the selected graphic designer didn’t deliver up to the mark even after the final edits.
Having a dedicated project manager can mitigate these risks by ensuring personalized support and oversight, leading to efficient management of design and development requests.
This poses a huge risk of design bottlenecks that often leave marketing teams stranded.
Additionally, the design operations of a growing business may become far too complex for a service like 99Designs, slowing the team down and blocking creativity.
More and more brands are searching for a solution that offers more control and clarity each day.
Brief Overview of 99Designs
99Designs is a popular graphic design company by Vistaprint, founded in 2008.
99Designs operates as a crowdsourcing platform, connecting designers and clients through design contests and submissions.
More than one million designers and 444,000 business and individual users have used their services since its creation.
It offers two models simultaneously to help find your ideal freelance graphic designer.
99Designs Alternatives: Best Options
Now, it's time for the real reason you're here. We've compiled some of the best 99designs alternatives out there, including their pros and cons, so you can quickly outsource your graphic design needs to the best possible solution for you and your business.
Let's get started!
1. Hiring an In-House Graphic Designer
A common alternative to 99Designs is, of course, the tried-and-true solution of hiring a designer.
Hiring a designer in house is the most traditional route out of the bunch. Brands retain the most control, but not without hidden costs.
Here we'll compare hiring a designer to using 99Designs and take a look at why hiring a professional designer could or could not be the right solution for supporting your graphic design needs.
Hiring a Designer vs 99Designs
Personalized Creativity: When hiring a designer, you’re not just getting a service but forging a creative partnership with an in-house designer. Designers work closely with you to understand your vision, values, and brand identity.
This personal touch ensures that every design is uniquely tailored to your own design preferences and requirements, resonating authentically with your audience.
Seamless Collaboration: Collaboration is key to a successful design process. Hiring a designer allows for real-time communication and the exchange of ideas, fostering a dynamic partnership where your feedback is directly integrated into the design.
With a dedicated designer, it is easy to track project progress, overview project details and update project requirements on the fly, and ensure they deliver exceptional results.
This level of interaction can be challenging to achieve in a contest-based platform like 99Designs.
On platforms like 99Designs, designers submit their ideas or work in response to project briefs, allowing clients to choose from a variety of graphic designs.
Efficient Turnaround: Designers are dedicated to your projects, often keeping a cadence of quick turnaround times. In contrast, contest durations on platforms like 99Designs can vary widely, potentially delaying your project.
While 99Designs can be great for one-off projects, some 99designs alternatives are better equipped to handle teams with ongoing design needs.
Ongoing Relationship: When you hire a designer, you can establish a long-term working relationship. They become intimately familiar with your brand, ensuring consistency in your all your design materials.
In-house designers are as dedicated as it gets. They can consistently produce impressive results under the right leadership.
99Design style services lack this quality. Businesses finding themselves working with different freelancers each campaign.
Quality Control: Quality assurance is an inherent part of the process with a dedicated designer and team.
Designers take pride in their work and strive to meet your expectations, resulting in high-quality designs and a higher likelihood of achieving your desired outcome.
But even the top designers make mistakes. Having an in-house designer provides you with the control you need to implement quality control.
Pros and Cons of Hiring a Designer:
Pros
- Tailored designs that align with your brand and vision.
- Seamless collaboration and ongoing feedback.
- Faster delivery of design projects.
- Maintaining a consistent brand identity over time.
- A commitment to meeting your expectations.
Cons
- Hiring a designer can be more expensive upfront compared to contest-based platforms.
- It requires time and effort to manage the designer-client relationship.
- One designer may have a particular style, limiting design diversity.
- Designer availability may vary, potentially causing delays in urgent projects.
2. Teamtown (Best for ongoing design needs)
We might have some bias, but Teamtown's Creative as a Service (CaaS) solution has proven itself time and time again to be one of the best 99designs alternatives.
From a dedicated design team to flat monthly fee billing, Teamtown is a design solution built for marketing teams that need design consistency and predictable budgets, bringing you as close as possible to hiring in-house without any long-term commitments at an affordable pricepoint.
Let's take a closer look at the details.
What is Teamtown?
Teamtown is a design subscription with a global vetted team made of top 1% design talent from all over the globe.
By providing scroll-stopping design for a flat monthly subscription fee, marketing teams are free to build out predictable budgets and robust campaigns to satisfy the most demanding of CEOs.
Having previously worked at top agencies, these designers bring visually-stunning designs to brands at scale. Each designer on your team has a specialty—be it logo designers, web designers, and even specialists in mobile app design.
Using our team model, brands can take advantage of having multiple professional designers with different specialties under one roof.
When you're not separately working with a million freelance designers, you avoid brand inconsistency and allow the designers you work with to build context around your business, just as an in-house designer would.
Dedicated and professional graphic designers supporting ambitious marketers, just as it was meant to be!
Teamtown is all the benefits of an in-house designer without the drawbacks.
- Tailored designs that align with your brand and vision.
- Seamless collaboration and ongoing feedback.
- Faster delivery of design projects.
- Maintaining a consistent brand identity overtime.
- A commitment to meeting your expectations.
- Hiring a designer can be more expensive upfront compared to contest-based platforms.
- It requires time and effort to manage the designer-client relationship.
- One designer may have a particular style, limiting design diversity.
- Designer availability may vary, potentially causing delays in urgent projects.
Plus the added benefit of guaranteed commitment for as long as you're in business. Designers may come and go, so it's good for you that we have an entire team at your disposal.
Again, we might have some bias, so here are some other services like Teamtown that can work in place of 99Designs.
Any of these services might be your favorite 99Designs alternative depending on your business goals.
While we believe Teamtown is the best for high-quality, long-term, brand-building relationships, you might find some interest below. So keep reading.
