Crowdspring or 99designs?

Question

For crowd sourcing basically there are two main contenders, crowdspring and 99designs. I know they are both good and we can't go wrong with either one, but I am sure we can find out which one is better. What are your experience with these two? Which one would you recommend and why? I have no experience with these two, and I am very limited in budget so I would like to get people's recommendation first before deciding to choose either one.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

There are a ton of sites for crowdsourcing. I'm guessing that you're talking about crowdsourcing logos and similar, which narrows the field a little, but not much. Do you mean, "For logo crowdsourcing, which is better, 99designs or crowdspring?"

Jon · Answer 1 · 2010-02-22 01:49:25Z

up vote 4 down vote accepted

I just had a good experience on crowdspring.com. I ended up with 600 entries for my logo design and while a lot of it is noise you get some good results there too. You just need to be prepared for the noise and you'll do fine.

answered Feb 22 '10 at 1:49

Jon
635

	how much was your prize? just curious. – Jesse Apr 27 '10 at 13:56
	It was $500. You pay a fee as well. – Jon Apr 28 '10 at 1:01

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Dmitry Leskov · Answer 2 · 2010-02-22 13:06:57Z

up vote 5 down vote

We have had a single encounter with 99designs and did not quite like the process nor the result. Went out of both time and budget. Now shopping for designers locally again.

answered Feb 22 '10 at 13:06

Dmitry Leskov
59627

	Thanks for sharing this with us Dmitry! – jpartogi Feb 22 '10 at 13:37
	to be fair, the price you offered ($160) is on the low side. Hard to see how that can be considered "over budget". I did 2 icons for Windows programs, paying $300 and $400, and was quite happy with the result. Certainly cheaper than a local (i.e. US-based) designer and less risky. – Krzysztof Kowalczyk Nov 25 '10 at 2:43
	The work was simple and I did not want to spend more than a minimum amount on the first trial attempt, but had to increase it by $60 for the extension of the deadline. I also paid $39 to 99designs, plus $20 to a designer whom I would have declared a winner if there was no that last-minute submission. For $220, I could have had it done much faster by a local designer, and would have spent less of my time on that. – Dmitry Leskov Nov 25 '10 at 8:43
	Out of interest, how much did you end up paying your local designer and how much better was the result in your opinion? – studgeek Oct 27 '11 at 23:34
	We have not had much design work since. It is difficult to compare pricing with our prior experiences, because those were bigger jobs, like a 4-page booklet. But we liked the result a lot then - would have worked with that designer again if he did not move to Moscow to work for a large company. – Dmitry Leskov Nov 4 '11 at 11:16

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bitzesty · Answer 3 · 2010-04-10 20:50:29Z

We've used 99designs, making your contest private and having a good brief will help with the quality of the submissions (as will a higher listing price), as for crowdspring haven't used them yet - might give them a try next time.

Michael · Answer 4 · 2010-02-22 20:06:16Z

You can check out http://www.designonclick.com We are the biggest marketplace in europe and offer our service for free in the states. You will get around 120 designs per project by an international community.

Regards from germany,

Michael founder of designonclick.com

VladT · Answer 5 · 2010-10-19 22:39:25Z

I have used crowdSpring for a webpage banner. The result was ok with a loootttt of hand holding and feedback. I am now considering 99designs for website design. The problem I am having is $$ cut to either of the sites is $39 + 15% which ends up to over $100 for a very small site. Given the fact that threshold to enter a website contest is $500, I believe the total cost outlay is NOT that lower that Agency based custom design. Am I wrong here?

Olivier Lalonde · Answer 6 · 2010-02-21 20:58:05Z

up vote 2 down vote

I haven't used any of them but I've heard good things about 99designs (for instance, I believe StackOverflow.com got their logo from there) and it seems somewhat more popular than Crowdspring.

answered Feb 21 '10 at 20:58

Olivier Lalonde
2,671524

I am not sure that using stackoverflow is a good example - since their success with designers might have to do with the HUGE following they have/had. Most people using these services won't have the same results. I have done a couple projects on both these sites and the results were pretty marginal at best. – TimJ Feb 21 '10 at 22:42

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Greg · Answer 7 · 2010-02-22 21:47:58Z

This doesn't exactly answer the question, but I think often startups overoptimize these kinds of decisions. If you think they're both good, don't spend additional hours trying to figure out the absolute way to spend a couple of hundred bucks on design. There are about a million other things you could be doing that will 1) reduce risk and/or 2) get you closer to putting out a product, acquiring customers, and getting revenue.

Of course, by that rule of thumb, I shouldn't be writing this answer. ;-)

'They're both good' is based on first sight. Of course startup needs to be more careful about spending their money.

crowdSPRING · Answer 8 · 2010-02-22 03:58:40Z

up vote 1 down vote

You already have a few good answers. Here's why I suggest crowdSPRING should be your first choice.

Ross Kimbarovsky
co-Founder

answered Feb 22 '10 at 3:58

crowdSPRING

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Wade Armstrong · Answer 9 · 2010-02-23 02:50:16Z

The upside of crowdsourcing a logo is the cost and the variety of designers you can access. The downside is that the designer you use will have had little opportunity to learn about you and create a design that truly expresses your company's brand, products, and practices, and communicates to your target audience. That means you'll have a logo, but you won't have your logo.