In-House Designer vs. Unlimited Design Service: Cost & ROI Breakdown

TL;DR: In-house designers offer deep brand immersion but entail high overhead. On the flip side, unlimited graphic design services offer a scalable, affordable alternative, saving you up to 70% annually. For teams prioritizing ROI and flexibility, a design subscription is the clear winner.

It’s a classic growth dilemma. You have great ideas for ad campaigns, a website refresh, or a new slide deck, but you don’t have the team to execute them. You know DIY tools won’t cut it forever if you want to look professional. You need a pro.

But where do you start? Do you post a job, sift through portfolios, and commit to a full-time salary? Or do you opt for a more flexible, modern solution?

Choosing between an in-house designer and unlimited graphic design services is about your bottom line and ROI. This guide breaks down the costs and benefits of both options, helping you scale your business, not your expenses.

What are the Main Differences Between In-House vs. Unlimited Graphic Design Services?

Think of an in-house designer as buying a car. It’s all yours, reliable, and ready whenever you need it. But you’re also on the hook for insurance, gas, and maintenance, whether you use it daily or not.

An unlimited graphic design service is like a premium ride-share subscription. You get a ride on-demandmaybe a van for moving or a sedan for meetings—for a flat monthly fee. No maintenance, no gas. Just the ride.

In-House Design: You hire a full-time employee who works exclusively for you.

Unlimited Design Service: You subscribe to a service like Penji, submitting requests to a pool of vetted designers.

Option 1: Hiring In-House Designers

For decades, this was the gold standard. You grow, you hire. There is a certain comfort in having someone sitting at the desk next to you (or on Slack all day) who lives and breathes your brand.

The pros of hiring in-house designers: Brand familiarity, accessibility, control and focus

• Brand Deep Dive: An in-house designer eventually knows your brand better than anyone. They know you hate that specific shade of blue and that your tone is “cheeky but professional.”
• Total Accessibility: You can walk over to their desk for a quick “shoulder tap” edit. Communication is instant.
• Focus: They aren’t juggling five other clients. Their only priority is your company’s success.

The cons of hiring in-house designers: Capabilities, recruiting and retention

• The Unicorn Problem: You usually need a logo, a website, a social media animation, and a slide deck. Finding one person who is an expert in all those things is nearly impossible. You often end up hiring a generalist who is “okay” at everything but master of none.
• Recruiting Nightmares: The average time to hire a creative is over 40 days. That’s a month and a half of lost productivity.
• Retention & Burnout: Creatives get bored doing the same social media templates for two years straight. Turnover is high, and when they leave, your brand knowledge walks out the door with them.

In-house design teams are great for:

Large enterprises with massive budgets, established brand guidelines, and a steady stream of consistent work that requires deep, specialized knowledge of the company’s inner workings.

Option 2: Unlimited Graphic Design Service

This model, often called “design as a service,” has exploded in popularity because it solves the biggest pain point of the creative economy: friction. It removes the friction of hiring, the friction of per-project quoting, and the friction of hourly billing.

The pros of Unlimited Graphic Design Services: Quality, expertise and perspectives

• Diverse Expertise: Unlike one in-house hire, a subscription service gives you access to a team. Need a UI designer today and an illustrator tomorrow? You get both without hiring two people.
• Cost Efficiency: You pay a flat rate. No surprises. No overtime. No benefits packages.
• Scalability: If you have a quiet month, you aren’t paying a salary for someone to twiddle their thumbs. If you have a busy month, the service scales with you.

The cons of Unlimited Design Service: Speed, cost and inefficiencies

• Async Communication: You can’t usually shoulder-tap a remote designer. You have to write clear briefs.
• Onboarding Friction: The first few tasks might require some back-and-forth as the designers learn your specific preferences.

Cost of: In-House Designer vs. Unlimited Graphic Design Services

Let’s get down to the numbers. This is where the ROI conversation really happens. We’ve analyzed market rates to show you exactly where your money goes.

No-code development: Cost breakdown

• In-House: A developer/designer hybrid who can handle Webflow or other no-code tools commands $60,000–$90,000 annually.
• Unlimited Service: Included in upper-tier subscriptions (approx $10,000–$15,000/year).

Web design: Cost breakdown

A good website is your 24/7 salesperson.

• In-House: A dedicated web designer costs $60,000–$100,000.
• Unlimited Service: Included in subscription.

Web app design: Cost breakdown

• In-House: Specialized product designers are expensive, ranging from $60,000 to $120,000.
• Unlimited Service: Available in specialized tiers for a fraction of the cost.

