Fiverr vs Canva vs Penji: Who’s Your Winner

Graphic design is essential in business branding. And you don’t want to skimp out on design, especially when you have big-time competitors in your niche or industry. Fortunately, graphic design is so much more accessible for business owners because you can hire graphic designers, do your own graphic design work, or subscribe to a graphic design service. The top choices for these models are Fiverr, Canva, or Penji. The question is, which is the best option?

Companies Overview

If you’re unfamiliar with any of these companies or services, let’s give you a brief introduction to each one.

Fiverr

Fiverr is a freelance gig platform for hiring remote workers, like web developers, podcast editors, video editors, and so much more. Graphic designers are also available to hire on Fiverr. Many graphic designers specialize in various design work.

Canva

Canva is a do-it-yourself graphic design application that will help you design anything related to your business or brand. You don’t need graphic design experience to use Canva. They offer templates to help you get started with designs. Plus, you can edit those designs based on your branding.

Penji

Penji is a subscription-based graphic design service. You can subscribe to the graphic design service and request unlimited design projects. With Penji, you can request up to 120+ design types, including web and app designs, presentation designs, motion designs, and illustrations!

Features

Fiverr

Fiverr provides businesses with two ways to find freelancers. First, you can find freelancers using the search bar. You can type “graphic designer” and find available designers to collaborate with. You can narrow your search by finding designers based on your design needs. For instance, you can browse “logo designers” instead of graphic designers.

As you select graphic designers, you can see that designers offer various plans depending on your design project. Plus, they indicate the following:

• Number of designs they can create
• Number of revisions
• Turnaround time

Plus, you can also find reviews from previous clients to know their working experience with one of your top choices.

The other way to find freelancers is the Fiverr Enterprise platform. Fiverr specialists will help you find the best graphic designers, creatives, and other employees for your team. Plus, the platform includes onboarding, management, payment, and compliance.

Canva

Meanwhile, Canva is a software loaded with many intuitive features to help you design your projects. Features depend on the plan you choose. However, here are the basics:

• Drag-and-drop editor
• Access to 1 million templates, 3 million photos and videos, and thousands of design types
• AI-generated designs
• Printing and delivery

However, if you need more than that, you can access the following on the paid plans:

• Resize and translate designs
• Brand kits
• Remove backgrounds
• Plan and schedule content
• 1TB of cloud storage
• 24/7 customer support

Penji

Finally, Penji has many features to get you started, from designing your first request to downloading and chatting with your designers.

Here’s what to expect when subscribed to Penji:

• Request 120+ designs
• Get matched with the best designer for your project
• Swap designers
• Manage multiple projects
• Point and click revisions
• Team collaboration
• Designer chat
• Real-time updates

Turnaround Time

Turnaround time for Fiverr freelancers depends on the graphic designer. They will indicate how long the delivery date would be. Most graphic designers would have at least a 1-day turnaround time.

Meanwhile, if you are using Canva, turnaround time is usually instant. After all, you’re designing your project. However, if you have a complex project or need to create multiple designs in one go, it could take hours or days, depending on your availability, to design your projects.

Finally, Penji guarantees a 1 to 2-day turnaround time on most designs. If you’re subscribed to the Agency plan, they ensure same-day turnaround. However, some complex projects will take more than two days to complete.

Pricing

Fiverr pricing depends on what designs you need. But as the name suggests, Fiverr refers to the $5 starting point that freelancers can charge clients with when working with them. However, $5 worth of projects can be low-quality.

Meanwhile, Canva has three pricing tiers, depending on your needs and budget.

• Canva – Free
• Canva Pro – $12.99/mo
• Canva for Teams – $14.99/mo (for five users)

Finally, Penji has a flat monthly rate for all design work. Here are the pricing plans for the design service.

Design Work and Production

Design work by Fiverr freelancers varies from experience level to design specialties. Many Fiverr freelancers produce decent work for clients, considering the rates they charge. However, not all design work from Fiverr is 100% the best. Plus, considering Fiverr is the best for short-term work, expect one or few design variations for a project.

For Canva, we can use templates as the point of comparison for design work. Thousands of creators submit their templates to the graphic design software. Many templates look the same because it is the trend or looks modern. Regardless, Canva templates look decent to use as the base design for your brand. However, you need to modify it to your brand to avoid using similar templates from competitors or other brands.

Finally, Penji produces amazing designs for clients. Penji ensures that the cream of the crop joins the company to create designs their clients love. That said, they have various designers with different styles to ensure that your design specifications are met. Plus, Penji produces designs faster than Fiverr and its other competitors without sacrificing quality.

Competitor Analysis

One fair comparison to make is between Fiverr and Penji since both deal with actual designers and their work. Here are a couple of comparison points for these two services to help you narrow your options further.

• Design variations – Fiverr freelancers can create a few variations. Meanwhile, Penji designers can produce multiple variations since you can switch between designers.
• Work volume – Fiverr designers can produce a limited number of designs, depending on plan inclusions. Ideally, they’re a good option for one-off projects. However, Penji can produce more than 10+ designs, especially if you have a monthly volume of designs.
• Comfort – Penji allows you to sit back and run your company since Penji can be considered an extension of your team. Meanwhile, you need to browse and interview freelancers on Fiverr. Plus, you have to worry about payment and management.

But if we were to put Canva back into the equation, Canva has the upper hand in pricing. Plus, if you’re creative enough, you can produce great brand designs without the help of designers.

Final Thoughts

Graphic design work can be done and delivered in three ways: doing it yourself, hiring a freelancer, or subscribing to a graphic design service. In this three-way showdown among various design services, each has its strengths and weaknesses. The three services have different models, which could benefit users or subscribers in getting their designs. Eventually, it’s up to you which is the best design service option that will help you get the best designs for your brand.