If you’ve checked out our ranking of graphic design services, you’ll notice that DotYeti gets high marks.
The truth is, I didn’t write that list. But I have reviewed a number of other graphic design services for Service List, and now it’s time to give DotYeti a shot. Know how DotYeti fared in my book.
A brief history of DotYeti
DotYeti was founded in 2020 by CEO Roy Selbach (among others). Based in Singapore with offices in Thailand and the Philippines, they service a number of major brands in the SE Asia region, including WeTV, The Voice Thailand, and TikTok.
While the whole team is based in that region, they strive to offer design solutions for companies around the world. As I found, however, the time zone difference can have an impact on communication for businesses on the other side of the globe.
How unlimited is DotYeti? - 3/5
Scope of services
DotYeti’s services fall into the following categories:
- Advertisements and marketing
- Animation and motion graphics
- Logo and brand design
- Illustration and infographics
- Landing page design
- Presentations and templates
- Print and merchandise
Many of these design services, however, are limited to the more expensive Premium plans. The basic, $449/mo plan is essentially limited to marketing and print materials.
How long does a design take?
As always, it can vary depending on the scope of your project. They advertise a turnaround time of under 48 hours. In my experience, simple designs such as digital ads can be delivered in under 24 hours, and revisions in as few as 3 hours.
Are there any limits on DotYeti’s service?
The biggest limitation, which we’ll explore more in the next section, is the narrow scope of the Basic plan. It’s a pretty common practice to restrict services based on pricing tiers, but DotYeti’s cheapest tier is more restrictive than most.
There are also plan-based restrictions on how many projects you can request at a time, use of their AI image tool (more on that later), and even how many brand profiles you can create.
DotYeti Pricing, Design Package, Refunds - 3/5
Pricing plans
DotYeti’s three pricing plans are as follows:
- Basic: $449/mo. As mentioned above, this plan only covers materials such as digital ads, posters, and social media content. 1 project at a time, 1 brand profile, 25 AI images, stock library usage, dedicated designer.
- Premium: $1145/mo. Includes illustrations, branding, infographics, presentation designs, and GIFs. 2 projects at a time, 2 brand profiles, 75 AI images, dedicated illustrator and art director.
- Royal: $2395/mo. Includes brand style guides, motion graphics, web pages, and video editing. Unlimited requests (2 active projects + backlog), unlimited brand profiles, 200 AI images, dedicated animator and account manager.
Beyond these three plans, DotYeti also offers a number of other services, including:
- Custom solutions for enterprise customers
- Free brand consultancies with a one-time free design credit included
- One-off projects starting at $125
What’s included in a DotYeti design package?
With each DotYeti design project, you can expect to get a number of different versions to choose from, as well as any file type and specifications you request.
Source files are available, but they’re not automatically included with your delivery; you have to press a button to request them. I wasn’t too annoyed by this extra step, but I’m not aware of another design service that does it.
Does DotYeti offer refunds?
All DotYeti subscriptions are backed by a 14-day money back guarantee. This refund policy is easy to take advantage of—I sent a quick email to customer support after I canceled and was told that it was already in process.
Certain sections of the DotYeti site also mention a $350 bonus on top of your money back if you’re not satisfied. I couldn’t find any further details about this, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
DotYeti user experience (signing up, request process, features) - 5/5
How do you sign up for DotYeti?
DotYeti has a straightforward signup process, with a few extra onboarding steps compared to competitors.
Once you fill out your account information, select a plan, and submit your payment, your first introduction is a 30-second video welcome. After that, you fill out a more extensive questionnaire and submit a profile picture (don’t worry, you can skip this step).
There’s another tutorial video after that, along with a list of services DotYeti doesn’t provide—content writing, strategy, social media management, etc. This video is a bit longer, encouraging users to submit clear, concise, and correct requests for their designers.
After that optional video, you’re free to explore the dashboard, create a brand profile, and start requesting designs.
The DotYeti platform
DotYeti’s platform is the gold standard for design services. The sleek website design makes good use of space, color, and shows off all the service’s key features.
From the Dashboard, you can see your active, pending, and previous requests. The left-hand menu lets you access all the features you need without having to leave the web app, including:
- Brand profiles
- Request form
- Requests tab
- AI image tool
- Perks
- Illustration library
…And more. Here’s an overview of the highlighted features.
Brand profiles
Like many services, DotYeti asks you to set up a profile featuring your brand’s preferred logos, elements, fonts, colors, and target audience. They ask you to set one of these up as soon as you sign up, before submitting your first request.
Design request form
The DotYeti request form is an intuitive multi-step process. After being a little unclear on what I could do with a Basic plan, I was happy to see a thorough and well-designed list of design options, along with which designs weren’t available.
Like many design services, they ask you to create a detailed brief, as well as design dimensions and the exact copy you want included. After that, you upload assets and anything else you want to share. You also get a chance to double-check your brief before you submit it.