3. Flocksy (Best for mid-sized projects that include video or copywriting)
Established in 2016, Flocksy offers various creative services, including voiceover, copywriting, web development, and graphic design. With subscriptions starting at $499 per month, small business and startups can get their services on the go. Like a design contest, higher budgets will result in bigger results, which is why competitive pricing may result in more varied quality compared to 99Designs.
4. Design Pickle (Best for quick turnaround on mid-sized projects)
Design Pickle offers creative solutions tailored for small businesses through subscription-based services. Their agency extends its expertise to include illustration, presentation design, and motion picture design support, diversifying its offerings to meet various creative needs.
An intriguing aspect of the service is the inclusion of unlimited drawings and revisions, providing flexibility and room for customized editing. Notably, Design Pickle stands out with its impressive feature of a rapid turnaround time, with designs often delivered within a single day.
Many founders have unpackaged different aspects of Design Pickle, creating a long list of Design Pickle alternatives to accommodate brands and teams of all sizes.
In terms of pricing, their starter plan comes in at $399 per month, granting subscribers access to unlimited design submissions and illustrations, unlimited design revisions, and the advantage of swift 1-day delivery times.
5. Manypixels (Best for ongoing, small-to-medium projects)
Manypixels is another alternative to 99Designs best suited for small business owners. With packages starting from $549 per month, you can use various design subscription services such as unlimited graphic design and web design services.
It's important to note that the service of Manypixels is available to US Eastern, Central European, and Indochina timezones only.
6. Penji (Best for simple, medium-sized projects)
Penji is a much cheaper alternative to 99Designs. It offers all kinds of graphic design solutions under it's hood. Penji is best suited for startups and small-scale businesses as it offers many affordable plans starting from $499 per month. Additionally, they provide a 30-day money-back guarantee, instilling confidence in their service quality.
One of Penji's key advantages is unlimited print and digital graphics, a valuable resource for creative projects. They also boast a swift turnaround time, with designs typically delivered in a day or two, and the Agency plan even offers same-day turnaround.
With that said, Penji lacks a free trial and does not accommodate one-off graphic design requests, and some reviews suggest that it might not be the optimal choice for larger marketing teams and companies.
7. Kapa99 (Best for small projects with quick turnaround)
Kapa99 comes with one of the most affordable prices and graphic design tools that resonate seamlessly with your business needs. The starter plan for business starts at $349 for the first two months, and clearly tiered pricing structures for the remaining plans.
Kapa99 is an original of the unlimited design services, but may be suited for smaller teams, agencies, and business owners. Graphic design services with an extremely competitive price often lose quality and attention as a result, leading to rushed designs and graphic designers under pressure.
8. DesignCrowd (Best for one-time small-to-medium projects)
DesignCrowd is a platform that empowers digital design businesses to submit their creative concepts, including graphic designs, while providing a space for graphic design companies to present their designs crafted to your own design brief.
With a vast pool of over 100,000 freelance designers, the platform offers a diverse directory categorized by specialties and regions, allowing you to filter and select the most suitable talent based on factors like the number of project wins and review ratings.
On pricing, it’s important to note that costs can vary depending on the complexity of the design project. However, be aware of potential hidden expenses, including posting fees ranging from $29 to $129. These costs should be factored into your decision-making process when using DesignCrowd’s services.
9. Fiverr (Best for small, one-off projects)
Using a freelance platform like Fiverr is always a good choice when hiring a Graphic Designer at a low cost. Under one roof, you can meet some exciting talent, from top web and graphics designers, and freelance graphic designers to logo makers.
Fiverr, the freelance website, was initially created to assist businesses in launching their projects at a lower cost, not limited to graphic design. It has maintained its reputation for offering services at relatively affordable rates.
Over time, Fiverr has evolved its offerings by introducing "Pro" levels, which come with higher costs but bring aboard top-tier designers and premium content creators. Today, the platform boasts a diverse pool of experienced freelancers and talented designers who can cater to various project needs.
Additionally, Fiverr provides an online logo maker tool, further expanding its toolkit of resources for businesses seeking creative solutions.
Alternatives to 99Designs: Key Features to Look For
Even with the world's longest list of alternatives to choose from, you'll still need to watch out for key features that could make or break a graphic design service being a fit for you and your team.
Here we'll take a look at some of the key features you should be keeping your eye on to lock in a successful partnership.
Exclusive and Specialized Graphic Designers
One of most important features of a 99Design alternative is a diverse design team with a wide range of talent. This reduces the risk of unsatisfactory designs, often the case when hiring a freelancer or running a contest.
These designers should work with you consistently each day, growing and learning with what you like and don't like.
With your design projects in the hands of a reputable graphic design service, you can sleep restfully at night to find your designs ready in the morning.
Effective Project Management with a Dedicated Project Manager
As discussed above, working with the best graphic designers and design services is like having an in-house graphic design team at your office.
These design services allow you to submit multiple project requests at a time, which helps you manage your projects effectively and ensures price effectiveness. Think about hiring and managing 4 different freelancers at a time; even the sound of it seems unmanageable.
Customer Support
When working with graphic design services, you don't have to watch video tutorials or wait in line to reach the customer service representative just to generate a request. Popular services have responsive 24/7 customer service available to help you at each step.
Alternatives to 99Designs: Try Teamtown
If you're still confused about 99Designs alternatives, give Teamtown a try. With monthly packages starting from just $947, you get access to a world-class team of graphic designers specializing in website design, motion graphics, UI/UX design, logo design, video editing, and anything else a marketing team needs.
All our plans come with a 15-day money back guarantee, for a no-commitment trial. Not a fit within 15 days? We'll refund everything you paid and part ways without any hard feelings.
Subscribe to the one-month package or book a demo with us to give the best-suited 99Designs alternative a shot!
