5 Best Design Pickle Alternatives

The need for design is never going to fade away. Whether it is a logo for your business, a banner for your blog, or a social media post for your marketing campaign, you cannot bring results without a great design. However, with the looming fear of recession, businesses have started to cut corners looking for sustainable and affordable design pickle alternatives to hiring in-house designers or agencies.

This is where unlimited graphic design service providers enter and disrupt the market by offering unlimited designs and revisions by professional designers for a flat monthly subscription fee. One of the popular unlimited graphic service providers in the industry is Design Pickle which helps small business owners and agencies with their consistent design requirements by charging them a flat monthly fee. However, Design Pickle is not the only pick in the market. 

Several service providers have come up in recent years who have garnered the attention and admiration of reputed businesses. Read the blog to learn more about Design Pickle’s alternatives to find the most suitable option for your business.

An overview of Design Pickle 

Design Pickle is a done-for-you design service that offers simple, scalable, and reliable plans to its clients, which is why many businesses rely on it for all things design.

Pricing for Design Pickle is based on creative capacity rather than simple tiered plans. Their design subscriptions typically start at around $1,918 per month, with higher pricing depending on the amount of creative output and services required.

Earlier versions of Design Pickle’s pricing included plans such as

• Standard plan- $499/Month
• Pro plan- $995/Month
• Graphics premium - $1695/Month. However, the company has since moved to a capacity-based pricing model. There is no free trial available.

Instead of fixed plans, newer subscriptions often start around:

• ~$1,918/month for 2 creative hours per day
• Includes platform access + dedicated design team

You can email your design requirements or use their dashboard to make requests. Submit your design request by filling in basic info like your name, file size, dimension, reference, description of the design you’re looking for, and file type. After that, you’ll get an option to upload a demo photo or select one from their collection. Finally, you upload any assets you wish to use in your design. 

You get updates on the process and design through the dashboard. However, many users complain about their interface. It is difficult to navigate, especially for first-time users. There is no flexibility to switch between designers. Only Pro plan subscribers can communicate and collaborate via the slack channel. The turnaround time is 24 hours, but if your designs are complex, they may take more time. 

Several other service providers offer better user interfaces, more convenient mediums of communication, quicker turnaround times, and relatively cheaper plans than Design Pickle. We’ve put the top 5 alternatives to Design Pickle below. Scroll to find out.

5 Best Design Pickle alternatives 

Design Shifu 

Established in 2018, Design Shifu is a US-based flat-rate graphic design company with a team of experienced in-house designers dedicated to providing consistent quality designs. 

You can add multiple design requests (up to 5) at once. The turnaround time is 24 hours. Design Shifu's interactive dashboard saves all the requests, conversations, and designs in one place.

Design Shifu offers 3 plans: 

• Starter(graphics)- $399/month
• Growth( graphics+multimedia) - $599/month
• Scale (graphics+multimedia+motion graphics) - $999/month

Pros: 

• Get editable Adobe + JPG, PNG, and PDF for each file.
• 24/7 live chat support
• Dedicated designer
• A monthly rolling plan which you can cancel anytime
• A 30-minute demo call
• SaaS Integrations: Slack, Grab, Zapier, and Trello

Cons: 

• Design Shifu has a team of only English-speaking designers.
• US Daytime turnaround is not available.

Click here to sign up for one of our plans with a 14-day 100% money-back guarantee.  

Penji 

Penji is another fast-growing company in the industry that has worked with brands like Reebok, the University of Pennsylvania, express, Lyft, and Aweber. 

Here’s how their plans look: 

• Business- $499/month
• Marketing & Ads - $995/month
• Agency- $1497/month

You get unlimited design projects in all the plans. But, they do not offer any free trials. 

Pros: 

• They offer more than 120 design services in one plan, including logos, print material, infographics, landing pages, illustrations, and more.
• You can swap designers anytime.

Cons: 

• No committed account manager, unlike their competitors.
• No motion graphics, website, and app design services.
• No one-off design requests are accepted.

Flocksy 

Flocksy was released in 2017 to make creative services accessible to businesses of all sizes. Along with graphic design, the platform offers services like copywriting, video editing, illustration, web development, and voice-over production.

Instead of traditional tiered plans, Flocksy uses a daily creative hours pricing model, allowing businesses to reserve a set number of creative hours per day.

Typical plans include:

• 2 Hours Daily Plan: ~$897/month
• 3 Hours Daily Plan: ~$1347/month
• 4 Hours Daily Plan: ~$1797/month

Higher plans provide more creative capacity and faster output.

Customers can submit unlimited project requests, which are completed based on priority and available creative hours. Turnaround time depends on the complexity of the task and queue length. In addition, you get access to all its services web development team, audio, and voiceover team, custom illustrations, and animated GIFs

All plans provide access to a team of creatives handling various design and content needs through a centralized request dashboard.

Pros:

• Fast response time
• Wide range of creative services
• Unlimited project requests

Cons:

• Limited number of tasks worked on simultaneously
• Turnaround time depends on available creative hours
• Higher plans can become expensive for growing teams.

Digi Float 

Founded in 2019, Digi Float is an India-based design firm that offers unlimited graphic design solutions, UI/UX development, video creation, and content writing services to businesses, agencies, and independent creators. 

Digifloat has 3 pricing plans:

• Standard- $399/month
• Pro- $649/month
• Agency- $999/month

Digifloat doesn’t have any free trial. 

Pros:

• Get a committed account manager and designer.
• Unlimited revisions.

Cons:

• Standard Plan doesn't give access to all services.
• Communication channels are restricted to Trello and email.

Kapa99 

Kapa99 is another great Design Pickle alternative with affordable packages that offers a wide range of graphic design services, including logo designs, packaging, brochure, book covers, podcast covers, and illustrations. 

Kapa99 offers two main design subscription plans:

• Async Standard: $349/month for the first two months
• ‍Async Priority: $849/month for the first two months

The Async Standard plan typically delivers designs within 24–48 hours, while the Async Priority plan offers 12–24 hour turnaround for faster delivery.

Both plans provide unlimited design requests, unlimited revisions, unlimited brands, and native source files. Projects are handled through a queue system where tasks are completed based on priority.

Unlike many design subscription services, Kapa99 offers a 15-day free trial, allowing users to test the service before committing to a paid plan

Pros: 

• Most likely same-day turnaround if the request is submitted early.
• Free trial designs don’t have watermarks.

Cons: 

• They don't offer HTML/CSS, and video graphics.
• Their reviews say that they lack consistency in the quality of the designs.

What to look for when deciding on a Design Pickle alternative?

While the market is flourishing with new unlimited graphic design service providers, here’s how you can determine the best fit for your business:

Services 

Understand your company's needs. How many designs do you need in a day? Do you have consistent requirements? What kind of design requirements do you have? For instance, a basic plan would work if your design needs are limited to blog post banners and Instagram posts.

Portfolio

Go through their previous work and reviews to know how they have served their previous clients. You would subscribe to an experienced provider in your industry rather than someone completely new. 

Customer Service

While you may not need constant support, the availability to reach out without countless follow-ups can help you speed up the feedback loop and get immediate updates on your project. 

What’s your pick?

There’s no one-size fit for all. What seems suitable for one company may not be the best fit for another. Unlimited graphic design service providers act as an extension of your in-house team with no strings attached. If you wish to explore other providers beyond Design Pickle, determine your requirements and compare our top 5 Design Pickle alternatives to find the right partner for your business.

Start exploring Design Shifu’s paid plans that offer a 14-day 100% money-back guarantee.