Did you know that 22% of marketers spend more than an hour to find the right digital assets? If that sounds familiar, you might be looking for a digital asset management (DAM) solution and wondering if Brandfolder is right for you.
Brandfolder is a DAM platform designed to help organizations manage, distribute, and analyze their digital assets, such as images, videos, documents, and other media files.
Brandfolder is typically used by marketers, creative professionals, and organizations that need to manage a large — and growing — volume of digital content.
According to HubSpot’s “State of Marketing 2023” report, 42% of marketing teams expect the number of campaigns they work on each quarter to increase, highlighting a growing need for efficient asset management.
Brandfolder boasts a massive range of asset storage features, including:
- Collaboration
- Analytics
- Multiple options for filtering, tagging, and sorting
- Sending your brand assets to print
However, it’s generally better suited to larger organizations and enterprises — and if that’s not you, perhaps you’re looking for an alternative to Brandfolder.
It turns out Brandfolder might not be the best creative asset management solution for small businesses, startups, and solo entrepreneurs for several reasons, including:
- Long onboarding time — it can take months to get set up
- Steep learning curve
- Brandfolder’s pricing is expensive
- Individual team members don’t want to use it
So join us as we take a look at five of the best Brandfolder alternatives for creatives, small teams, and freelancers in 2024.
The top Brandfolder alternatives for creative teams in 2024
Digital asset management software helps you get on top of your files and folders so you can find what you need when you need it. Here are the top five Brandfolder alternatives for small creative teams.
1. Playbook
Playbook is the storage system by creatives for creatives, made with small teams and freelance designers in mind. It acts as a single source of truth for everyone, from marketing teams to clients, offering a visually intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface that is perfect for managing creative files.
Our real-time collaboration tools, including chats and quick feedback options, streamline the creative process, and our users love Playbook’s ease of use and intuitive interface, which make searching for digital files fast and effortless.
Plus, our sharing features enable you to present your work in beautiful gallery or portfolio formats and control which team members can edit, view, or comment on your files.
“With Playbook’s publish option, I just click one little button, and I’m all set.I don’t have a team, but if I had one, I’d love to just send one link and say here’s XYZ we need to sign off on before we send it over,” explains Sheila Streetman, a graphic designer and brand strategist.
With Playbook AI, you can create images with Stable Diffusion or DALL-E from directly within Playbook, and we offer Midjourney users an integration that allows you to connect your Midjourney and Playbook accounts. Playbook AI automatically saves all your prompts and versions so you can easily reuse or refer back to them.
With Playbook, you don’t have to go it alone. When you sign up, you join a vibrant community that connects creatives from around the world who support, inspire, and healthily compete with one another through contests, giveaways, and more.
To learn more about Playbook, download our ebook, ‘2023: a Design Year in Review.’
2. Canto
As an alternative to Brandfolder, Canto offers a robust digital asset management platform that simplifies content workflows and enhances team productivity. It improves collaboration across internal and external teams and has features for easy distribution of digital assets.
Like Playbook, Canto helps increase content ROI by streamlining every stage of the content lifecycle, and it integrates well with various marketing tech and media production tools.
However, Canto doesn’t offer the same level of specialized features and community engagement specifically tailored for creatives and designers that Playbook does.
3. Bynder
Bynder is a digital asset management system that provides scalable and comprehensive solutions, particularly suited for larger businesses.
Its strong points include robust integration capabilities, efficient workflow automation, and advanced analytics for better content strategy decisions.
Bynder’s platform is designed to handle complex asset management needs, making it a viable Brandfolder alternative.
However, for smaller teams and freelancers, Playbook may be more appealing due to its focus on simplicity, user-friendly design, and community-driven approach to content management that nurtures creativity and collaboration.
4. Filecamp
Filecamp is another Brandfolder alternative that takes a user-friendly and streamlined approach to digital asset management.
It offers personalized branding options, allowing users to customize the platform with their own branding elements.
Filecamp’s simplicity and straightforward controls make it accessible, requiring no extensive training for new users. However, it lacks Playbook’s real-time collaboration tools, AI-driven asset creation and management capabilities, and a strong community of creatives.
5. Airtable
Airtable, while not a dedicated DAM, is a versatile option for those seeking a more lightweight and customizable storage solution. It provides cloud storage, project management, and impressive integration capabilities, making it suitable for varied organizational needs.
Airtable’s strength lies in its flexibility and the ability to tailor its workspace to specific workflows. However, it lacks the focused features for creative asset management and sharing, as well as the visual browsing experience that Playbook offers, making Playbook a more suitable choice for those in creative fields.
Playbook: the best Brandfolder alternative for small creative teams and freelancers
If you’re a freelancer or member of a small team looking for a smart, streamlined, and budget-friendly solution that caters to the needs of creatives, Playbook might be the storage platform for you.
Its intuitive design, real-time collaboration tools, AI-driven features, and vibrant creative community set Playbook apart in both functionality and customer experience.
You’ve got nothing to lose with Playbook’s free plan, which enables you to test out our comprehensive digital asset management features before you decide to upgrade.