Superside alternative: Brightbase vs. Superside-class design subscriptions, by the numbers

An honest comparison starts here. Superside is widely credited with building the enterprise design-subscription category, and the model works for a reason. Services in this class tend to be genuinely strong at enterprise polish: structured processes, dedicated account teams, and the vendor credibility that clears procurement, security, and compliance reviews at large organizations. They're built for volume, too. A steady stream of production design (ad variations, social assets, localizations) is exactly the throughput a subscription queue handles well. And some marketing teams simply prefer submitting briefs into a managed system over directing designers personally, which the model serves.

We compete on different terms, not on the claim that the category doesn't work. If those strengths map to your situation, a Superside-class subscription may genuinely be the right call, and the section further down covers when we'd say so. The five differences below are for teams whose needs look different.

The number that matters here is 30 days. That's our cancellation window. Superside-class plans commonly run on annual commitments, meaning a $15K/mo plan is typically a ~$180K/yr decision made up front, before you've seen a quarter of output. Even models marketed as "flexible" often still mean year-long terms, strict tiers, or fees that surface later. We bill monthly with no long-term commitment and no hidden fees, so the worst case on a decision that doesn't work out is one month, not eleven. If the work isn't great, you leave. We think that's healthy: the burden of keeping you stays on us, every month, where it belongs. You can also adjust hours month-to-month as workload changes, and unused hours roll over (capped at 100% of that month's retained hours), so a slow month isn't money burned.

There are zero layers between you and the people doing your work. You collaborate directly with our senior talent, including a creative director, a senior developer with 15+ years of experience, and a senior designer with 12 years, inside your own tools: Slack, Asana, Trello, Notion. No async ticketing queue, and unlimited meetings. Subscription platforms typically route requests through a project manager or customer success manager instead. That layer exists for good reasons at scale, but it adds a translation step on every brief and every round of feedback, and for nuanced brand and product work each translation step is a place where intent gets lost. Here, when you say "make it feel more premium," the person who hears it is the person holding the pen.

$150/hr is our entire pricing model. One rate across design, web development, video, and copywriting, at every retainer level. The math is checkable on a napkin: 50 hrs × $150 = $7,500/mo. You can price any project in your head and defend the budget to your CFO in one sentence. Project-based work outside a retainer runs $200/hr, and that's published too. Superside-class pricing typically works through tiered plans where the effective hourly rate isn't published, so comparing plans commonly means a sales call and a spreadsheet. One related category pattern worth naming: "unlimited design" plans are, in practice, typically bounded by turnaround, commonly working out to roughly 10–20 requests per month depending on complexity. With an hourly rate there is nothing to reverse-engineer. You know the price of an hour before you buy it.

One team, four disciplines: design, web development, video, copywriting. In our experience this is the gap that surprises buyers most. Design-only subscriptions typically stop at the handoff: the beautiful landing page mockup still needs someone to build it in Webflow, WordPress, or HubSpot. That commonly means a second vendor, a second contract, and a seam in the middle of every website project where quality and timelines slip. Our senior developer sits on the same team as our designers, so a landing page, a Webflow build, or a HubSpot page goes from brief to live without a handoff between companies. What gets designed is what gets shipped. For B2B SaaS teams whose creative work mostly ends up on a website, that seam is usually where design-only subscriptions quietly get expensive.

The annualized gap is roughly $90K. Our Level 1 retainer is 50 hours at $150/hr, about $7,500/mo or ~$90K/yr, with Levels 2, 3, and Enterprise above it as you grow. The commonly reported floor for Superside-class enterprise subscriptions is around $15K/mo, or ~$180K/yr, typically on an annual commitment. Two consequences follow. The entry decision is half the size. And combined with month-to-month terms, your total initial exposure is about $7,500, versus a category norm closer to a six-figure annual commitment. Because hours adjust month-to-month, you scale the retainer to the quarter you're actually having rather than the year you guessed at. For the bigger comparison, our published client savings versus comparable in-house creative teams run $291K–$498K per year; run your own numbers with the in-house cost calculator or see the full breakdown on the vs. in-house page.

Being honest about this is the point of the page. We'd point you at a subscription platform if:

• Your volume is industrial. Hundreds of ad variants, localized assets, and social graphics a month across many markets is what these platforms are built for.
• You want a managed queue, not a working relationship. Some teams prefer submitting briefs into a system over collaborating directly with creatives. For them the PM layer is a feature.
• Procurement wants an enterprise-standard vendor. Superside-class services typically invest heavily in compliance, security reviews, and vendor-management processes, and the category's name recognition can shorten approval at large organizations.
• Design is genuinely all you need. If web development, copywriting, and video are already covered in-house, a design-only scope isn't a gap.

We fit best when the opposite is true: you're a B2B SaaS team that needs senior brand, web, video, and copy work shipped, not just designed, with the developer and the designer on the same team, a direct line to the people doing the work, and a ~$7,500/mo starting point without signing a year away.

One senior team doing what a whole department does, for a fraction of the cost. We're plain about the mechanics behind that math: AI does the production; our named senior creatives do the judgment. Clients pay only for productive hours, versus the 50–60% average productive utilization published for in-house teams. Starting is measured in days rather than a hiring cycle; our published comparison is 20x faster than the 3–6 months an in-house hire typically takes.

We've been at this a while. The team began as a design and web shop in 2014 (studio LPDS, in NYC), grew retainer volume 10x in nine months starting in late 2020, and relaunched as Brightbase, a brand and website team for B2B SaaS positioned as the new alternative to freelancers, agencies, hiring, and subscription services. Our published client results include a 22% conversion-rate increase for SourceWhale after a brand and website redesign, and Fixify raising a $25M Series A after brand design work.

Every plan above is billed at $150 an hour, and every one of those hours is productive time. The calculator works the other side of the comparison: pick the roles you would otherwise hire, set their salaries, your team size and your overhead, and it totals what that team actually costs you — then sets the number against each tier on this page.