BrandCrowd is an online marketplace for creative designs you can use for making logos, business cards, digital assets, letterheads, and much more. For businesses on a budget, BrandCrowd is an affordable way to get a customized, branded asset in minutes.
Continue on to read my full review of BrandCrowd, where I’ll cover what it’s great at, where it could stand to improve, how much it will cost you to use, and an overview of what you can do with this service.
BrandCrowd Pros and Cons
Pros
- Free logos
- Instant downloads
- Cheap subscriptions
- Over 150,000 designs
- Helpful free tools and resources
Cons
- Lack of transparent pricing
- Some basic and generic designs
- Account creation required for free downloads
About BrandCrowd
BrandCrowd provides businesses with affordable logo and digital design solutions. You can use the platform to build your own logo starting from a template or browse the thousands of premium, prebuilt logos for sale in its marketplace. Beyond logo designs, BrandCrowd also provides templates and ready-made designs for business cards, Facebook page covers, YouTube banners, Zoom backgrounds, email signatures, menus, and a lot more.
It’s mostly built for startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses that need easy and cheap access to creative brand assets. Rather than hiring a designer, you can use BrandCrowd to get logos and other elements for less than $10 per month. If you don’t care about customizing the design or making edits, you can even get some logos from BrandCrowd for free.
BrandCrowd Health and Stability
Founded in 2008, BrandCrowd has gone through a few minor name changes and structure adjustments since its initial launch. Today, BrandCrowd operates using two sites—each catering to different business needs.
The main BrandCrowd site is the place for accessing all of the logo and asset templates they offer, while its sister site, DesignCrowd, is their online marketplace for purchasing customized designs from creative professionals in BrandCrowd’s community.
The way BrandCrowd has structured its business model makes it an appealing and trustworthy option for prospective customers. It’s also comforting to know the business has survived for over 15 years, which isn’t an easy task in the tech world.
The company recently raised $10 million in private funding from multiple investment groups. This influx of cash into the business can help BrandCrowd continue to scale and compete with other major players in the DIY brand asset space.
It’s also worth mentioning that the long-term success and stability of BrandCrowd shouldn’t impact your decision to use them today. Even if the company goes through a rough patch down the road, you’ll personally own any logos or creative assets after you build them on BrandCrowd.
BrandCrowd Pricing
It’s free to start using BrandCrowd. You can browse through templates and designs without creating an account or providing payment information. But, depending on what type of creative asset you select, you’ll likely be prompted to select a paid BrandCrowd plan before you can download anything.
Prices are affordable when you commit to using the platform for a year, with monthly plan rates going as low as $5 per month. However, monthly billing or infrequent usage makes it cost a good bit more.
BrandCrowd Pricing Structure
BrandCrowd charges a monthly subscription fee to download assets you customize on the platform. The plans are based on the type of assets you select and the length of your contract. You have the option to sign up for monthly billing or pay annually for a significant discount on the monthly fee.
The entry-level Premium Logo Pack starts at $9 for month-to-month billing or $5 per month when you prepay for the year in full. This gives you access to over 100,000 templates and the ability to download customized business cards, Instagram and Facebook post assets, email signatures, and letterheads. You also get the ability to make tweaks and changes to assets at any time without having to pay more. There are some additional fees if you want to order physical prints.
When you purchase a logo or creative design from BrandCrowd, the design is yours forever. So you don’t need to continue paying a subscription fee to own the asset. The subscription just gives you the option to store your files, make edits to your logo, and redownload your designs in the future, in addition to opening up access to other designs, templates, and asset types.
BrandCrowd Trials and Guarantees
BrandCrowd has a wide range of free tools that you can use without providing any credit card information. This includes its business name generator, AI logo generator, logo inspiration resources, and more.
The only time you’ll be asked to pay for BrandCrowd is when it’s time to download something you’ve been working on. So there’s no harm in trying the platform, as it’s not blocked by a paywall to use. If you find something you like, then you can pay when you’re ready to download it.
BrandCrowd also has some logos and designs that are 100% free to download. Just create an account and select the Standard Logo Pack at checkout. The designs are pretty basic, but the logo is yours forever without paying a dime. However, it won’t be stored in BrandCrowd, and you can’t make any edits.
BrandCrowd Overview
BrandCrowd has several different solutions for various branding needs. Here, we’ll break down the benefits and features of some of their leading services and offerings, with guidance on how you can use them and what they may cost you.
Logo Maker
BrandCrowd is best known for its logo maker, which allows users to start with one of over 150,000 premium logo designs that can be customized and downloaded to fit the brand identity of their business ventures.
There are a few different ways to get started using this tool. You can browse templates by industry or keyword, or you can enter your business name and let BrandCrowd recommend designs for you. You can even enter a description of your business to further narrow down the results.
Once you find a design that you like, you can make changes to the logo within BrandCrowd’s intuitive editor. The tool is really easy to use, and you don’t need to have any design skills or technical background to figure it out. If you’ve played around with simple image editing software or a beginner-friendly website builder before, the interface will be familiar to you and easy to start using.
