Last year we evaluated 99Designs (and other alternatives), a crowdsourced marketplace that I was a huge advocate of. In short, you pay a fixed price (prize pool) which designers compete for, the designer you select wins the prize pool. When designers compete, we win. Conversely, it provides an opportunity for designers to find work, and designers confident in their ability have an opportunity to score some nice prize pools.

To summarize, some of the pros and cons of 99Designs were:

Pros

• We received dozens of designs for as little as $300, since only the “winner” gets paid, designers are motivated to win.   
• I have moderate experience in graphic design – but it could take me hours (spread across days), time I could have spent on other tasks. There isn’t a shadow of a doubt that crowdsourcing your design will save you time and money. I knew exactly what I wanted, so I did this one myself. When dealing with clients, I use to point them to 99Designs because I can’t get inside there head. There’s almost no way I can know exactly what they want – even if they tell me. And I really don’t want to spend hours on revisions when I can focus on other higher ROI tasks.
• Don’t like the submitted designs? There’s a 100% Money Back Guarantee

Cons

• It could be potentially cheaper to just hire an independent contractor, but you won’t get as many designs and may end up unhappy, and may end up spending more in the long run looking for another designer. 
• Could take a few days for designs to start rolling in, if you’re in a time crunch look to running a larger contest to motivate more designers to submit a design.

Since 99Designs, another site has risen to prominence offering lower pricing packages – DesignCrowd.

DesignCrowd Review: When Marketplaces Compete, We Win.

On paper, DesignCrowd  vs 99Designs as far as how it works, are very similar. Both offer design competitions, both offer 100% money back guarantees. But the thing that makes or break a marketplace, are the sellers. In this case, the designers. It’s the whole chicken and the egg conundrum, you can’t have one without the other. I’ve already mentioned when designers compete, we win. The same rings true for marketplaces, when they compete, we win.

Before we dive into the details of the project I ran on DesignCrowd, let’s take a quick look at a pricing comparison for the most popular service, logos. At one end of the spectrum we have 99Designs, who offer pricing packages as low as $300:

And DesignCrowd offers slightly lower pricing packages:

***See the complete pricing breakdown on the DesignCrowd website HERE***

At $240, DesignCrowd’s cheapest package is the most affordable for cash strapped SMB’s and startups. Remember that the better designers tend to chase after the larger prize pools. But today, we’re going to focus on the cheapest pricing package, as that’s the most popular option for cash strapped businesses I work with.

Crowdsourced Graphic Design: What could I do with $180?

I didn’t need a logo, I actually wanted a full page website background, possibly for LaunchAStartup, or another one of my projects… I haven’t quite decided yet. Nonetheless, the packages for “Graphic Design Contests” were actually cheaper, I selected the cheapest package ($180), which after a transaction fee totaled to $185.4o. Here’s what I asked for:

Our company is LaunchAStartup, and we need simple, clean looking full page background illustration for our new website.

We want something similar to [redacted].

– They use buildings from New York in their illustration to denote where they’re from, we’d like to accomplish the same with an illustration of the Las Vegas Strip. Perhaps even incorporate our Red Rock mountains if you think it works with the illustration (http://www.city-data.com/articles/images/img1761279.jpg)

– We would like a sunset gradient

– Our logo uses a rocket to denote growth (see attached), we would like to see that incorporated into the design (perhaps skyrocketing to the moon?)

– Leave a little room to add some content later, eg. video.

Final Result? I was ecstatic to get this design for $180:

Note: I added the illustration of the Las Vegas strip on the hill.

The designer got it right the first try. I tried to squeeze in a few more details by offering feedback, but I ended up liking the original better where I could add my own flair to it. For what it’s worth, this was the feedback I offered to all designers:

Hi all,

I like what I’m seeing so far, I just updated the project to guarantee payment.

I’m probably leaning a little towards [seller name redacted] right now, though I like the Las Vegas Strip elements incorporated by [different seller name redacted], though I would like to see use of popular landmarks (like what you did with Paris).

