While talking about the top-rated unlimited graphic design services with great plans and a diverse scope of services, Penji is a name you cannot miss. But what makes Penji a popular name in the segment? Can Penji’s subscriptions really meet all of your design requirements effectively? Find out all that and more from this Penji review.
Graphic design can turn out to be an expensive component in marketing. And not all businesses find it easy to outsource graphic design. Penji was founded in 2017 as a way to overcome these challenges. The aim was to create a model that’s fast, simple, and cost-effective for small businesses to get professional designs.
Having worked with 25000+ brands Penji now stands as one of the most trusted names in the world of unlimited graphic design. The company started with graphic design and slowly expanded to motion graphics and now web design is also part of the scope. So, do you think Penji will be a good fit for your brand? Let’s get to our Penji review to help you find out.
$499/month
$995/month
$1497/month
Here’s a detailed comparison of these plans:
| Starter $499/month | Marketer $995/month | Agency $1497/month | |
| Creative team | |||
| Graphic designer | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Brand designer | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Illustrator | ✓ | Pro-level | Pro-level |
| Presentation designer | – | ✓ | Canva presentation designer |
| Web designer | – | ✓ | Figma web designer |
| Motion graphics designer | – | – | ✓ |
| Point of contact | Creative assistant | Project manager | Art director |
| Production | |||
| Timezone | Night time EST | Full timezone coverage | Full timezone coverage |
| Turnaround | 1-2 days | Same day | Same day |
| Daily output | 1 project at a time | 2 projects at a time | 2 projects at a time |
| Communication | |||
| Real-time chat | Assigned designers | Designers + Project manager | Designers + Art director |
| Email support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Phone support | – | ✓ | ✓ |
| Text support | – | – | ✓ |
| Features | |||
| Project management platform | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Brand folders | Up to 5 brands | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Project storage | 5 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| No. of users | Up to 5 users | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Version control | – | ✓ | ✓ |
Penji has pretty comprehensive plans that suit small businesses looking to set up their digital presence. Because the plans offered by Penji cover over 120 different design categories.
Some of the design types covered in graphic design include:
And in motion graphics, the Penji team can cover:
All the plans from Penji are available as monthly subscriptions or even as quarterly and yearly plans where you can save even more every month. Once you have had your experience with the team if you are satisfied with the process and anticipate consistent design requirements, going with these long-term plans will be a more cost-effective decision.
The downside here is that the motion graphics services only cover 2D animations and also do not cover video editing. But the other services that are offered make up for this deficit.
Not only does Penji offer a vast array of services but they’re committed to using multiple software to provide customers with options on their preferred output.
Here are some of the software that they use:
Penji has both video demo and live one-to-one demo options. If you do not have enough time to schedule a live demo, you can access the basic video demo by providing your contact details.
The video demo is a quick 5-minute walkthrough of the Penji platform. You get an overview of how to place design requests, and request revisions.
If you have further questions, you can also schedule a 25-minute demo call where one of the Penji team members answers all your questions regarding the process. This is a convenient way to understand the service before signing up for it.
Penji does not have a free trial option. You only get a 30-day money-back guarantee with the plans. Remember, however, that the refund is only applicable if you choose a monthly plan. The 30-day money-back promise is not available if you straight away choose the quarterly or yearly plans during the signup process.
The signup process is complete once you make the payment. You are then allowed to access the Penji platform to start adding your brands and design requests.
Penji’s supports unlimited brands. So, if you are a marketer juggling the marketing designs of various clients, you can add all their brand guidelines into one Penji account. This way you have access to all the brand assets including brand colors and other details while placing your design requests. This also helps your designer understand the brand before working on the design for it.
Once you have the brands in place, creating a design request is easy and can be done in a few easy steps. In case you do not have a brand created, you can also add brand assets like the logo design file and color preferences as well as reference designs all on the design request page.
Penji does not assign designated designers by default. The platform uses an AI-based designer allocation model. Based on the type of design requested and the availability of the designers, a suitable designer is assigned to the task.
Penji’s workflow supports a ‘queue’ model for tasks. In other words, there is only one active task at a time. Tasks are assigned to respective designers in the order they appear in the queue. But yes, you can always rearrange priorities.
