Graphic Design Professionals vs DaaS: The Real Cost Comparison

Keeping up with your business’s ever-evolving needs means constantly being under the pressure of crafting fresh design assets. The demand for eye-catching and brand-consistent visuals grows while finding reliable design resources gets more challenging. It’s because finding the sweet balance between quality and affordability is like mixing oil with water. 

If you’re looking for a better alternative to hiring graphic design professionals for your brand, here is the best alternative. We’ll discuss the costs involved to give you a better view of what to expect.

Hiring Graphic Design Professionals: The Traditional Approach

The usual way, and the one that most business owners and marketers know, of getting visual assets is by hiring professional graphic designers. It can be having one to work for you or a whole team of designers and illustrators, budget willing. Here’s a quick look at what it will cost you if you go the traditional way:

Direct Costs

• Average Salaries Across Different Markets: Hiring graphic design professionals means paying competitive salaries. These can vary significantly by location. A designer in a large city typically commands a higher wage than a designer in a smaller market.
• Benefits and Overhead Costs: In addition to the base salaries, entrepreneurs and marketers must consider the costs of benefits such as health insurance, paid time off, and other perks. These can add substantial costs to hiring full-time design staff.
• Equipment and Software Licenses: Professional graphic designers need special tools to craft their magic. This includes industry-standard software like Adobe Creative Cloud. These can add up, more so with regular updates and upgrades.
• Training and Development: To keep your design teams informed, you need to invest in training and development. This can come from workshops, courses, and conferences that help them build new skills. 

Hidden Costs

• Recruitment and Onboarding Time: Finding, interviewing, and onboarding new designers can take considerable time and resources. It can also be lengthy, which could dampen productivity.
• Management Overhead: Managing in-house designers requires oversight. This can include coordinating projects and performance reviews, adding to a business owner’s workload.
• Productivity Gaps: Paid leave, holidays, and sick days can cause productivity gaps when a designer is unavailable during this time off.
• Limited Skill Specialization: A design team can cover all your general design requirements. However, not all graphic design professionals are adept at all design expertise. While one can excel in logo design, he may not have the chops to create illustrations. This means you’ll need to hire someone with specialized skills. This can include outsourcing or yet another interview and onboarding session.

Design-as-a-Service: The Modern Alternative

If you’re not among the many who have discovered the modern and better alternative, this is it. It’s what’s known as Design-as-a-Service (DaaS). It is a cloud-based model in which businesses are given access to a team of professional graphic designers for a fixed monthly rate. 

It enables them to scale their design needs without the costs of hiring full-time staff. You can request designs as needed, making it a cost-effective and flexible solution for businesses of all sizes. 

Below are the costs involved in this modern option:

Subscription Costs

• Typical Pricing Models: DaaS companies typically use subscription-based pricing. This means you’ll subscribe to a plan that provides you with different levels of service. From basic packages to premium plans with more robust features and support.
• What’s Included: A DaaS subscription plan usually includes a wide selection of services. This includes logo design, social media graphics, UI/UX design, and many others. It also offers unlimited designs and revisions.
• Scalability Options: These services are created to be scalable. This enables businesses to adjust their subscription levels based on their current demand. Penji, for example, lets you pause your plan and continue when your workload increases again.
• No Hidden Fees: Unlimited online graphic design services won’t surprise you with hidden fees or overhead. You no longer have to pay for benefits or equipment and software costs. This lets you pay a fixed budget per month.

Additional Benefits

• Access to a 24/7 Design Team: Most DaaS companies allow you to send design requests outside of typical business hours. This is especially helpful for global operations requiring 24/7 design service.
• Diverse Skills on Demand: You won’t have to hire different designers for specific tasks; instead, you’ll have access to a vast variety of designs on demand. Penji, for example, has a team of professional designers specializing in a wide range of skills. From illustrators to web designers and motion graphics artists, you won’t have to look for a specialization outside our platform.
• No HR/Management Overhead: These services eliminate the need for HR or management overhead costs. The DaaS companies handle those, giving you more time to focus on managing your business.
• Unlimited Revisions: As mentioned earlier, these graphic design services offer unlimited designs with unlimited revisions. This guarantees you’ll be satisfied with the design assets you receive.
• Quick Turnaround Times: DaaS is structured for efficiency. Its swift turnaround times ensure that you will meet deadlines.