If you guys need help figuring out which landmarks to use in the illustration, here are a few ideas, they’re listed in the order you would see them driving up the Las Vegas Strip:

Luxor – The pyramid shaped hotel located on the beginning (South) of the Strip.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Luxor_Hotel.jpg

http://www.lasvegastourism.com/Images1/luxor-las-vegas.jpg

Paris – A popular hotel featuring a replica of the Eiffel Tower

http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/nevada/las-vegas/paris-las-vegas/hotel

Bellagio – The fountains at Bellagio are a popular landmark

https://www.google.com/search?q=bellagio+fountains&num=100&es_sm=119&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JDm4U9X0BcuHogSjloG4Aw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg

The Quad/Linq Hotel – A popular landmark featuring the world’s highest observation wheel in the back:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0JZq2imxXfA/UAW1JBBcasI/AAAAAAAAAv8/MFT5G4ileO4/s1600/linq-rendering.jpg

Stratosphere – This popular hotel usually denotes the end (North) of the Las Vegas Strip:

http://www.vegas.com/slideshows/hotels/stratosphere/cr_Strato-1a-exterior-night.jpg

DesignCrowd Tips and How to Make the Most of DesignCrowd

1. Motivate the Designers – Start a project and let a few designs roll in. If there are a few you like, there’s an option to guarantee payment. I feel like this is a huge motivator to designers knowing that you won’t utilize the money back guarantee, essentially wasting a designers time. Designers are much more apt to listen to your revision requests as well.
2. Provide Feedback – More often that not, designers won’t get it 100% perfect the first try. If they’re close, provide them with the feedback they need.
3. Invite, Invite, Invite – With tens of thousands of projects running on DesignCrowd, it’s easy for a designer to miss a project they could be interested in. That’s why it’s a good idea to invite dozens of designers to your project… and DesignCrowd’s search and filter tool is phenomenal. You can filter designers by the basics such as type of designer and country, but also feedback score, contests entered, contests won, win %, etc. I felt like it was Fantasy Football and I was sorting through stats to pick designers – loved it. Since my project was only for $180, I strategically invited designs from lower income countries as they’re more apt to play for a lower prize pool.

DesignCrowd vs 99designs?

Honestly, with a feature set so similar it’s a toss up. But like I mentioned earlier, the designers are what make the marketplace. With both offering a 100% money back guarantee, I don’t think you could go wrong with either. And while DesignCrowd has a lower entry price point, more features, and I was happy with my last project, though here a few cons I though of vs 99designs:

• “Never trust a skinny chef” – You ever hear that phrase before? Similarly, I’m not very impressed with the design of DesignCrowd’s website. It could be my personal taste but I feel there current design was popular a good 5+ years ago. I think 99Designs has a much more professional, and modern design… not to mention a much more intuitive platform. And…
• They created the market – 99Designs created the market, everyone else is a mere copy. People don’t ask for a facial tissue, they ask for a Kleenex. Similarly, the term “crowdsourcing” runs nearly synonymous with 99Designs.
• Less Work – I didn’t have to invite designers on 99Designs, they just came. And I receive more designs. Granted, I paid less on DesignCrowd. Had I paid more, perhaps it would have attracted more designers. Something to consider.

I feel DesignCrowd’s biggest competitive advantages is the lower price points on their packages – but it will draw less designers. With the 100% money back guarantee, it’s still a win/win situation. If you don’t like the end result, simply utilize the satisfaction guarantee. Though I haven’t had to do that because chances are if a designer knows he’s about to close and win the “logo competition,” he’ll go the extra mile to seal the deal.

99designs Alternatives: 5 Cheaper Places for Graphic Design

99designs was the first big player in crowdsourcing design, and they’re still a pretty good option to this day. But with great success, comes great competition. This is my complete review of 99designs and I’ll cover 5 potentially cheaper alternatives to 99designs that can help with your design needs:

• Upwork
• Fiverr
• DesignCrowd
• Design Pickle
• Canva

A lot to cover, so let’s get started.

