Penji Review 2024: Your Very Own “Design Team in a Box”? + 15% OFF Coupon

On-demand graphic design services are becoming a staple in business operations – not least thanks to the explosion of social media, which requires high-frequency, regular visual content to stay ahead of the competition.

The most influential representative of a new breed of service providers in this field is Penji: a contract-free, flat-fee service offering unlimited design projects for busy entrepreneurs and business owners.

In this detailed review, we will take a close look at Penji and seek answers to some of the most important questions for anyone considering this service:

• 🦄How is Penji different from other design services?
• 💵How much does Penji cost and what plans are available?
• 🔍Are there better deals for any of the Penji plans?
• 💡Is Penji worth using, and who should use it?

Those who are already familiar with Penji can use the table of contents on the right (full-screen) or below (mobile) to find specific topics, but before we go into the nitty-gritty of Penji, it’s worth starting with the basics:

What Is Penji and How Does It Work?

One of the leading on-demand graphic design services in the market today, Penji is a pride of Camden, New Jersey, that made it to the 2019 Inc. 5000 list snagging the 1006th spot. The founders, Johnathan Grzybowski and Khai Tran, launched Penji to provide reliable, fast, and affordable graphic design.

From having only a handful of clients years ago to catering to big guys like Reebok, UPenn, and AWeber – Penji’s mission is to help small and large businesses grow through quality and unique graphic designs.

At the core of Penji is the simple yet powerful idea of “subscription-based design services”:

for a flat monthly fee, you get unlimited design projects, complete with drafts and revisions – all the while retaining the flexibility of an online subscription (read – no long-term up-front commitments)

This means you don’t need to assemble and manage an in-house design team (or even a remote outsourced team) – you simply get a share of Penji’s vast pool of designers whenever you need them, coordinated by your personal account manager.

Sounds almost too good to be true!

Let’s dig a bit deeper and consider the benefits of Penji for your business, as well as potential risks:

Pros and Cons of Penji

Brands frequently need marketing graphics for their advertising channels — social media, outdoor advertising, online ads, print ads, branding, to name a few.

Subscribing to Penji feels a little like having your own magic army of designers-on-demand: you no longer have to hire separate specialists for every project type:

• Penji offers unlimited graphic designs, web and app designs, illustrations, and infographics. This is beneficial if your company is running on a tight schedule.

Plus, you no longer have to pay hourly or per-project rates… and last but not least, Penji’s plans come with unlimited revisions: unlike other design services that charge extra for revisions, Penji lets you request as many modifications as you like, at no additional cost.

• Penji runs on a subscription-based system that lets its clients pay a fixed fee every month.

Startups and small businesses might be working with a shoestring budget when it comes to marketing – and this is one of the reasons why many choose Penji as their go-to design service: paying a fixed rate every month enables brands to anticipate and allocate their budget without going overboard.

• Pre-vetted designers for the win! Penji only hires the top two percent of graphic designers in the industry. This means you no longer have to go through the rigorous hiring process when searching for quality graphic designers.

Moreover, Penji’s graphic designers have versatile skills and expertise. All your different projects will be assigned to the best suitable designer with similar knowledge.

• Speaking of design quality: Penji’s graphic designers are knowledgeable about graphic design trends, concepts, and principles – not to mention the latest industry tools and best practices.

Plus, all Penji’s designers have years of experience and seem to have worked with various existing brands – a nice touch given that most new design clients need professional guidance when it comes to the visual strategy and implementation.

• Penji’s promise of a 24 to 48-hour turnaround never fails to impress: all you have to do is submit your request and wait for the first draft, which will typically be ready within a working day.
• Penji takes pride in its seamless design process, enabled by the custom online platform they built in-house. This is where all the magic happens: by using Penji’s platform for requesting designs, asking revisions, and downloading, you no longer have to toggle between a myriad of apps and other sites.
• The creators of Penji don’t seem to be fans of excessive paperwork: there are no contracts involved, so every client has the freedom to cancel their subscription anytime, without incurring any cancellation fees.