Start from a text-only logo or opt for one that includes an icon. You can add a company slogan or other information. Then, take control and make changes to the font, text size, spacing, backgrounds, layout, and more. You can add shadows, curve your text, and add customized shapes to your logo, too.
BrandCrowd has a unique and interesting feature for animating logos. For example, you can set the logo to bounce or slide in from the side—which is really cool for landing page designs or social media properties.
It’s worth noting that since you’re creating logos from templates, not every design is going to be super creative. This is especially true if you’re using a free logo design. You may need to take some time digging through template options to find something that catches your eye and will stand out from the crowd when you’re done customizing it.
Premium Logo Packs range from $5 to $25 per month, depending on the design you select and your billing terms. Sign up for free to get started.
Business Cards
There are two different business card-related services available from BrandCrowd—design and printing.
Just like you can for creating a logo, you can use BrandCrowd to search through templates and customize the design of your business card. Then, download the design and do whatever you want with it, like bring it to a third-party printer to order cards. Alternatively, you can order physical business cards directly from BrandCrowd during checkout.
Even if you’re not planning to have BrandCrowd print your cards, it’s still a quality option for creating your design. Beyond the ability to create a solid design yourself in their platform, you can also download files in multiple formats, from PNG and JPG files to SVG, EPS, and PDF formats for sending to a printer.
If you have your own images that you want to include on the card, it’s easy to upload those files in just a few clicks. They even have a library of royalty-free images across different categories to make your business cards pop.
Using BrandCrowd to print your cards is smart if you just want fairly standard business cards. You can choose between single or double-sided cards, but you’ll only have a few options for the paper type and they don’t offer any unique shapes or sizes.
Business card designs start at $3 per month with an annual plan, and printing starts at $35 for 500 cards. BrandCrowd offers free delivery on business card printing, but you can pay an additional fee for expedited delivery.
Social Media Designs
BrandCrowd offers tons of different creative assets for use online. Whether you want to create material for posting to social media or for use on any or all of your digital properties, BrandCrowd helps you whip up appealing and professional digital assets.
From customizable backgrounds and cover photos to sale advertisements and announcements, BrandCrowd offers an affordable service for creating and downloading these in minutes.
Just like the other BrandCrowd design services, start by selecting a type of social asset and customize it as you see fit. Here are just a handful examples of BrandCrowd’s social asset template categories:
- Facebook covers
- YouTube banners
- Zoom backgrounds
- Twitch banners and headers
- SoundCloud banners
- Pinterest board covers
- Etsy banners
- LinkedIn banners
Based on your selection, you’ll be prompted to select a template that’s built to fit the recommended dimensions and format of the particular channel.
You can also use BrandCrowd to make creative posts for your social channels, from images and GIFs to animated files and videos, that can really make your content pop and help take your Facebook advertising strategy to the next level.
Social designs start at $3 per month, billed annually with a Premium subscription. Month-to-month billing plans start at $9.
Brand Identity Templates
With BrandCrowd, businesses can get all of the customized design elements they need to establish a consistent brand identity on all their channels.
You might start by using BrandCrowd to create a logo or Facebook cover, but you can eventually take things a step further and replicate that design across every point of contact with current and prospective customers.
For example, use BrandCrowd’s brand identity templates to create and design a customized email signature for your business.
It’s a simple DIY tool that’s affordable,as well. You can get these types of brand assets for less than $10 per month through BrandCrowd.
Other brand identity templates offered by BrandCrowd include:
- Letterheads
- Posters
- Flyers
- Invoices
- Menus
- Postcards
- Gift certificates
- Invitations
- Thank You cards
- Videos
- Animations
Some assets, like menus and flyers, also provide the option for getting them printed and shipped to you via BrandCrowd, with pricing dependent on the asset type, quantity, and paper quality. Or, just use BrandCrowd to design and download these items and use your trusted printing partner to handle that end.
BrandCrowd Reputation
Overall, BrandCrowd has an excellent reputation on the web. It’s been reviewed by thousands of verified users on some of the leading software and digital solution review sites. Most of these users point to the platform’s simplicity and attractive prices as BrandCrowd’s leading virtues.
There’s a common theme throughout the reviews of entrepreneurs and startups that just wanted a quick and cheap logo. They turned to BrandCrowd, got what they needed fast, and were happy with the end result. Most of the reviewers mentioned the site’s interface and how easy it is to select and edit templates before downloading.
It’s worth noting that there are a handful of negative remarks about BrandCrowd on the web. But most of these seem to be tied to billing issues, where a customer thought they were paying a one-time fee, but they were actually subscribing to the platform. Poor reviews about the platform itself are few and far between.
Final Verdict
I recommend BrandCrowd to any small business, freelancer, or solopreneur on a tight budget. You can use it to get a custom logo and instantly download your design without having to hire a designer. It’s also a great option if you need creative assets for social media, business cards, email signatures, and more.
While your logo designs probably won’t win any awards, they’re solid enough to get the job done. You can get started for free with BrandCrowd today.
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Source: quicksprout
BrandCrowd Review