What is 99designs and how does it work?

Before 99designs, logo design was expensive. You’d have to shed a couple hundred bucks for a few logos that you wouldn’t even like. 99designs sought to change that paradigm and since it’s launch in 2008 they’ve grown to be the largest online graphic design marketplace paying out over money to designers awarded via contests. If you’re reading this post you probably know what they’re all about, basically a crowd of graphic designers compete to give you the design you love, or your money back.

Though I consider myself competent with graphic design, I’ve used 99designs numerous times to get a different perspective from dozens of designers, thus saving me time and money. As an entrepreneur, I’m constantly busy with other things so the first time I used 99designs was out of necessity, as I didn’t have enough time to come up with something myself. I recently helped a consulting company and they needed a logo quickly to speed up the process to launch.

Logo Design for Mazzulo

What They Were Looking For: While 99designs does require you to fill out a design brief, their details were still very ambiguous because they honestly had no clue of what we were looking for. The only detail I gave was that Mazzuolo is Italian for “Mallet” thus they perhaps wanted to incorporate a mallet, hammer, or even hammerhead shark.

Final Results:

A short design brief, led to a great result that the client loved

We received dozens of applicants, and ultimately had to choose between 4-5 very good designs. We gave them feedback on how they could improve the design and each designer promptly submitted another design (remember that designers don’t get paid unless they win). I won’t share the others as I believe the only logo I own is the one we paid for (above). Ultimately, we were happy to choose the best, an award the graphic designer with the prize.

The designer mentioned his inspiration, saying the logo emulates the look of a hammer, but above the “M” resembles a shark fin. My client loved it. And it only cost $300 (the minimum to run a logo design contest). With that we also have the contact information of a talented designer who could be willing to do future logo work for less, and both parties are still protected as 99designs offers “1-to-1 projects.” Want to see more? 99designs features a lot of their recent winners on their website. You can get a live look at real winners from real projects.

Logo Design for VegasRanked

VegasRanked was looking for a logo that was quintessentially Las Vegas, and again, the client loved the results:

What else reminds of the Las Vegas strip than neon lights? Again, the client had the choose from many great designs but settled on the one above.

Now that you know how it works, let’s talk about how to make the most of logo design contests on 99designs, DesignCrowed, et. al.

Get Inspired by the Stories Behind Popular Logos

Let’s take a look at some of the best logos ever created and perhaps you’ll pull an idea for your own logo.

Nike’s “Swoosh” logo was designed by Carolyn Davidson in 1971 for $35 (Adjusted for inflation would equal ~$185 in 2010). It was inspired by the Greek Goddess of Victory as shown below:

The co-founder of Nike, Phil Knight, said “I don’t love it… but I think it will grow on me.” Nike grew exponentially and is now one of the world’s most recognized companies. To express his gratitude, in 1983 he gave Davidson a diamond embedded golden Swoosh ring along with an undisclosed amount of stock (Source).

Notice the arrow between the “E” and the “x” and the half arrow between the “F” and the “e.”

One my favorite companies and logos, Amazon.com handles everything from A-Z. Notice the arrow?

99designs Offers Coupon/Promotions

If you do run a design contest, you’ll have an opportunity to make $50 cashback from 99designs. Once your contest in finished, they’ll send you an email prompting, “Want to get a $50 cashback on your latest design contest? Simply refer your friends to 99designs and if one of them buys within 14 days, you’ll instantly receive a $50 cashback!”

If you’re on a budget, checkout the 99designs Logo Store for ready made logos for $99. Note that other businesses may also purchase the same logo template unless you buy the exclusive agreement (~$200). If you are trying to save money, I’d probably just point you to DesignCrowd or Fiverr though.