Your projects will be stored in the Penji platform for 90 more days, so when you cancel your subscription and re-subscribe within 3 months, you’ll still have access to all your design projects.

A cherry on top?

• Penji offers a 15-day money-back guarantee for those who want to try their service, risk-free.

Impressive! Let’s talk about risks and potential drawbacks, though. Here are some of the things you should take into account when using Penji:

• The flat monthly fee might be a blessing for organizations with a constant stream of new design requests – but for those whose design volumes vary a lot from month to month, Penji’s fixed-price plans might not offer the best value during the months of low demand.
• Penji’s core idea is to commoditize design; the flip-side is that designers in Penji are interchangeable, and you will probably be assigned different designers from time to time if your preferred ones are currently busy with other clients or otherwise unavailable.

This also means that in order to get the best value out of Penji, it is always worth being as specific as possible in your design briefs – newly assigned designers might not be familiar with your previous orders and discussions.

• Finally, Penji’s platform allows communicating with designers in written form – via the online dashboard or by email; there’s no possibility to talk on the phone, which makes things a bit more complicated for those who strongly prefer verbal communication.

Just like any other tool, Penji is not necessarily great for everyone – so be sure to evaluate your design needs against how much you will pay for your subscription. Speaking of which:

Penji Plans and Pricing

Clients can choose between 3 affordable plans, depending on their monthly design needs. Here is a breakdown of the rates and included features:

The Professional plan is suitable for solopreneurs, startups, and small businesses with regular visual design needs; it comes with 1 designer and 2 team seats – more than enough for a project with a couple dozen visuals per month.

The Team plan adds more user seats and allows creating a wider range of output compared to Pro – including website designs (not code, though!), custom illustrations, and even infographics. The Agency plan takes it one step further, adding a second designer and priority support to maximize productivity for the most demanding clients.

All plans come with unlimited revisions – this means that you can request changes to the deliverables as often as you like (preparing a clear and detailed brief will still save you lots of time, though).

If you do decide to try Penji, you can save even more by using our exclusive discount offer:

BONUS: -15% Penji Coupon

Yes, we know – 15% discounts are already available for the yearly billing cycles; in this case, however, we will show you how to get the same lower price for a monthly subscription, thus reducing your up-front commitment 12-fold 😎

Follow these steps to get 15% off the monthly plans:

1. Click on the link below to open Penji’s official pricing page; choose the plan you like and hit the big purple button:

   Get 15% Off Your Penji Subscription

2. On the next screen, take note of the promo code field under the pricing choice in the right-hand side:

   

3. If the field is already filled, just hit “Apply”; if the field is blank, copy and paste this coupon code and hit “Apply”:
   SATORI15

Voila! Notice how your price became 15% lower – you can now continue with the registration and checkout!

Verdict: Should You Use Penji?

Ours is a visual age! To stand out online and offline, it is imperative to create eye-catching graphics that separate you from the competition.

You can achieve this by perusing pure freelance services like Fiverr, hiring and managing a full-fledged in-house design team – or you can take a simpler approach a use Penji.

Subscribing to Penji is like having your own design team, with none of the hassle:

Startups and small businesses can scale and level the playing field due to cost-efficiency, while agencies can make the most out of a design partner with simple, transparent pricing and dedicated support.

Overall, Penji is a smart choice if you have constant design needs (e.g. social media channels, regular ad campaigns, blog posts, physical promos, etc.

Before subscribing to Penji, though, keep in mind these two things:

• Make sure that your regular design demands are at least several items per day – otherwise you might not get the best value out of a flat-fee tool like Penji. Trying out the cheapest plan is the most sensible option, given the 15-day money-back guarantee.
• If you do decide to subscribe, check out our step-by-step instructions above on how to obtain a better price for your monthly billing cycle – why pay more if you can pay less?

Still have questions about Penji which were not answered in this review? Let us know in the comments section below!