crowdspring Reviews

In other words, crowdspring promises multiple entries for each category but with a much more reasonable pricing policy than working with a team of professional artists.

Freelancer profile pages are pretty bland, leaving little room to showcase your skills and achievements. You have a large, color-coded circle displaying your reputation, some personal info, a middle section with your latest successes and a gallery for your portfolio. Although this way everybody has the same chances in the eyes of the employers, it makes it quite hard to stand out from the crowd.

If you haven’t noticed it by now, it is quite obvious that crowdspring does everything in its power to spoil employers, labeled as Buyers. First and foremost, they enjoy a full refund on projects that don’t provide satisfying results, but only if said contest is public, the number of contestants is under 100 and no winning position is guaranteed. To show that you are a fair Buyer, and to prevent the shameful exploitation of aspiring artists/designers, you should go with the Assured Contest, a far more motivating solution for Creatives.

As with all freelance websites, the higher tier payment package you use, the more noteworthy perks you unlock. In the case of crowdspring, such features are the focus group (which helps you choose the winning artwork), site-wide promotions, collaboration tools, private galleries (so only you can see the results), and the option to work with premium-level artists only.

Launching a project is pretty easy, as it only requires four steps. First the site asks some general information about the artwork or writing to be created. In order to be sure you receive what you want, write a few lines about your preferences and pinpoint some general guidelines for the final product. In case you already have a concept in your head or you wish to include a specific design element, share that as well, otherwise just go through the final works and contact the Creatives for any further refinement.

As for the user interface, called MySPRING, it is minimalistic and has an old-fashioned look, which is unworthy of a design website. The browsing tab feels a bit crowded, but it’s quite informative, making it easy to skim the available offers, especially since search results can be further sorted by category, activity and industry type.

To fully embrace the artist community, crowdspring doesn’t charge service fees on the earnings of the Creatives. Buyers, on the other hand, should prepare to dip deep into their pocket when resorting to this company’s services. The website offers four packages (Express, Silver, Gold, Platinum), all coming with pre-determined prices that vary depending on the contest type: for instance, simple logos cost less, while full web-designs tend to be more expensive. The type of package also heavily influences the duration of the event, the maximum number of entries and, of course, the choice of additional features.

For example, logo designing starts from $199 in Express, costs $299 in the most popular Silver package, is $499 in the best value Gold package, while it has a price tag of $1,199 in Platinum, the company’s top plan. It’s worth mentioning that each plan includes only one prize, which is about 2/3 of the overall value. To choose more than one winner you must deposit additional amounts instead of splitting the existing prize into smaller chunks.

crowdspring is unique in the sense that it’s a design contest site expanding to writing and branding, thus making it a far more attractive choice for the creative crowd. The only problem is that the service clearly favors clients over freelancers, as it only addresses the former and fails to provide assurance for the latter. In other words, if you are a freelancer, especially a beginner, this site is not the best choice, despite the huge advantage of the waived service fees.

As for clients, we whole-heartedly recommend the site, since crowdspring freelancers are well able to present you with beautiful designs and other creative work, not to mention there are numerous features aimed at your convenience. There’s also the money-back guarantee, the ability to invite only premium users and the option to outsource a project for one specific Creative.