99designs Reviews 

Do NOT buy the "Brand Guide". Have your AI do it for free.

Love it. Love it. Love it. Great design results and seamless experience.

Great service. I've used them twice already for logos.

Had my wife's artwork logo designed and completed within 24 hours by 99d (on Vistaprint) for just £30 - and it's beautiful! Chose the designer (Sarjon) over several others after glancing through samples of their work. He was super-quick and professional and a pleasure to work with. Highly recommended.

It was a great experience and super easy. We got so many different designs it was difficult to select only one. Will use them every time.

I’m disappointed with the service. The designers did good work, but the support experience was frustrating.

I called customer support at 9:39 am on Monday and reached a voicemail message saying the office was closed for the weekend and would reopen at 9 am. Hearing that message during stated business hours was unprofessional.

As a first-time user, I also found it difficult to work out how to view the winning design. The site navigation wasn’t straightforward, and I couldn’t reach support when I needed help. Overall, it was a poor experience.

A great experience for a first-time design contest. I loved being able to explore many different creative directions before choosing the right designer and concept for my business. I ultimately received a professional brand identity that I absolutely love. I would use 99designs again. My only suggestion would be clearer guidance for first-time clients about what to expect at each stage of the contest

Today, I would like to share a bitter experience I have had with 99designs.

I have been an active designer on 99designs for almost two years. I have spent a lot of time, effort, and dedication building my profile, and I had hoped to build my future through this platform. During this time, I have achieved 3 contest wins, 7 runner-up placements, completed 6 one-to-one projects with a returning client, and received 8 five-star reviews from clients.

I have always tried my best to follow 99designs’ rules. Like anyone, I have made some mistakes, especially a mistake in how I previously declared my use of AI. I accepted that mistake, received the 7-day suspension and warning, and since then I have taken the rules much more seriously and made every effort to work according to them.

There have also been several reports against my designs. From my experience, when my designs received strong ratings from clients and appeared near the top of contests, some designers reported them for different reasons, including AI use or copying. In some cases, I appealed those reports, and after reviewing my designs, 99designs accepted them. Therefore, I do not believe that every report in my account history represents an actual violation.

The most recent situation has been particularly disappointing for me. A designer reported one of my pouch designs because there was a difference between the flat artwork and the mockup. After reviewing it myself, I also noticed the issue. The mockup had excessive brightness, which made some background elements difficult to see clearly. I withdrew the entry because I intended to correct the issue and submit it again.

I was first given a 24-hour suspension, and only a few hours later I was informed that my account would be permanently closed.

I have now spoken with the 99designs Support Team about my situation. They told me that they respect my work, my history, and the explanations I provided, and that these matters were taken into consideration. However, they told me that the decision they made is final.

Honestly, this is extremely disappointing for me.

I completely understand and respect the fact that 99designs needs rules and policies as a professional marketplace. If I have made a mistake, I understand that there should be an appropriate consequence. If necessary, remove me from the specific contest, remove the problematic design, or apply an appropriate penalty.

But my question to 99designs is: Should a misunderstanding or a relatively minor mistake result in permanently closing an account that a designer has spent almost two years building?

I have never intentionally tried to harm a client, deceive a client, or copy another designer's work. I have always tried to follow the platform's rules, and whenever I have made a mistake, I have tried to learn from it and improve.

I am not writing this to attack 99designs or its team. I am simply sharing my experience and asking a genuine question as a designer:

Should years of hard work, client relationships, successful projects, and a career built on the platform be completely taken away because of a mistake or misunderstanding?

I still sincerely hope that 99designs will consider my complete history and circumstances once more from a fair and proportionate perspective.

Because while the rules of a professional platform are important, the years of hard work and the future that a designer has built around that platform are important too.

Timely responses and very well run competition

The time I had to devote to the project in order to sift through sub-par or downright amateur submissions was far too high a cost for so little benefit. I would have done better applying that time to find and screen a single designer to work with directly via phone/Zoom instead of an email messaging platform, and where I could vet their professional experience and ensure that there would be no language barrier or communication issues.