Real Cost Comparison

Let’s compare the costs of graphic design services to find out which is more cost-effective between hiring professional graphic designers or getting the services of a DaaS. We used Penji’s pricing as a reference:

Small Business (10 projects/month)

• Traditional Graphic Design Professional
• Base Salary (junior designer): $50,000/year 
• Benefits and Overhead: $15,500/year
• Total: $65,500/year
• Per project cost: ~$545

DaaS Solution

• Annual cost: $5,988
• Per project cost: ~$49.90
• Savings: $59,512 (approximately 90.86% less)

Mid-Size Business (30 projects/month)

• Traditional Team
• Two designers + overhead: $190,000/year
• Per project cost: ~$530
• Limited to team capacity

DaaS Solution

• Annual cost: $11,940 ($995/mo)
• Per project cost: ~$33.17
• Savings: $178,060 (approximately 93.72% less)

Enterprise (50+ projects/month)

• Traditional Team
• Full design team: $470,000/year
• Per project cost: ~$785
• Complex management needed

DaaS Solution

• Annual cost: $17,964/year ($1,497/mo)
• Per project cost: ~$29.94
• Savings: $452,036 (approximately 96.18% less)

Graphic Design Professionals: Pros and Cons

Pros

• Direct Collaboration: You can work closely with designers, offering real-time feedback and direction. 
• Long-Term Brand Familiarity: In-house designers become deeply familiar with your brand’s voice and identity.
• Dedicated Availability: Designers are fully committed to your business during work hours.

Cons

• Higher Overhead: Salaries, benefits, and software costs can quickly add up.
• Limited Bandwidth: In-house teams can only handle so much work at a time.
• Recruitment Hassles: Finding, training, and retaining talent takes time and effort.
• Skill Gaps: One designer may not be proficient in all types of design work, requiring additional hires.

Design-as-a-Service (DaaS) Pros and Cons

Pros

• Lower Cost: Fixed monthly fees eliminate surprise expenses and reduce total cost.
• Scalability: You can scale design output based on your business needs.
• Diverse Skill Set: Access to a wide range of designers with various specializations. In Penji, for instance, we have the world’s top 2% designers, who offer different specializations, as you can see from our portfolio.
• No HR Burden: No need to manage salaries, benefits, or recruitment.
• Quick Turnaround: Optimized for fast and efficient design delivery. At Penji, we offer a turnaround time of 24-48 hours.

Cons

• Less Real-Time Collaboration: Feedback may be asynchronous, depending on your provider.
• Learning Curve: Some onboarding may be needed to align external teams with your brand.
• Subscription Maintenance: You need to maintain your subscription to continue accessing services.

Conclusion

Graphic Design Professionals offer close collaboration and long-term brand familiarity, but they come at a steep cost, especially when you consider hidden expenses and time investment. 

On the other hand, DaaS solutions like Penji offer a modern, flexible, and significantly more affordable alternative. That said, DaaS can also provide close collaboration and brand familiarity once you become a regular subscriber. 

If you’re ready to ditch the traditional hiring headache and design on your terms, it may be time to give Penji a try.

To transition from traditional professional graphic designers, you must first take stock of your brand’s monthly design needs. You can then select the right plan and consider an unlimited graphic design subscription. Gather your brand assets and submit a test project to learn more about the platform. You may want to assign a team member to coordinate your requests and create templates for common projects.

Additionally, the switch can take about a month. Start with simple projects, establish clear request processes, and gradually increase the volume as your team adapts. Remember, clear communication is the key to making the most of a graphic design subscription plan.

Watch our demo video here or click here to send your first design request.