Artone Studio vs Designity: Founder-Led Design Partner vs Creative-as-a-Service

Artone Studio is the better pick for technology companies that want one senior team to think through the product, then design, build, and ship it, while Designity suits marketing teams that want a managed pool of creatives and marketers working through a set number of hours each month.

TL;DR: Designity is a New York-based creative-as-a-service company that gives each client a Creative Director, a project manager, and a marketing strategist, plus a rotating team of vetted creatives billed by monthly hours. Its Plus plan is $5,995 a month for 120 hours and two active creatives, Premium is $8,995 a month for 180 hours and three, and Custom starts from $6,000 a month. Artone Studio is an AI-native design and build partner at $5,000 a month, with our founder leading every engagement and a senior team covering product design, web design, brand identity, development, and motion. Designity is built around marketing volume across 100+ services, while we focus on product decisions and shipped product, web, and brand work. For technology companies past pre-seed that need product judgment and execution from one accountable team, Artone is the better fit.

What each studio is

Artone Studio is a design and build partner for technology companies: AI companies, SaaS and software teams, and digital products, from funded startups and scaleups to established product teams. We were founded in December 2022 and bring 9+ years of industry experience. Every engagement is led by Razvan Badea, who joins product calls, helps decide what to build and how it should work, and reviews every deliverable before it ships. Senior specialists in product, web, brand, development, and motion do the work under his briefs.

Designity describes itself as an AI-enabled, human-led creative-as-a-service platform. Its own site dates the company to 2016 in New York City, with Creative Directors added a year later. Every plan pairs you with a Creative Director, a project manager, and a marketing strategist, who staff your projects from a vetted community of creatives and marketers. Designity says it covers 100+ design and marketing services and that it does not use AI for final creative work.

Pricing and value

Designity publishes three monthly plans:

• Plus: $5,995 a month for 120 dedicated hours, two active creatives or projects at once, a 24-hour turnaround on minor requests, 4 hours of consultation, and one brand.
• Premium: $8,995 a month for 180 dedicated hours, three active creatives, a 12-hour turnaround on minor requests, 6 hours of consultation, and two brands.
• Custom: from $6,000 a month, with hours, creatives, and brands set per account.

Quarterly billing saves $1,500 a quarter and yearly billing saves $10,800 a year. Unused hours do not roll over. Extra capacity is sold as weekly add-ons, such as $895 a week for an additional creative. You can pause for two weeks per quarter for a $995 fee, and cancel with 7 days' notice before renewal. New clients start with a 2-week trial with no upfront payment, but if you cancel during the trial you lose the copyright to anything created in it.

Our Retainer is $5,000 a month: one request in progress at a time, with updates every other business day, across product, web, brand, development, and motion. Retainer Plus is $9,000 a month for two requests in progress at once. Both include unlimited revision rounds, cancel anytime, a pause once per 30-day cycle, and a 75% refund if the partnership is not a fit within the first week. For a single defined outcome, custom projects start at $2,000 with a 50/25/25 payment split, one package price.

The difference is what the fee buys. A Designity plan buys a block of hours spread across whichever creatives your Creative Director assigns. Our retainer buys a founder-led team that owns the product thinking and the execution, without metering hours. Our guide to design retainers versus projects explains when each model makes sense, or you can talk to us about your scope.

Delivery and speed

Designity onboards through forms, a Creative Director match, and a kickoff call that it says happens about 2 to 3 business days after matching. It says you get a project timeline within 8 hours of kickoff. Minor requests get a 24-hour or 12-hour turnaround depending on the plan, while larger work follows the timeline. Progress comes through video updates in its portal.

We send updates every other business day. A request can be small and finished by the next update, or large, like a product redesign or an MVP build, with several progress updates before final delivery. AI is built into how we work, so more directions get explored and prototypes get coded early, but a senior person is making the calls.

Services and capabilities

Designity's range is wide and leans toward marketing: ads and social creative, SEO, video, branding, website design and front-end coding, and app UI/UX design, among the 100+ services it lists. Every plan also includes a brand-trained AI assistant.

