Design outsourcing is not an easy decision for businesses. And those businesses that take this step are overwhelmed with the options available when it comes to outsourcing. One of these options is unlimited graphic design.
Over the past few years, several new unlimited graphic design services have popped up in the market. Each comes with a different set of monthly subscription options and a different scope of designs.
Are you a business owner or marketer looking to leverage the strengths of unlimited graphic design for your business? Then we are sure you are full of questions about how things work, what’s covered, what’s not covered and what aspects of unlimited graphic design services make them worth your time and money. If that’s the case, you are in the right place. Today we’ll talk about all the common unlimited graphic design myths, realities, and frequently asked questions about these services.
Let’s cut to the chase.
An unlimited graphic design service, also known as a design subscription is a productized way of offering design services. These are companies that charge you a flat monthly fee for offering a design service bundle.
With unlimited graphic design services, you get graphic design on demand and there is no limit on the number of designs you request. Instead of paying per design, you pay a fixed amount on a monthly basis, and in return, you gain access to a steady flow of customized graphics for your brand.
Having defined what unlimited graphic design is, let’s now get to the common misconceptions about this model.
One of the most common unlimited graphic design myths is that since the services promise unlimited designs every month you have to forget about quality. But that’s not true. Unlimited graphic design companies standardize their offerings by slapping a monthly bill on their services. Which means that instead of working with them on a one-off assignment, you continue to collaborate with them at least for a few months.
Unlimited design companies face stiff competition and strive to retain their clients and the best way to do this is to hire talented designers. With these talented and experienced designers onboard they are able to deliver design quality that keeps clients coming back to them for more.
So, the truth is that unlimited graphic design companies do provide great quality designs. The below images show some of the designs created by the top players in the unlimited design segment.
Custom Illustrations created by the Design Pickle team
Mascots & characters created by the Kimp team
Banner designs created by the Flocksy team
Social media graphics created by the GraphicsZoo team
As you can see, unlimited design services can handle a wide range of design categories and deliver dependable design quality in all of them just like any traditional design agency. It’s a good idea to browse through a service’s portfolio to understand if it’s a good fit for your brand.
Sometimes you have to pay hundreds of dollars for a single logo design and then there are additional charges when you request additional formats or revisions. In such a situation when unlimited design firms promise a wide range of designs delivered for an almost similar price, people tend to think that there’s more to pay. So, one of the common unlimited graphic design myths is that these subscriptions come with hidden costs and surprise elements that add to your bill.
The truth is that there are no hidden charges. Compare the plans based on the pricing mentioned on the website or based on the quote provided by the team. The price mentioned is the only price you will be paying on a monthly basis. Unless you add more subscriptions, there are no additional costs to worry about.
Among all the unlimited graphic design myths this is perhaps one you hear too often. Because the company creates the design for you, you might think that you cannot resell them. But the truth is that most unlimited design services help with Whitelabel designs. These are content created from scratch, content that can be resold without violating any intellectual property terms.
In fact, there are firms using unlimited design services to create NFTs and other designs that can be resold as your own.
Some unlimited design services do support Canva design delivery and customization of preset templates. But in most cases, the designs created by these companies are original designs. In fact, one of the main reasons that businesses choose to work with them is to be able to create authentic graphics that help establish their brand identity and strengthen their brand image.
This is perhaps one of the unlimited graphic design myths you hear from a lot of people. Since these services bundle a lot of design types and features into one monthly pack, people think that these subscriptions are expensive. But like most subscription models and like most Saas tools, the bundled monthly price is not always higher than the effective price of individual services.
Several businesses spend hundreds of dollars on branding designs alone. But you can get a design subscription for a month at a similar cost and that too with the option to cover more than just branding designs.
Having gone over the reality behind the common unlimited graphic design myths, let’s also discuss some of the common questions that people have about the subscription model in general.
When we talk about design outsourcing, hiring a freelancer is perhaps the first option that most businesses think of. After all, with the many freelance marketplaces like Fiverr, and crowdsourcing platforms available today, like 99designs, finding a freelance designer is easy. But is that the most practical solution for your business?
The time spent vetting a designer, understanding the designer’s style, and explaining your design request to your designer should be repeatedly spent on each design. All this adds up and multiplies the overall effort required. Besides, after all the effort if you end up with a rookie designer, it’s your brand’s reputation at stake.