**My designer that received the final award was creatively talented but professional incompetent.**
During the initial logo design phase, his design stood out well above all the other designers as a fresh interpretation. His superior design, his responsiveness, and quick improvements in few iterations won him the final award. However, after that in the hand-over process, everything fell apart.

I purchased a Brand Starter Pack, which includes Logo Design (w/ variations), Business Card, Brand Guide, and Social Media Covers. He acted as if it was a logo-only project, and started demanding payment almost immediately without finishing the other deliverables. I had to engage Customer Support to validate that my expectations of the deliverables was correct, my requests were in-scope, and they had to go engage the designer on my behalf to make him fulfill the other deliverables. Even after that, I still had to use ChatGPT to design my own color palette and typography, neither of which he offered any professional or creative input on.

The designer had absolutely zero professional project management ability. I had to be the Project Manager, managing hyper-specific lists of deliverables, their statuses, the open questions/requests for each… he’d say he’s done, and I’d point him back to a list of items that are still open.

I didn’t work with a professional designer who does this for a living… I hired an amateur who is creatively talented and knows how to use Adobe Illustrator, but not how to project manage deliverables. I would assess his ability level as a Junior Designer, at best, who could likely be successful as part of a larger creative team with proper management overhead in place to direct his efforts. He is nowhere near ready to work independently as a project professional.

I have very mixed feelings about 99designs after completing a Silver illustration contest.

While I did end up with a winner that I want to continue working with, the process was incredibly stressful, and I want to warn other business owners about two major flaws:

- Massive issues with AI and stock: Despite paying for a premium Silver tier, the contest was flooded with AI-generated art and stock graphics—even among the finalists and eventhough this is prohibited in certain categories on 99Designs. When I pointed out obvious stock usage, support did not agree eventhough it was so obvious.

- Misguided advice and extreme time pressure: I was initially recommended the wrong category by 99designs, which scared away real designers and made others pull out. 99designs decided that this was my problem—not theirs.
As compensation later in the contest—due to the severe stress caused by setting up the contest in the wrong category—support offered to extend my deadline late Friday afternoon. I replied 'yes' just one hour later, but support had already gone home for the weekend, so I received no extension after all.
Earlier in the contest I had to pay for an extension myself to give me more time to manage the situation and save my contest.

- The only positive: Support did react swiftly and professionally when one specific designer became abusive and toxic, immediately banning them from the contest. And the staff seems nice enough.

Crucial advice for other buyers: If you use this platform, you must act as your own quality control. Always use reverse image search tools like Google Lens on every design submission before moving them to the finals. You will be shocked by how many designs are just slightly modified stock images or AI-generated.

As it may have huge consequences for you and your business if you end up with AI or stock presented as an original design, I feel morally obliged to write this review—even though I am very happy with my winner. I have checked her design over and over, and everything indicates that it is original and high quality, so I am thankful to 99designs for connecting me with the designer.

Verdict: I have chosen to continue working with my winner through a direct 1-to-1 project on the platform. However, knowing what I know now, I will never start a design contest on 99designs again.
Think twice before starting a "guaranteed" contest; you risk locking your money into a stressful process where you have to act as a full-time police officer against AI and stock, with very little backing from support.

The logo contest was well worth the money. So many entries and most artist were 5 stars, but the one that stood out nailed the assignment.

I struggled on Fiverr for about 2 months trying to nail down a new logo and I couldn't find someone that had the creativity to design something. Part of the issue is I didn't know exactly what I was searching for. Thats why 99designs was perfect for me. Within 1 week, I had seen over 100 different concepts for a new logo. I choose my favorite and the revision process with the winning designer was fantastic. For anybody struggling to create a logo for their company, 99designs is the way to go.

contest was great, i had lots of wonderful options

Phenomenal!

Nicely done.

The process was seamless, i had lots of designers sharing modern concepts in the colors that i requested. I was delighted by the quick interactive responses i got from the designers i communicated with. The logo design was perfect for my business. I recommend the guaranteed competition.

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Imran Hosen was wonderful! Professional, courteous, efficient and talented. Thanks again, Imran! Ford😊

Fantastic design experts! Our design contest was very successful. We had over 250 designs submitted for our logo contest.

Great customer service also. We had a dedicated account manager to help us with the process.