What is the first thing you do before buying any product or service? Let us guess: ask for reviews and recommendations. Whatever you need: a pair of sneakers, or a designer for your business, a couple of reviews is what helps you to choose without wasting your time and resources.
Do you feel it describes you best? For people like you, we are starting a series of design platform reviews. This one is about a popular design subscription platform named Design Pickle.Â
At Awesomic, we love exploring different features of our colleagues-slash-competitors. It helps us not only to provide you with the meticulous analysis of their platforms, but also to perfect our own app.
Now, let’s give a careful examination of Design Pickle. We’ll explore some of its key features and do our best to give a comprehensive review of the main tool.
Design Pickle is a flat-rate design subscription platform that was launched in 2015. It’s main principle is straightforward: you pay a fixed fee per month and, as the website claims, request an unlimited amount of designs. Besides, you don’t need to sign any contracts and still get full ownership of the work.
Design Pickle was founded by entrepreneur Russ Perry who got his first taste of working in technology as an Apple campus marketing rep. Subsequently, he worked with brands like Morgan Stanley, Pebble Tec, and LG.
Since its launch in January 2015, Design Pickle has grown from 2 to over 700 team members. In 2021, the platform reached 1 million creative requests. Among its clients are banks, marketing agencies, and startups.
The Design Pickle platform has an intuitive interface that navigates you throughout it. The whole process from registering to starting to use it doesn’t take much time. In fact, the journey of a Design Pickle user can be broken down to 4 major steps:
The first step of using the platform is to select a subscription plan: Scale or Pro. They differ not only in price but also in services included in the tier. If you choose the Pro plan, you’ll have benefits of faster turnaround time and communication with designers via suited platforms. However, presentation design and motion graphics are available in only Pro plans.Â
After you’ve selected a subscription plan, you’ll get access to the Design Pickle platform. There, you can request the desired designs with the help of intuitive and AI powered request form. In this form, you need to give instructions and design descriptions including pictures for reference.
After your assigned designer completes the request, the next step is to revise it. Give feedback and correction if needed. And the same process can be repeated multiple times until you get the design you wanted.
When you accept the final design it becomes your 100% ownership. Moreover, you’ll receive the design file in JPG, PNG, and PDF formats. After this, the designers of Design Pickle start working on your next request. Â
Do you still want to know more about processes involved in using Design Pickle? For this the platform offers demo videos. However, to get the access, be ready to fill in the watching request form.
As mentioned above, depending on your needs, Design Pickle offers two types of a flat-rate subscription: Scale and Pro. However, the price of each plan isn’t the same for every type of design. For graphic design and custom illustration services, the price remains the same and increases for presentation design and motion graphics.Â
However, if you want to see the prices for all services at once, you are in for a quest. When you go to the Plans section, you’ll see the prices for only Pro tiers. For some reason the creators of the website removed the prices of the Scale subscription plan from this page.Â
Those who are curious enough to browse the website for the Scale plan price, would go to the Solutions pages of each service. There, you’ll find out that graphic and custom illustration designs actually do offer the Scale plan.Â
However, on webpages of presentation and motion design you won’t even find the prices. Feels like the price information is playing hide and seek with the customers, doesn’t it?
For graphic design requests, the platform offers Scale and Pro plans with the rates of $499 and $995 per month, respectively. The Scale plan offers simple graphic design work such as logo, advertising, brochure, or clothing graphics.
With the Pro plan, users get an extended list of services that include:
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The Pro subscription plan also suggests that customers have the same-day turnaround, can communicate in Slack, and select time zones.
When it comes to illustration design, the platform offers the same price tags as it does for the graphic design. In the same way, the Scale plan offers basic designs such as portraits, caricatures, illustrated manuals, or medical illustrations. And customers would need some to scale up to Pro for advanced services like:
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You might think, what is the difference between graphic and custom illustration design? They both basically create pictures and even cost the same. Why then are they considered different services?
For presentation design, the platform offers only the Pro plan with a $1495 monthly fee. It includes all of the benefits of a Pro plan and offers you to:
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Among details that add up to the convenience of this service, there is the choice of file. As the platform claims, your designer will send you the final presentation file in the format of Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides. Later, you can edit the file according to your needs.
Those who would like to use motion graphics on Design Pickle, the platform charges $1695 per month. Besides that, this package includes a Pro plan of graphic design subscription. The idea behind this combination is to allow the customers to get both static and animated designs under one subscription type.Â
On the one hand, this offer is heaven-sent for those who are planning to subscribe for both services. On the other hand, what if you only need the motion graphics? Looks a lot like you’d have to overpay.
Besides services that are included in the graphic design Pro plan, motion graphics can offer you to:
If you’d like to check out the platform and all of its features with the help of a short trial period, Design Pickle doesn’t offer such an opportunity. It charges the full price before work on the client tasks starts. The only safety net you have is a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.Â
At Awesomic, we believe that you have to feel absolutely safe before subscribing to our services. That’s why we provide you with a 1-week trial period for only $7. Discover how to easily use the platform right now.
The homepage of the Design Pickle mentions the “unlimited” option multiple times. In particular, there are such phrases as “unlimited requests” or “unlimited revisions”. But what exactly does this mean? Can customers get any number of designs?Â
Yes, there are no limitations for the designs you can get in one months of subscription. However, there is one thing that needs explanation: it doesn't mean all of your requests will be ready at once.
