Design as a Service: The Best Way to Get Graphics in 2025

Every business nowadays needs professional design, but there’s no one way to get quality design work. Today, we’re looking at a revolutionary model called design-as-a-service (DaaS), with all of its benefits.

Graphic design as a service at a glance

If you’ve heard of the terms “unlimited design” or “graphic design subscription”, you already know a bit about this model.

Design-as-a-service means you pay a fixed rate for graphic design services.

Sounds similar to hiring an in-house design team, right? Not exactly.

Design as a service agencies offer a lot more flexibility, typically at a much more affordable rate. Of course, you also don’t get the same level of personalisation and (usually) working hours as hiring a full-time graphic designer. 

But the costs are significantly lower than the salary of a US-based designer (about $70k per year on average).

Now that you know the overview, let’s get into the details of what hiring a design-as-a-service agency looks like. 

What can you get from a design-as-service agency?

There are tons of fantastic unlimited design companies out there, each with their own unique offer.

Speaking from our own perspective at ManyPixels, most companies offer the full-scope of graphic design services and web design.

Here’s a quick overview of our scope of services at ManyPixels:

• Logo design and brand identity
• Websites and landing page
• Custom illustrations and icons
• Social media graphics
• Motion graphics
• Digital marketing assets
• Print materials (flyers, brochures, books)
• Ebooks, reports, presentations
• And more

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Access to an entire design team and a wide range of projects is definitely one of the biggest advantages of  the graphic design as a service model. 

Unlike Fiverr and Upwork, and similar freelancing platforms, you never have to worry about finding a designer with the right skill set.

Unlimited design services also include professional project management, so your requests will always be assigned to the person with the most suitable skillset. 

How much does it cost?

We’ve already mentioned that one of the biggest advantages of the graphic design as a service model is cost-effectiveness.

Most DaaS cost between $500 and $1,200 per month. Rates sometimes depend on the types of designs you can request, turnaround time, or numbers of hours of work you get. In most cases, you can expect the monthly fee to cover about 10-15 hours of work per week.

In comparison, with hourly rates of about $25 on average, you can expect to pay around $250 per week, or over $1,000 per month with a freelancer. This might be a somewhat similar number. However, remember that designers that specialize in specific field (e.g. web design or motion graphics) usually charge much higher rates.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning the cost of a traditional design agency or an in-house team. We’ve already mentioned that graphic designers make an average of $6,000 per month, so around $3,000 if they’re working part-time.

A traditional design agency often charges several thousand dollars for a single project. However, this price usually includes additional services, such as copywriting, marketing research, web development, or the running of your marketing campaigns.

So, if you want to get the best price for high-quality designs you can request regularly, there’s no route more affordable than a design subscription.

How does it work?

Although each on-demand service has its own specificities, the general principle is dead simple. Here’s how you get your designs done:

• Sign up and pay the monthly fee.
• Submit design requests (most services have a custom platform for managing the design processes).
• Your requests are assigned to a designer with the most suitable skill set.
• You can communicate with the designer about any revisions that are needed. 
• The final designs are delivered along with the source files, so you can reuse or change them as you please.

And that’s it! Most services have a pretty straightforward onboarding process, so once you get started, you’ll be able to get your designs in no time.

Since these services are used to working with lots of clients at the same time, they typically have an extremely fast turnaround (in most cases 1-2 business days). 

What about admin?

When people think about subscriptions, they usually think about long-term commitment. Understandably, this can be rather daunting, especially for small businesses and startups that don’t have a firm grasp on their budget just yet.

But the truth is, there’s nothing binding about graphic design as a service.

The reasoning behind this model is that you can get access to professional design whenever you need it. Still, this doesn’t mean you’re obliged to pay the subscription fee during slow periods when you don’t need the design.

Most services allow you to pause or cancel your subscription at any time, without any additional charges or repercussions. You can of course opt to pay annually (most services offer a discount in this case). But if you’re still testing the waters with DaaS, know that you’re only committing for one month.

In that time you can test the quality of the service and see if it’s a good fit for your business regarding the number of designs you need per month (if you only have 1-2 projects a freelance designer is probably a much better option). 

Best graphic design as a service companies in 2025

Since you’ve made it this far, it’s fair to say that you’re getting excited about the prospect of working with a design as a service agency. That’s awesome!

We have a much more detailed list of the best unlimited design companies here. 

Still, for a brief overview - here are the top 5 companies and what they offer.

ManyPixels (best overall)

When it comes to quality-price ratio, ManyPixels is definitely one of the best solutions. Unlike most agencies, we offer all graphic design services with all our plans. That means you don’t have to pay the higher plans, even for complex projects, such as website design and custom illustrations!

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We have a relatively small team (around 40 designers), as we hire only the top 2% of applicants, with a proven track record and battle-tested skills. 

All our plans also include assistance from professional project managers that conduct quality control and ensure designers deliver 

Starting at just $549 a month, ManyPixels is the most experienced service with the most affordable rates. 

Design Pickle (best for custom illustrations)

Design Pickle is one of the oldest unlimited design companies that (along with ManyPixels) helped popularize this model. 

Nowadays they have a huge team, with hundreds of designers. Naturally, this means varying degrees of quality. However, one area where they excel is custom illustration.

Penji (best for nonprofits)

If you run a nonprofit, Penji has an amazing program that provides design services for $1 a month to organizations supporting under-represented communities. Of course, this also means they have heaps of experience with design in this field.

Aside from that, Penji is also a solid choice for printed materials, as they have a vast scope of services here (including car wraps, step and repeat banners, custom tradeshow design and more).

Plans (from $1,000 to $3,000 a month) also vary in terms of the number of users and types of design (e.g. web design is only included in the more expensive plans). 

Kimp (cheapest)

If budget is a big concern, Kimp possibly offers some of the lowest rates on the market, starting at just $350 a month (it’s a 50% discount for new clients).

The service is very well known and you can expect some decent quality, although they do have a slightly lower ranking than, e.g. ManyPixels or Penji on Trustpilot and G2.

They have an extensive scope of services that UI/UX animation, NFT design, stock videos, and more. 

No Limit Creatives (most flexible)

If you want to pick and choose your services, No Limit Creatives 9 different pricing plans, depending on what type of designs you need (and how often).

Ranging from just $250  to $1,500, per month, you can tailor the service in a way that best works for you. Study the plans carefully though, as they vary in scope of service and output. 

Conclusion

We hope this helps you understand what design as a service means and all the benefits it brings to businesses looking to get professional graphics.

If you’re ready to get started, ManyPixels is an excellent choice! With thousands of customers and over 7 years in the business, we serve business of all shapes and sizes: from SMBs to marketing teams, creative agencies and corporations.

Get started today and submit your first request! We’ll assign it to one of our design pros, and you can get back the first draft in just 1 business day!

Do you still have questions or concerns? We’d be happy to help! Simply book a time that works for you and one of our reps will help you out with a 1:1 demo and any answers that you need.