Once a design is ready, you can view the completed file and point out particular aspects of the design that you wish to be revised. When there are revisions to be done, they are automatically moved to the top of the queue and most of them are delivered on the same day. A lot depends on the time when you raise the revision request and the time zone in which your designer is located.
If you like your design, you can mark the task complete and download the design files. You can always add multiple requests to your dashboard and they will be picked up in the respective order. There’s no need to wait for a request to be completed fully to proceed with placing the next one.
Penji offers the option to let its AI matchmaker pair you with the perfect team or you can also choose a certified pro from their marketplace. This ensures you pick who you think is best for the project. However, this feature is only available to those in the Marketer and Agency plans.
Not all unlimited design services cover web design and app design but Penji does. But yes, it only includes basic web design not covering coding and HTML/CSS-related tasks.
Since you have the web/app design as well as your basic brand designs like logo and brand guidelines in the same place, establishing your brand identity through visual consistency becomes so much more practical.
In addition to that, Penji also has a pretty broad scope when it comes to custom illustrations. While most unlimited graphic design services include illustrations in their plans not all of them handle all kinds of illustrations. But Penji does – including character illustrations and a variety of illustration styles.
Penji’s custom platform for managing your design projects is user-friendly. There is a lot you can do on the platform. From managing your brands to adding team members and managing their access, everything is in one place. That makes the whole process much simpler. Since there aren’t too many channels of communication, you can easily revisit old requests and make changes to them or use them as references for your upcoming projects.
The platform is pretty intuitive in understanding your preferences. After every design project, you are asked for feedback. This feedback helps improve your designer allocation for the upcoming project. And there’s an option to ask for a change of designer in case you are not happy with the output. This is again recorded to eliminate the chances of the same designer being assigned to your request in the future.
Penji has a turnaround of 24-48 hours for most designs. And if you wish to further shorten this delivery time, the Marketer and Agency plans are a great choice for businesses located in the U.S. and those plans offer same-day delivery.
While the requests are fulfilled in order you have the option to add multiple requests. So, as and how a request is completed the next one is picked up without the slightest delay. For some simple designs, this can mean multiple designs being delivered in a day.
Penji offers real-time chat communication in all 3 of their plans. Some of the points of contact may differ across the different plans but having a real-time chat facility helps speed things and avoid communication gaps.
There’s also email support for all three plans, phone support for the Market and Agency plans, and text support for the Agency plan.
While you can register your preferences for a designer, the Starter plan doesn’t let you work with a designated designer. But there are a few unlimited graphic design services that offer designated designers and the option is made available with all plans.
While your brand profiles can help designers understand your brand and work on the designs, setting the rhythm with a designated designer feels much simpler in the long run, especially for startups who would prefer to go with the Starter plan.
The support team is only available Monday through Friday EST. The design team for the Starter plan during the night time EST. That poses a challenge for clients in some locations. This can also be a problem considering the 24-48 hours turnaround time.
The effective time taken for a message to be conveyed and the design to be delivered, therefore, entirely depends on your location and the plan you choose.
Penji does not support integration with Slack, Zapier, and other tools at the moment. This can be a turnoff for clients looking to integrate the design process into their existing workflow or to automate the process.
Some important unlimited features in the Marketer and Agency plans like the number of brand folders, users, and project storage are limited in the Starter plan. Those using the Starter plan would only have 5 GB worth of storage and can only have up to 5 brands and 5 users. This may seem like a downside for those wanting to use this plan due to budget constraints.
Most customer reviews online talk about Penji’s reliable customer support and convenient workflow.
“Penji have consistently produced exceptional deliverables whilst sometimes working under challenging circumstances. Always the consummate professionals, they have proven on numerous occasions why they are a service provider of choice for our company.”
– Tyler F.
“I’ve been with Penji for about 9 months now. Their customer support is fantastic, and the designers are great. When a designer doesn’t meet your expectation, they quickly resolve it and add a new designer to your project…”
-J Bolivar Muniz
Packaging design
Illustration
Web design
Social media graphics
Animation
Except for the time of availability of the customer support team and the design team and the limited features in the Starter plan, most other aspects of the Penji workflow are great for businesses looking for an easy way to outsource design. If you are not very particular about working with the same designer all the time and if you are ready to pay extra to double the design output, then the extensive scope of services that Penji offers can be a huge plus.
