Freelancers Vs Design Agencies Vs Unlimited Graphic Design

As a business owner, you’re probably often trying to figure out which option to choose to fulfill your graphic design needs. Hiring a freelancer or an agency each comes with its own set of pros and cons. And we think there’s a third option that’s definitely worth considering: unlimited graphic design services.

To start off with, we’ll compare working with freelancers and agencies:

1) Specializations:

Freelancers develop specialties through their interests. Depending on their preferences they could be specialists in their own area of design such as e-commerce design or brand designs (including logos and slogans). If you are looking for one specific service, freelancers could be a great option if you find someone who’s very skilled in the area you need help in.  

When it comes to agencies, they consist of teams that carry several team members specializing in various areas. This allows them to operate faster and come up with ideas through collaboration for projects. The more the merrier! This adds efficiency and diversity to the work and if you are looking to have a large design project completed, an agency could be a great option because of the depth on their teams.

2) Rates:

Despite the misunderstanding that the word ‘freelancer’ stands for a person who works for free, these designers most certainly do not. However, their fees are considerably low when compared to an agency’s. As they work for themselves and don’t have as many additional expenses, relatively speaking, their rates can be much lower and more flexible than that of an agency. 

Agencies have teams of designers to pay, as well as taxes and administrative expenses. Each project is completed by multiple team members. And as each of their efforts has to be compensated, the rates of an agency are considerably higher than that of a freelancer.

3) Flexibility:

You can connect with a freelancer in any country and get your work done according to your timeline. Most freelancers have flexible schedules and are willing to change them according to your needs.

Agencies work on more of a fixed schedule – unless you’re paying a premium. And they tend to operate in a predetermined area. It could be a specific city, a region or a country. While agencies may offer remote services, it’s fairly rare for an agency to work for a client that exists out of their immediate vicinity.

4) Reliability:

Hiring a freelancer on some occasions can be a gamble. There are many professional freelancers with high reviews and who have an undisputed work ethic. At the same time, there can also be quite a few unreliable individuals eager to take on your business and disappear partway through a project, as well. As a client, it’s on you to dig deep and do due diligence to see if the person you are hiring can be held accountable for giving you your money’s worth in return. 

Agencies operate on the trust they build up with their clients. And as they have a physical space, and multiple team members, you know that you can track someone down should you need to. A good agency will also have protocols and processes in place to anticipate and have contingency plans for every scenario that could make a client anxious. If you’ve got a really big, time-sensitive project, an agency may be a better bet for you, as you know that there are multiple team members to count on.

5) Quality:

The quality a freelancer will deliver depends on their body of work. It also depends on how much they are keeping up to date with design trends and standards. This can be problematic if they’ve only worked with, and specialize in particular niches. Have projects that have a variety of audiences and need to be positioned in specific ways? You may be out of luck here. Or you may strike gold if you connect with a designer who keeps up with new trends and/or is able to research your industry and needs and then translate that into relevant designs. This is again where doing due diligence is really important to sort through a myriad of designers to find the right fit. If possible, if your potential designer hasn’t designed anything quite like what you need, ask them to complete a test task.

Much of what we’ve mentioned about freelancers is true of agencies as well. But agencies tend to have quality control units. So every project that is handed to you passes through several filters. This helps to refine and update the design to match your needs and the needs of your audience. Working with experts you might find that there’s minimal effort required to review and revise your designs. Again, it doesn’t hurt to ask for a test task or to set up an exploratory meeting and request a proposal to see how the agency would tackle your project.

Enter Unlimited Graphic Design Services!

Not too keen on hiring a full-time designer? Don’t want to create graphic design elements yourself? Or just don’t have the time to do due diligence to find the right designer for every project? Then this is the service for you. 

With unlimited graphic design services, you can make unlimited design requests and get unlimited revisions for a flat monthly fee. Your designs will be sent to you, Monday through Friday, at a rate which could range from 1 to 3 a day (at  Kimp we aim for an average of 2-3 designs, depending on your requirements). Rush service isn’t offered and this is one of the reasons why costs to clients are kept so low.

If you place several design requests at a time, you can let your team or designer know which to prioritize. Otherwise, they’ll just complete each request according to the order in which you’ve made them. And you’ll get updates from your designer or team throughout the process. There’s a certain predictability and dependability that makes unlimited graphic design services pretty awesome. 

The designer or team that you work with, will get to know your brands and preferences over time. And they are accountable to the service that you sign up with (e.g. Kimp). They work with a wide range of clients, spanning all kinds of industries so they’re very experienced and highly adaptable. This means that you get quality outputs and a dependable service.

The Best Of All Worlds

Unlimited graphic design services combine elements of both freelancers and agencies. They provide you the low costs and flexibility of a freelancer with the quality and accountability of an agency. The individual designer is responsible for completing your requests. But the company supervises and coordinates the necessary resources to provide you with a great experience.

When selecting an unlimited graphic design service, you’ll want to go through a few steps. Check out their portfolio and customer reviews to see if they’re the right fit for you. It doesn’t hurt to set up a call either, or to connect with them via email or live chat. Seeing how responsive and attentive they are will give you a snapshot of the experience to come. And what’s more, many of them offer money-back guarantees or even free trials (at Kimp we offer a 7 day free trial).  

When you compare freelancers, agencies and unlimited graphic design services, there’s definitely great arguments to be made for each. But when it comes to supporting you with recurring design projects, it’s hard to beat an unlimited graphic design service.