99designs Review Summary

Let’s review the Pros and Cons of 99designs:

99designs Pros

• Dozens of designs for as little as $300, designers are motivated to win. 
• Believe it or not, it took me well over 12 hours and many different versions to design the LaunchAStartup logo, 99designs will save you time and money. I’ve had success with every contest I’ve run, but if you’re unhappy remember that there is a…
• 100% Money Back Guarantee

99designs Cons

• It could be potentially cheaper to just hire an independent contractor, but you won’t get as many designs and may end up unhappy. 
• Could take a few days for designs to start rolling in, if you’re in a time crunch look to running a larger contest to motivate more designers to submit a design.

What about 99designs Alternatives?

With great success, comes great competition and now we’ll illuminate 5 cheaper alternatives to 99designs.

The marketing world at this age is increasingly visual. By that we mean, no matter how excellent or good your content or product is, it will not get spark interest if it does not have striking aesthetics or visuals to accompany it.

Fortunately, there’s been an increase in affordable, low-cost graphic design services available today. So, whether you need a brochure, business sign design, logo, website layout, infographic, or something remarkable, you can find a lot of platforms online.

For a little help, we have compiled five best places to fulfill your graphic design needs on a shoestring budget. Read on!

Fiverr

If you’re on a budget, this will be your #1 99designs alternative. If you have not heard of this platform, then, believe it or not, you’re missing out on a great platform for finding affordable graphic design services. Let’s start with our posts on the some of my favorite gigs on Fiverr, as well as my in-depth Fiverr review, where I cover the many pitfalls that may run into. 

It’s the most user friendly, it’s setup like the Amazon for business services. In fact, plenty of services in Fiverr only cost five dollars, particularly jobs like simple banner ads, business cards, and logos.

Heck, for as cheap as they are. You can spend $20-$50 on a few designs and hold a mini crowdsourced vote on social media to see which one people think is the best logo.

For projects more demanding and time-intensive, of course, you will need to pay more than $5. A lot of sellers offer different options and add-ons. So, you save cash by paying only for the service that you need.

Even the costly graphic designers in this platform can be, for the most part, affordable because Fiverr associates with global talent. Typically, you can look for a professional quality book cover, banner, brochure, logo, or even 3D custom metal business signs. Just keep in mind they don’t have a money-back guarantee.  

Unlike Upwork, Fiverr has a product focus, where the services are, for the most part, offered with consideration on the price and the product. Because of this, a lot of freelancers work under screen names, and you are typically not sure of the real identity of the freelancer you hired.

Upwork

Upwork, formerly known as Elance/oDesk, is one of the biggest platforms of freelancers promoting their services. And as you can expect, there is a sea of low-cost graphic design services here. But if all you need is a logo, I’d probably point you elsewhere. But if you’ll eventually need a high quality web design, or maybe content marketing help – Upwork is a solid option for that. Upwork is where I’ve spent the most money, but it also has the most pitfalls. I’ve covered this in my in-depth review of Upwork.

Using this platform is plain and simple. Well, first, you make a public job, assign the budget, and await for freelancers to send applications for the job. Or, on the other hand, you can make a private job and summon only your chosen or preferred freelancers to apply. But, either way, you will surely have plenty of candidates to choose from.

This platform has a freelancer-based focus. Thus, real names are, like it or not, used and Upwork might require you an identity document verification. Freelancers post their work portfolio and undergo a couple of tests to prove their knowledge and skill. Moreover, the reviews on this platform tend to be more well-founded and valid. This is especially true if the cost of the project is higher, it would be expensive for freelancers to get colleagues to compose fake, unreliable reviews. However, that does not guarantee that there will be no lower-quality freelancers. You might need to sort through them. Nevertheless, this platform has a job success score that rate freelancers based on previous, former work.

