When choosing a crowdsourced design site, consider factors such as pricing, design quality, additional features, ease of use, and customer support. Our top recommendation is 99designs, which receives an almost perfect score of 4.8/5.0. The only downsides are the higher pricing and phone-only refund policy. 99designs offers a wide range of design options, including logos, infographics, web design, and packaging.
If you’re not keen on 99designs for any reason, we recommend Crowdspring, which does all the same things as 99designs but slightly worse. However, it’s also cheaper than 99designs when you use our deal for $35 off. You also can’t go wrong with Crowdspring, but in our opinion, there’s no point in picking it over 99designs and Crowdspring.
Top Crowdsourcing Design Sites
Crowdspring
- Cost: $79–$1,299+/project
- Designs: 30 to 90 designs per contest
- Refunds: 60 days
Why We Picked It
99designs is our top choice for crowdsourced design platforms, as it offers a comprehensive and well-rounded experience. It provides affordable pricing, granular contest feature controls, and the ability to control the quality of designers participating in your contests. The platform’s user-friendly interface and intuitive design contest process make it accessible to users of all levels. Additionally, the platform’s fair compensation to designers attracts a high-quality pool of talent to participate in contests.
» MORE: 99designs review
Pros & cons
Pros
- Easy to submit designs.
- Exceptional 60-day money-back guarantee.
- You may keep the submission hidden.
- A fixed fee, regardless of how long the project takes.
- You can get hundreds of design pitches for one project.
Cons
- No subscriptions that could reduce the price.
- You cannot vet and precheck designers.
- Even the minimum prices can be high.
More details
- Four packages: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum
- Gold package includes only mid- and top-tier designers, while the Platinum package is available only to top-level designers.
- 60-day money-back guarantee on each contest through the phone.
- You can get any design, including illustrations, product design, web and app design, logo design, and others. The only two things you cannot get are web development and video design.
Crowdspring
- Cost: $299–$1,299+/project
- Designs: 20 to 50 designs per contest
- Refunds: 30 days
Why We Picked It
Crowdspring is very similar to 99designs, our top choice for a crowdsourcing design site. Comparatively, it’s slightly cheaper if you use our $35 discount, has a less polished UI but still satisfactory UX, and has decent designers. For the same price, you get fewer submissions than at 99designs. The platform is easy to use, especially if you’ve used crowdsourced platforms before, and offers several add-ons for advanced and quality-of-life features.
» MORE: Crowdspring review
Pros & cons
Pros
- $35 discount for every contest
- At least 40 designs with the Silver package
- Special packages for Elite designers
- Several add-ons for advanced features
Cons
- Not as high quality as 99designs
- The user interface could use an update
- Long response time for non-priority support
More details
- Four packages: Silver, Gold, Elite, and Platinum
- Silver and Gold packages include all designers, while Elite and Platinum packages include elite and elite + platinum designers, respectively.
- $35 discount.
- 30-day money-back guarantee on each contest.
- You can get any design, including illustrations, product design, web and app design, logo design, and others. The only two things you cannot get are web development and video design.
What To Consider
If you have no prior experience with crowdsourcing design sites, consider the following tips when picking one:
- Price: Whenever you design something, you do it to improve your business. This means you need to get a return on investment (ROI)—and the cheaper the crowdsourced design, the higher the ROI. However, the price differences among the top 3 contenders are minuscule.
- Design quality: While the design quality varies among the crowdsourcing design sites, it varies even more among the packages you pick. Usually, they offer several packages, each offering a different number of designs you get from different tier designers. But remember that better packages are also more expensive—they generally cost 2 to 4 times as much.
- Number of designs: How many designs you get per contest also depends on the package you choose, although it also varies among sites. While the quality is more important than the number, we found that the variety also matters—you don’t only get more ideas, but it’s also easier to compare different entries.
- Additional features: We generally refer to additional features as add-ons when discussing starting a contest. They give your contest extended reach (meaning more entries), internal help such as a dedicated project manager, or a faster turnaround time. Of course, all these cost money, but they are sometimes necessary.
- Ease of use: How easy a platform is to use doesn’t correlate with the quality of designs you get, but when comparing two identical services, ease of use should be the deciding factor.
Who Should Get a Crowdsourced Design Service?
Because of how these services work, getting a design crowdsourced is more expensive than hiring one designer of the same quality. But if you outsource your designs to only one designer, you will get fewer ideas. If you’re fine with that, a freelancing service such as Toptal or Fiverr is better. And if you have ongoing graphic design needs, you should pick an unlimited graphic design service instead. Here’s who the crowdsourced design services are best for:
- One-time projects: Hiring a freelancer yourself, even for just one task, is arduous and can take days. On the other hand, unlimited graphic design services come with monthly or yearly subscriptions, so they’re not suited for one-time projects. Crowdsourced design services bring the best of both worlds: pre-vetted designers and a one-time fee.
- Very demanding projects: When you have an idea that you can’t outsource to one designer, crowdsourced design sites offer
About your guide
Matic Broz is a multifaceted creative professional, with experience as a photographer, graphic designer, and business owner. He has a decade of experience in helping other creatives improve their craft and start their own businesses. His writing and research have been featured in notable publications such as The Guardian, PetaPixel, and USA Today. Additionally, his scientific research has been recognized with a cover feature in the prestigious MDPI-owned journal. In his leisure time, he enjoys photography, hiking, and spending time with dogs. Read more
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