In fact, they form a queue so that designers work on one at a time. And if you need several designs done at the same time? The solution would be to scale up with more subscriptions.
Is Design Pickle solely restricted to the “submit request / get design” process? According to the platform’s ultimate guide, it has more features to offer to its users. So let’s see what they suggest to us.
What is special about it? With the Design Pickle subscription you get access to stock photos from Pexels, Unsplash, and FreshStock. Using this feature is beneficial in a way that you don’t need to have a special photoshoot to get the image you need. This feature is already included in the price of a monthly subscription.
Unlike a previous feature, you can get this option with the additional payment of $25 per month. The library includes pictures from Adobe Stock and JummStory. The images provided by premium stock are available for other paid users that can use it in their designs. To avoid having identical results, you can ask your designer to modify the image according to your brand identity.
Another useful feature of Design Pickle is the use of the Slack messaging app. It should be noted, though, that this feature is available to only Pro users. Using Slack comes in handy for communication with a designer.Â
You can add comments, attach files, and even integrate Slack with apps like Asana, Google Drive, or Trello. For Scale subscription the communication happens via email or other methods chosen by the user and designer.
Those businesses that manage several brands would find this option useful. At Design Pickle, you can add up to 10 users for the same subscription. Each of the users have their own login credentials but can access all of the features on the account. The users can also be divided on such types:
The Design Pickle website claims that this service can deliver content to any business. The Awesomic’s research of the platform has found that there are particular types of business that can make a full use of the platform.Â
Firstly, it’s small- and middle-sized companies that have a big demand in illustrations for marketing campaigns on social media platforms. They can choose between such platforms as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.Â
Bloggers might also benefit from this platform's service. The content creators are in constant need for visual elements for their platforms. They can use this service to create illustrations that carry only aesthetic purpose. Or they can transform their own content into custom images.Â
The platform claims to have not only such types of business, but also agencies and entrepreneurs among their clients. Their projects range from, but are not limited to, flyers, mailers, postcards, online ads, packaging, book covers, infographics, and more. In case you are interested, here’s the official scope of their design services.Â
Despite providing such a vast scope of designs, Design Pickle isn’t a magic wand. For instance, the platform doesn’t offer 3D design or mobile app design. Moreover, the platform doesn’t specialize in digital paintings, game assets, or complex animation.Â
Now that we clarified who and how can use this platform, let’s see what wasn’t mentioned. Are there any tips on getting the most of Design Pickle? Yes, Awesomic won’t leave you empty-handed. Here they are:Â
The customer reviews of companies sometimes have western movie vibes. They can be described in three words ― the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. On the serious note though, Awesomic has conducted research on Design Pickle reviews. Some of them are complementary, some not. Let’s get a closer look.Â
On G2 business review platform Design Pickle is rated 4.7/5 based on 81 reviews. Understandably, the majority of customers are satisfied with the service. The noted advantages allow you to:Â
On the other hand, even those customers that assessed the service with 5 stars mentioned negative moments. Some even went further and assessed the service with zero stars. Here’s what they disliked in using Design Pickle:
Another review platform the Awesomic research is based on is Trustpilot. There, Design Pickle is rated 4.2 out of 5 based on 191 reviews. In the same way, we’ll see what the customers liked and disliked.
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As it was mentioned above, the users of this platform value its quick turnaround time, quality, and the designer communication possibilities. Some go even further to praise their designers personally, referring to their friendliness, professionalism, and speed.
However, there are negative reviews mentioning points that weren’t in those on G2. One of such is that Design Pickle underpays its workers while charging reasonable prices for using the platform.Â
Others are not satisfied with the quality or delivery time. Moreover, some users say the price of this service is overrated as they can find better quality designs on other platforms.
Design PIckle is a popular design platform operating since 2015. As of November 2021, it provides graphic design, custom illustration, presentation design services, and motion graphics. Design Pickle is known for its option of unlimited requests that, as it turns out, do have a limit.Â
Like all the platforms, this one has its pros and cons. Most of the Design Pickle reviews on the web are positive. Complains, however, are also present concerning the turnaround time in cheaper plans and miscommunication with designers.Â
We know how important it is for you to weigh the pros and cons. Besides discovering all the details of Design Pickle, it’s always useful to have some alternatives. To be sure about choice, take your time and have a look at Awesomic.Â
This is a platform with top-notch designers, where you can expect 1 business day turnaround no matter the plan you choose. Besides, you’ll also get the source files to your tasks, customer success manager, and unlimited users with each subscription.
Design Pickle is a popular graphic design service. They offer graphic design, custom illustration, and presentation design at a flat rate.
As a flat-rate design subscription platform, Design Pickle offers its customers 4 basic services:
• graphic design
• custom illustration
• presentation design
• motion graphics
The platform offers two types of a flat-rate subscription: Scale and Pro, but not for every plan. Besides, the price of each plan isn’t the same for every type of design.
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• Graphic Design: Scale — $499,
• Pro — $995 Custom
• Illustration: Scale — $499,
• Pro — $995
• Presentation Design: $1,495
• Motion Graphics: $1,695