Our scope is narrower on marketing execution and deeper on product:

• Product design: web and mobile apps, design systems, prototyping, UI/UX audits.
• Web design: landing pages and multi-page sites, copywriting, built in Framer.
• Brand identity: guidelines, logos and marks, pitch decks, brand assets, social graphics.
• Development: Framer builds, full-stack web apps and MVPs, mobile apps, backend and APIs, and cleanup of MVPs built with AI tools.
• Motion design: launch videos, explainer videos, logo reveals, and product animations.

The practical difference: Designity is set up to keep a marketing calendar full across many formats. We are set up to make product decisions and ship the app, the site, and the launch assets from the same thinking.

Collaboration

Designity runs work through its own portal, where you track timelines, review deliverables, and leave feedback, plus a Slack channel. The Plus plan includes one point of contact, with extra contacts at $295 a month. Your Creative Director, project manager, and marketing strategist sit between you and the creatives doing the work.

We work in a private Slack Connect channel, with optional weekly strategy calls. You talk directly to Razvan, with no account manager or project manager in between, and full ownership of every file, asset, code base, and Framer site transfers to you.

Clients, credibility, and recognition

Designity shows a 4.8 out of 5 rating on Clutch from 28 reviews and a 4.5 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot from 111 reviews. Some negative reviews mention a slow start before real work begins. Designity lists brands such as Calendly, Marriott Hotels, and Oracle among its clients.

Artone has delivered 80+ projects for companies with a combined valuation of $1B+. Our clients have raised over $10M in combined funding, and 2 out of 3 clients come back. Our work has been recognized by Awwwards, Effie Awards, Contra, Landbook, and Orpetron, including a Framer Site of the Year nomination, and we are an Official Framer Expert.

Side-by-side comparison

	Artone Studio	Designity
Model	Monthly retainer or fixed-scope project	Monthly plan billed by dedicated hours
Starting price	$5,000/month; custom projects from $2,000	$5,995/month for 120 hours
Capacity	One request in progress (Retainer) or two (Retainer Plus)	Two active creatives (Plus) or three (Premium)
Updates	Every other business day	Project timelines and video updates in the portal
Who leads the work	Founder-led, senior team owns the brief	Creative Director assigns vetted creatives
Product and UX design	Yes, including prototypes, design systems, and audits	App UI/UX among 100+ services
Development	Framer, full-stack web apps, mobile, backend	Front-end website and app coding
Marketing execution	Website copy as part of web design	Ads, social, SEO, and video
Communication	Slack Connect, optional weekly calls	Designity portal plus Slack
Terms	Cancel anytime, pause once per cycle, 75% first-week refund	7-day cancellation notice, $995 two-week pause per quarter, 2-week trial
Ownership	Full ownership of files, code, and sites	Full copyright once you pay; trial work lost if you cancel during the trial

When Artone is the better fit

• You need product design, UX, and prototypes tied to real product decisions, not hours spread across tasks.
• You want one team accountable for designing and building your website, web app, or MVP.
• You want a partner who helps decide what to build and challenges assumptions.
• You want to talk directly to the person leading the work, without a layer of account and project managers.
• You need product, web, brand, development, and motion to stay consistent as one system.
• You have one defined project and want a fixed price instead of a subscription.

When Designity is a good fit

• Your marketing team needs steady volume across ads, social, and video.
• You want ads and SEO work handled by the same provider as design.
• You manage more than one brand and want them under one plan.
• You prefer a structured portal with hour-based plans and project timelines.

If you are weighing unlimited-request plans in general, our explainer on unlimited design revisions covers what that promise usually means in practice.

Final take

Designity is a solid option for marketing teams that want a large menu of creative and marketing services, managed through a Creative Director and a monthly bank of hours. But hours across a rotating pool are not the same as a team that owns product outcomes. For technology companies that need someone to think through the product, then design, build, and ship it with one senior team, Artone Studio is the stronger choice. If that sounds like what you need, book a call with us and we will walk through your roadmap.