If you’re looking for an unlimited graphic design service, chances are you want professional-quality designs fast.
Manypixels is one of many services claiming to offer just that. They offer 1-2 day turnarounds, a simple pricing structure, and a 14-day money back guarantee. With all these combined, they offer an easy, low-overhead solution for companies that regularly need designs.
Does Manypixels deliver? Well, yes and no. Their designs are top-notch, but communication and the design of their web app leave much to be desired. Here’s our complete Manypixels review.
A brief history of Manypixels
Manypixels was founded by Belgian entrepreneur Robin Vander Heyden in 2018. Vander Heyden says the concept was based on his experience hiring designers for his online real estate business, StudentFlatMaastricht.
Vander Heyden sold his stock in Manypixels in 2019. He now operates ManyRequests, a client portal and ticketing software. Nowadays, Manypixels is based in Singapore and operates remotely from around the world. Most of their team is based in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe.
What they offer
When you create a design request in Manypixels, you’ll see individual forms for different design types. The forms available are:
- Business cards
- Presentations
- Stationery
- Brand guidelines
- Logos
- Landing pages
- Websites
- Email graphics
- Digital ads
- Social media graphics
- GIFs
- Ebooks
- Blog graphics
- Posters, billboards and banners
- Brochures and booklets
- Flyers
- Book covers
- Business reports
- Infographics
- Illustrations
- Icons
According to their scope of service page, they also offer graphics for podcasts, ecommerce, t-shirts, and stickers, as well as newsletters and light photo editing. They can produce animations and GIFs of 5 seconds or less.
Manypixels is especially known for their quality website designs (for this review, I only had time to request an infographic). They do not offer 3D designs, prototypes, UI/UX design, or video editing services. They also don’t explicitly offer custom typography or mobile app design.
Manypixels pricing
Unlimited graphic design is always offered as a subscription, and Manypixel’s subscriptions come in three simple tiers.
- Advanced: 1 daily output, 1-2 days delivery. $549/mo billed monthly, $494/mo billed quarterly, or $439/mo billed annually.
- Business: 2 daily outputs, 1-2 days delivery. $899/mo monthly, $809/mo quarterly, $719/mo annually.
- Dedicated Designer: Allows for real-time collaboration with a dedicated designer and same-day delivery. $1199/mo monthly, $1079/mo quarterly, $959/mo annually. Only available for customers in the US Eastern and Central European time zones.
All their plans come with unlimited requests and revisions, plus stock assets, source files, and a 14-day money back guarantee. My experience trying to redeem that guarantee was… less than ideal, but more on that later.
Signing up for Manypixels
Signing up for Manypixels is a quick and easy process. When you click the “get started” button on the site’s top menu, you’re taken right to a form where you fill out basic details and select a plan.
Once you sign up, the process of creating an account is a bit more in-depth. The form is unusually detailed, asking for your business’ address and URL alongside standard questions about how you intend to use the service.
Once you sign up, you’re invited to get started on a design request right away. If you’re not ready to get started just yet, you can also make your way over to the dashboard.
The Manypixels web app
Relative to other design services I’ve reviewed, the Manypixels dashboard is a bit sparse. The left-hand menu includes four tabs:
- Requests, where you can create new requests, see ongoing and finished projects.
- Brand profiles, where you can create brands with their own elements and style guides. These allow designers to tailor each design to a given brand.
- Refer a friend, where you can earn money by inviting your friends to sign up for Manypixels.
- Help center, which opens up Manypixels’ help and FAQ section in a new tab.
While minimal, the web app is fairly functional and easy to navigate. Just note that it doesn’t save drafts. If you start creating a request and click away, you’ll have to start from scratch.
Creating a design request
Where the web app is minimal, the design request feature is surprisingly dense. It contains over 20 unique forms for different categories of designs. For instance, the form for presentations includes space for the number of slides you need. The form I chose, infographic, includes a section for the purpose of the graphic.
For all its bells and whistles, the actual request creation process is quite straightforward. You input the dimensions and file type you need, as well as all the details and any elements or reference images you want to use.
For my infographic, I chose to have it broken down into square JPEGs, for use on social media. I had to input all the copy and descriptions for the infographic in the “What’s the exact copy you want to include?” field.
As soon as I submitted my request, it appeared at the top of my queue in the “Requests” tab. To nitpick slightly, I wish I could access the request by clicking anywhere in the box, not just on the title itself.
Communication
Before I even signed up for Manypixels, I became aware of their communication issues. Like many sites nowadays, they have a chat icon in the lower right allowing you to speak to a customer service representative. I found that it often took minutes or even hours to get a response with this feature, and at least one message I sent was never answered at all.
The morning after I submitted my first request, I received a lengthy message from my project manager (pictured above). It provided an extensive overview of how to get started, advising me to be detailed and communicative.