Landing pages: Cost breakdown

• In-House: Part of the web designer’s salary, but often distracts them from bigger product work.
• Unlimited Service: Unlimited landing page designs are a staple of these services, delivering high conversion assets quickly.

Graphic design: Cost breakdown

This is the bread and butter—social posts, banners, flyers.

• In-House: A mid-level graphic designer costs $50,000–$85,000 plus benefits.
• Unlimited Service: This is the core offering. For $5,000–$10,000 a year, you get nearly unlimited volume.

Logo design: Cost breakdown

• In-House: One designer means one style. You get limited variation.
• Unlimited Service: You can request concepts from multiple designers within the service to get a wider range of ideas.

Social media design: Cost breakdown

• In-House: Takes up 30-40% of a generalist’s week.
• Unlimited Service: Set it and forget it. You can churn out daily content without burning out your internal team.

Illustrations: Cost breakdown

• In-House: Most graphic designers cannot draw custom illustrations. You’d have to hire a specialist or freelancer ($100/hour).
• Unlimited Service: Many subscriptions include custom illustration as part of the flat fee.

Marketing presentations: Cost breakdown

• In-House: Often falls to the marketing manager because the designer is “too busy.”
• Unlimited Service: Send the rough text, get back a polished PowerPoint or pitch deck.

Brand identity: Cost breakdown

• In-House: $60,000–$85,000 (part of the senior designer’s role).
• Unlimited Service: Comprehensive branding kits are standard deliverables.

Marketing assets: Cost breakdown

• In-House: Constant flow of PDFs, one-pagers, and brochures keeps a salary-based employee busy but costs high per asset.
• Unlimited Service: Drastically lowers the cost-per-asset.

UI/UX design: Cost breakdown

• In-House: A senior UI/UX pro is expensive—$70,000 to $100,000+.
• Unlimited Service: Access to UI/UX specialists without the six-figure commitment.

Mobile app UI design: Cost breakdown

• In-House: $75,000–$120,000.
• Unlimited Service: Perfect for prototyping and screen design without hiring a full-time product team.

Design systems creation: Cost breakdown

• In-House: A massive undertaking usually reserved for lead designers ($80k+).
• Unlimited Service: Can help build the components and libraries you need to scale.

Animation and motion design: Cost breakdown

• In-House: Rare skill set. A motion designer costs $70,000–$110,000.
• Unlimited Service: Many top-tier subscriptions now include simple motion graphics and animation.

Print & Packaging design: Cost breakdown

• In-House: $50,000–$85,000.
• Unlimited Service: Expert handling of die-cuts, bleeds, and print-ready files included.

Why Unlimited Graphic Design Services?

When you look at the math, the answer for growing businesses becomes obvious. You aren’t just saving money; you are buying agility. You are trading a fixed, heavy payroll cost for a flexible, scalable service.

Design Subscription: Say goodbye to overblown costs and welcome effectiveness

Imagine never saying, “We don’t have the budget for that ad creative.” With a fixed subscription, you can experiment more. A/B test five ad variations because it doesn’t cost you extra. This model transforms design from a cost center into a growth engine. You stop rationing creativity and start using it to dominate your market.

Save money and deliver amazing results with Penji

Penji is the creative powerhouse for small to medium businesses. We provide agency-quality work without the agency price tag or the headache of vetting freelancers.

With Penji, you get:

• Top 2% of talent: We vet thousands of designers so you don’t have to.
• One flat monthly rate: No hidden fees or hourly billing.
• Speed: Get drafts in as little as 24 hours.
• AI-Powered Efficiency: Our smart matching pairs your project with the perfect designer.

One subscription and your hiring problems solved

Why spend 44 days hiring a designer who might leave in a year? With Penji, you can start a project today.

Whether you need on-demand graphic design services for a quick social campaign or remote graphic design services to overhaul your entire website, we have the team ready. You focus on growing your business; we’ll make sure you look good doing it.

FAQ

Is “unlimited” really unlimited?

Yes! Submit as many projects as you want. We complete them one by one (or two by two, depending on your plan) and deliver them daily. Once you approve a design, we move on to the next.

What if I don’t like the design?

That’s the beauty of unlimited revisions. We’ll keep refining until it’s perfect. If it’s still not right, we can instantly swap designers for a fresh perspective.

Can this replace my entire creative team?

For many small to mid-sized businesses, yes. Larger companies often use Penji as an extension of their in-house team, handling production work so their creative directors can focus on strategy.

Do I own the files?

Yes, 100%. You get full ownership of the source files and all artwork.

Ready to scale your creative output?

Don’t let budget bottlenecks stop your growth. Experience the freedom of unlimited design.

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