Requests tab
When you open a request, you can view its progress in 4 different tabs:
- Activity: The chat feed between you and your designer(s)
- Delivered files: All files sent for the request, which you can download individually or all at once
- Project overview: Where you can view the details of your design brief and its status
- Notifications: A feed of changes to the request, such as designers being assigned and files being delivered
AI image tool
There’s been a lot of chatter lately about AI-generated images, which some have gone as far as to call “art.” One of DotYeti’s extra perks is access to the DALL-E 2 image tool. As is often the case with AI generators, the results are extremely hit-or-miss. A neat feature, but not likely to be a useful one any time soon.
Perks
This is a clever feature that I’ve seen a few other B2B services offer, but never a graphic design service. You can get $175 account credits for DotYeti by signing up for one of their affiliate services. These include CrowdFire, SocialBee, SEMRush, and other useful business tools.
Illustration library
Here’s another unique feature that I appreciated. Subscribers get access to a library of 150+ simple illustrations. These images come with source files and can be downloaded and customized at no extra cost.
DotYeti communication - 5/5
Customer support
My interactions with customer support, while pleasant, were slightly hampered by the time difference between here and SE Asia. They didn’t have any demo calls available during my work hours, and I wasn’t able to follow up on some of my questions because I knew I wouldn’t receive an answer until the next day.
That being said, I can’t blame any of it on the service. Support was always there when I needed it, either via email or through the website’s chat client.
Chatting with designers
You talk to designers using the aforementioned Activity tab in the Requests section. It’s pretty standard for a design service to use this sort of chat tool for communication, but naturally, it can be limiting.
DotYeti goes out of its way to make up for this. On top of instructions and tools to ensure detailed briefs, they have a point-and-click revision tool for better identifying what needs fixing. Other services have similar features, but they’re still a huge help.
How to cancel your DotYeti subscription
You can cancel your DotYeti subscription at any time by clicking the “Pause or cancel your account” button in the Settings menu. You’re invited to pause your account instead, then reminded that all your progress will be deleted if you cancel.
I sent a quick email to ensure that I could take advantage of the 14-day money back guarantee. If you opt to make use of this, it’s always best to send a message. For both the cancellation and the refund, I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and painless they were.
DotYeti designs - 5/5
First draft designs - YouTube overlay ads
I requested 2 YouTube overlay ad designs for VenueGo, a fictional app for connecting businesses, performers, and others with local event spaces. My brief included the elements from my brand profile as well as some stock images to include.
While I left the instructions a bit open-ended, I was impressed with the quality of the results. They were pretty close to what I envisioned and followed my instructions exactly, with clear creativity and design expertise.
I selected two designs to move forward with and asked for mild revisions: widening the middle section in the first design, changing the copy, and de-italicizing the text.
Design revisions
Even with specific requests, my DotYeti designer gave me a few different options to choose from. The subtle difference in text color wasn’t even on my radar before, so I have to commend them for their attention to detail. These designs are stylish, unique, and were delivered quickly, with the revisions arriving in only a few hours.
Final thoughts on DotYeti
What sets DotYeti apart from other design services?
The yeti motif isn’t the only thing that makes DotYeti unique. They have a few features you won’t find anywhere else, such as their free illustration library, perks page, and DALL-E 2 partnership. But the real thing that sets them apart is their beautifully-designed web app, easily one of the best in the industry.
Who is DotYeti best for?
One of the major issues I kept running into during my 10 days with DotYeti is the time difference. We worked on exactly opposite schedules, and I hesitated to ask for anything knowing that it would take another day to hear an answer.
For this reason, I would most recommend DotYeti to people working in East Asia and Australia. For companies in the Americas, the schedule may not be worthwhile.
DotYeti pros and cons
Pros:
- Excellent web app
- Quick turnaround
- High-quality designs
- Perks and additional features
Cons:
- Limited options on Basic plan
- High prices on upper plans
- No accommodations for different time zones
Scorecard
How unlimited is it?: It’s unlimited if you can afford to pay $2400/mo for it. Even on the Premium plan, you’ll definitely be aware of all the things you can’t do. Still, they check off all the boxes for the unlimited service model, including quick turnaround and unlimited revisions. On the other hand, I’ve never seen a service limit how many brand profiles you can create. 3/5
Value: DotYeti’s value is fairly typical for an unlimited service, with source files included and a money-back guarantee. It’s certainly on the expensive side, with the standard all-features-included plan costing over $1000/mo. But you do get quality for that price. 3/5
User experience: DotYeti’s platform is one of the best, with a sleek design and easy access to unique features. One place I would complain: there’s too much copy on the website. So many words! 5/5
Communication: If not for the time zone difference, I think I’d have no complaints about the DotYeti communication experience. Instructions I gave to designers were heard loud and clear, and it has everything I would expect to see from a design service, including the option to set up a call with customer support. 5/5
Designs: Admittedly, I’m no expert on the state of YouTube overlay ads. What I can say for sure is that my DotYeti designer took my instructions and created a great-looking design out of them. With the wide variety of work in their portfolio, it’s clear that if you know what you want, DotYeti can deliver it. 5/5
Overall score: 4.4/5 🥳