DesignCrowd

Like 99designs, DesignCrowd is a crowdsourced marketplace that links creatives with companies in need of great design. It’s the closest 1:1 match with 99designs and it’s your best alternative at a cheaper price. Businesses can crowdsource or outsource projects to plenty of designers all over the world. Once you find the design that goes well with your vision, you can buy it and get the entire artwork with industry standard files and a copyright transfer. How does it compare? Checkout our comparison of crowdsource marketplaces in our post on DesignCrowd vs 99designs vs Crowdspring.

DesignCrowd is one of my favorites as it’s a little cheaper than 99designs. And like 99designs, it has a money-back guarantee. So it’s a win/win. I ran a contest for website design background I needed and I loved the result…

DesignCrowd is the Best Alternative to 99designs

Overall, I’ve had tremendous success on both DesignCrowd and 99designs. And I’ve only had to utilize the money back guarantee once (on 99designs). And it wasn’t an issue at all, their customer support was great.

Design Pickle

Unlike 99designs, this marketplace offers a revolutionary flat-rate approach to low-cost graphic design. So, rather than spending on a per-project basis, Design Pickle offers a plethora of unlimited graphic design services for flat-monthly-fee. Such flat rate basis is created or developed for the non-creative small companies. 

After you sign up for the service, you are then paired with a graphic designer who’ll be mainly responsible and liable for your designs. Design Pickle has pre-selected a team of freelance graphic designers who are, for the most part, prepared for high-volume work. If that graphic designer is unavailable, another designer will fill in, checking on-call design services. While not cheaper if you’re just looking for a logo, they’re a great alternative to 99designs if you need a lot of graphic design at a flat monthly rate. 

Canva

This platform is a famous design tool that is entirely free and, more often than not, easy and simple to maneuver without requiring any design experience. Canva is famous among small business owners, content marketers, and bloggers, offering templates.

This site is designed or engineered for play, school, and work. Plus, it provides helpful design tips for non-designers. Canva’s interface is easy and intuitive for anyone to use. So, whether it is making presentations, marketing materials, or magazine covers, you can make excellent graphics with the layouts provided in Canva. Furthermore, this site offers a premium service called Canva At Work, allowing you to work with other people. A solid 99designs alternative for the DIYers. 

Takeaway

There you have it, 5 great alternatives to 99designs. Although some platforms are great for certain design work, it’s entirely about how you utilize the site. If you are looking for affordable graphic design services, the list above can help you out. Be sure to be specific in your work description, opt for long-term relationships, and, if possible, pay bonuses for excellent work.

DesignCrowd vs 99designs vs CrowdSpring

If nothing else, both the 99designs and DesignCrowd review linked above are good pre-requisites to this review comparison.

Today, we’ll be covering the most popular crowdsourcing platforms, 99Designs, CrowdSpring and DesignCrowd. And if you’re new to this blog, or new to crowdsourcing, the basic premise is that you post a contest with prize money, say for a logo you need for your new business, and a bunch of designers compete for that prize. And usually, only the winner walks away with the prize.

It’s a win-win for both parties, a business gets to choose among dozens of logos, and talented designers get paid for their work. The only losers are actually the designers who don’t win, which is one of the biggest gripes from freelancers because they don’t like to put in a lot of work and not get paid. And I agree with that, but only if you’re finishing in the top 5. If buyers aren’t following up with you, critiquing your design, etc. chances are your skill level is just not there.

Like our other posts, we’ll be covering both sides of the table, because I think it’s important for both buyers and designers to understand what the other party is thinking. Really quick, let’s start with the designers:

Which is the best platform for designers: 99designs, CrowdSpring, our DesignCrowd?

Really, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be on all of them scouting for the best projects. It’s like someone hunting for traditional employment, but only utilizing one job board. It just doesn’t make sense, and you could be missing a lot of opportunities. Sure there are minor monetary differences, DesignCrowd allows buyers to offer 2nd/3rd place prizes, and even paying designers just to compete. But at the end of the day, you should really be on all platforms if you want to maximize revenue. With that being said, I do have a bit of experience as a designer, but I’m running a marketing agency, and when I have helped clients setup crowdsourced projects, overall I tend to see better designers on 99designs. And it makes sense, 99designs created the market and they’re still the biggest player in the space.