Unlimited graphic design companies have in-house design teams who work on your designs. Reputed unlimited design services recruit the best talent in the industry to ensure that your designs are in the best hands. So, all the time and effort that you otherwise would have spent headhunting can be saved for more productive tasks.
A design agency is definitely a more reliable alternative to working with freelance designers, no doubt. But design services can be expensive. And choosing à la carte services and then calculating the total expense can be tedious. Sometimes this also means that your design budget goes out of hand.
With unlimited graphic design services, on the other hand, the services come bundled. Instead of paying separately for logos and ad designs and email designs, you’ll be paying a single monthly bill to cover all these designs.
One of the main reasons why an in-house design team is a better choice than outsourcing designs is that your design team knows your brand well. And there are no restrictions on the number of revisions they make on a particular design project.
However, maintaining an in-house design team, and investing in the infrastructure for your design team can add to your budget. And this might sometimes be too much for a small business to handle. In such cases, an unlimited graphic design service that offers a dedicated design team will be a much more cost-effective alternative.
Yes! Unlimited design services do not charge you on a per-design basis. You can place as many design requests as you like.
The actual design output volume per month varies from one unlimited design service to another. This depends on the number of designers assigned to your project, the hours of effort these designers dedicate to your designs every day, turnaround time, and the number of active tasks at any given point.
Yes! With an unlimited graphic design service, you get unlimited revisions. If you have worked with a design agency or a freelance designer in the past, you might know that with every design collaboration, the number of revisions on the design is fixed. Some only support a fixed number of revisions and others support additional revisions at an extra cost.
What does all this mean for your business? If you are not happy with the design making changes to it becomes difficult. Or if you leave out any critical detail in your design brief by mistake, incorporating it later becomes difficult. But that’s where an unlimited graphic design service comes as a convenient alternative.
With unlimited graphic design services, you get unlimited revisions. This means that you can make any number of changes to your design and you can change any aspect of the design, with no restrictions.
You can go back and change the color or font or positioning of specific elements. And once the changes are made if your internal teams come up with some new revisions you can still go back and ask for those changes to be made.
This feature can be particularly useful if you are a marketing agency trying to get designs done for your clients. Since there are unlimited revisions you can perfect the designs as per your client’s requirements and therefore save your agency’s reputation in the process.
Unlimited revisions can be very useful in video design too. Because when you experiment with new ideas, there is a good chance that the created video does not come out as expected. When the team supports unlimited revisions you can work on fine-tuning various elements to create a video that’s exactly as you want it.
Unlimited design requests and unlimited revisions are the standard offerings in most unlimited design services. Other than these, there are a few other elements that can be unlimited:
While some unlimited design services offer these as standard inclusions, some have specific plans that allow them.
No, there are no contracts when you work with unlimited design services. That’s one of the main reasons businesses find them to be a convenient option. If you think the service isn’t working out for your brand, you can cancel your subscription anytime. There’s no contract that binds you as with traditional design collaborations.
An unlimited graphic design model suits most businesses. Since this model helps save time and money most businesses looking to keep up with the never-ending requirements for visuals will find them to be beneficial.
But after making a monthly payment, if you end up requesting just one or two designs, it might not make sense. For example, if you only need a couple of social media posts to be created for your business or if you need just a logo designed or the posters and email design for an upcoming event, pay-per-project graphic design services might be a better alternative.
Unlimited graphic design services are good investments only for businesses that anticipate a steady flow of design requirements. In other words, businesses that need custom graphics designed regularly for their blogs, newsletters, social media, and other platforms but don’t have the time or resources for it will benefit from unlimited graphic design services.
There are several factors that influence the cost of a design subscription including the number of designers assigned to your project, the number of active tasks, turnaround time, and others. Design subscriptions from the top-rated unlimited graphic design services range from a few hundred dollars per month to a couple of thousand dollars.
Unlimited design service companies give you the source files for every design that’s created. The designs are 100% yours and so there’s no worry about violating any licenses by making changes to these designs. Since you have absolute ownership of these designs you also get to choose where to use the designs and how.
Which of these unlimited graphic design myths have you heard? Now that you know the truth behind them, and the answers to the common questions that pop up, are you ready to experiment with an unlimited graphic design service? If yes, check out the best-rated services in the segment right here.