He also informed me that Manypixels’ designers on an Eastern time schedule work from 9AM to 6PM, and that requests submitted after 10AM may not be worked on until the next day. I found this to be an odd cutoff, and timing was inconsistent throughout my experience. At one point, the customer service chat said “We will return at 3AM.”
During the design process
I didn’t get much out of the email communication I received from Manypixels, but there was one person whose communication I really did appreciate: my designer.
When they received my request, they were quick to let me know that the lengthy graphic would take a bit longer than usual to complete. I appreciated their honesty, and was pleasantly surprised when the multi-step design was completed within a week. While I had trouble with the customer service department, I found the designer very candid, nice, and accepting of feedback.
I received drafts from my designer almost daily during my design process. Each time, I asked for a few slight tweaks, such as changing orientation and italicizing titles. All these requests were received and dealt with, no questions asked.
Whenever you’re satisfied with your design, you can easily mark it as complete. Make sure it’s really done, because you can’t undo this action and you’ll have to create a new request if you want to make further revisions.
Cancellation
Here’s where things started to get out of control. The actual cancellation process is simple. You head over to the billing tab on your profile, click “Pause/Cancel subscription, then select a reason for canceling. While they offer pauses and discounts, they make it easy to cancel if your mind is made up.
The trouble came when I tried to exercise the 14-day money back guarantee. I sent an email, expecting from previous reviews that they wouldn’t process it if I didn’t ask directly.
The email I received back claimed that I would lose my license to use the design I requested if I got a full refund, and that a partial refund ($419 out of $549) would allow me to keep the design.
Needless to say, this is not how it works. Per their own help center, the customer has 100% ownership of their designs “the moment we deliver them to you.” At the time of writing, no reference to losing these rights (or to a partial refund) can be found anywhere on Manypixels’ site, or in their terms of service. Even if it were present, it would be a highly unusual and potentially unenforceable policy.
After pointing these facts out to the representative, I asked for my full refund and received it without another word. I was already unimpressed with my customer service experience, but trying to use licensing claims to walk back a money-back guarantee is truly beyond the pale.
Reviewing my Manypixels designs
Now, a more positive note. To test the skills of my Manypixels designer, I submitted a complicated prompt: a detailed infographic about the film rights to Spider-Man. I included all the text I wanted, as well as a few creative directions. It should be made up of square JPEGs, the background should be purple, it should be in a timeline format, etc.
I received an early draft (pictured above) within a day, and I was already impressed. I had given my designer a pass to take a little longer on this graphic, but they turned around a near-perfect design in a matter of hours. It was still a work in progress at this stage, but the design choices made largely carried over to the final product.
My designer continued to update me throughout the week. The changes I requested were always minor: fixing the copy, removing a URL from the end, rearranging photos. I was impressed with the quality of the design, and there wasn’t much I could think to improve on.
You can see the final results for yourself (and learn something new!) below. In case you’re wondering, I asked them to leave space at the top of each image for a logo.
Overall, my Manypixels designer went above and beyond. From the dynamic triangle graphics to the subtle starburst and spiderwebs in the background, they exceeded my expectations while still following my requests. They sent me each draft as a PDF, a set of JPEGs, and an Adobe Illustrator source file.
Final thoughts on Manypixels
What sets Manypixels apart from other design services?
With a team of roughly 35 designers, Manypixels is on the smaller side of unlimited graphic design services. They say this scaled-down team allows them to ensure all their designers are top-notch.
Who is Manypixels best for?
With quick turnarounds and quality designs, Manypixels is best for professional teams who know what they need. Their website designs are especially strong, but their own web app leaves much to be desired. If customer service and user experience are essential to you, you may want to look elsewhere.
Manypixels pros and cons
Pros:
- Quality designs (especially websites)
- Quick turnaround
- Accessible designers
- Thorough design briefs
Cons:
- Poor customer service
- Shady refund policy
- Unappealing web app
- Lack of onboarding
Scorecard
Designs: I was impressed with the quality of my Manypixels designs. There were a few uninspired choices, particularly for integrating photos. However, the overall design was dynamic, charming, and matched my prompt. 5/5
Value: Starting at $549/mo, Manypixels’ cost is in the high-medium range of unlimited graphic design services. If savings are your priority, they’re certainly cheaper than hiring an in-house designer, but there are certainly less expensive services out there. 3/5
Communication: Manypixels has bespoke design forms for 20+ different types of designs. Still, you have to be proactive if you want your design to meet any exact specifications. The web app isn’t especially designed for communication, and the customer service system is dysfunctional. 2/5
User experience: Manypixels makes it easy to sign up, easy to navigate, and even easy to cancel. That being said, the bare-bones web app isn’t very inviting. They clearly put their emphasis on delivering designs, and some of the features are very functional, but the overall design is unappealing. 2/5
How unlimited is it?: In this regard, Manypixels passes with flying colors. You can request as many designs as you want and expect lightning fast results. They also allow for unlimited revisions; your project isn’t complete until you mark it complete. 5/5
Overall score: 3.5/5