99designs vs CrowdSpring vs DesignCrowd – Which site should you crowdsource to?

Let’s start with this, and I’ve often repeated this on the blog. Designers make the marketplace, not the other way around. Classic chicken and the egg problem for marketplaces, and you can’t have one side without the other. Each have a very similar feature set, and I’ll get into that, but the most important thing to realize is that the designers make the marketplace (and I’ll show you how to find the best ones below).

100% Money Back Guarantee

All sites offer a 100% money back guarantee, which means you have little risk as a buyer. Unlike conventional freelance marketplaces like UpWork, posting isn’t free. You’re paying for your project upfront, and DesignCrowd actually has a feature where you can guarantee payment. Which is good for freelancers, knowing that they’re not working gratis. With DesignCrowd, once I see designs roll through that I’m happy with, which means I know I’m going to buy, I do turn on the option for guaranteeing payment. And in my experience, designers are more apt to listen to your revision requests when they know there’s a good chance they could win the prize money.   

Let’s take a look at pricing, and since logos are the most popular type of design contest that’s what we’ll peek into:

DesignsCrowds Logo Pricing:

99designs Logo Pricing:

CrowdSpring Logo Pricing:

On paper, CrowdSpring is the cheapest (for logos at least). DesignCrowd is 2nd, and 99designs is the most expensive to start a contest. BUT it’s important to note what the freelancer takes home in each situation. The cheapest package, $199 from CrowdSpring, only awards 50% to the designer, which is only $100. And remember it’s not guaranteed, you’re competing against a limit of 5 other designers, and 25 total designs. The bigger packages allow the designer to win a bigger cut. From my research, 99designs and CrowdSpring payout about the same percentage. Technically, they’re not taking a commission as they’re charging the buyers upfront for posting the project. On DesignCrowd, they only take 15%, but also have posting and transaction fees.

Final Thoughts, and who you want to crowdsource your project depends on…

With DesignCrowd, I was extremely happy with my design, especially considering I only paid $180 for what I think is a lot more difficult than a logo. Only a few participated, and I had too invite a lot of freelancers just to get participants. Granted, my price was only $180 (I needed a background illustration, not a logo).

Bottom Line: If you’re on a strict budget, and the $60 difference between DesignCrowd and 99Designs is significant enough, I’d give DesignCrowd a try. But you’ll have to put in a bit more time, invite a lot of freelancers whose work you like, etc. Here was the design I got, it was a background illustration for a website which I loved, to understand the context read the review linked above if you haven’t done so already.

99designs is still the biggest player in the space though, and now they’re expanding to video and animation. I’ve found it’s the the easiest to setup and I know from multiple campaigns that there will be a broad selection of good designers who submit good designs. You don’t need to invite them, they come to you. Granted, the project is easier and I paid more money. 99designs created the market, and they remain the biggest player – and I think for good reason. Facebook wasn’t the first social network, YouTube wasn’t the first place to host videos, and so on, so for a team to execute like 99designs does – as a business owner I’m very impressed.

Bottom Line: I would probably default to DesignCrowd, because they’re cheaper and still offer a 100% money back guarantee. But if there’s a category that DesignCrowd doesn’t have (like video and animation), 99designs is certainly a good option.

With CrowdSpring, I just didn’t see too much differentiators. To me, it’s just a copycat of 99designs. At least DesignCrowd had a host of other options you could choose from that differentiates themselves from 99designs. But remember, designers make the marketplace. And I’m sure there’s a host of talent on there as well.

At the end of the day, I don’t think you can go wrong with either option. Designers make the marketplace. All options offer a 100% money back guarantee, so if you weren’t happy with 99designs you could move on to CrowdSpring or DesignCrowd.

What do you guys think? Both buyers and designers, which is your favorite crowdsourcing marketplace – 99designs, DesignCrowd or CrowdSpring?