Artone Studio vs Superside: which design partner fits startups best

Artone Studio is the better choice for early-stage founders who want a senior design and build partner without a five-figure monthly minimum or an annual contract. Superside makes sense for large marketing teams that need high-volume creative production at enterprise scale.

TL;DR

Superside is a creative subscription built for enterprise and mid-market brand teams, with plans starting at $15,000 a month on an annual commitment plus a $1,000 monthly software fee. Its strength is volume: ads, video, presentations, and localized assets produced by a large global bench. Artone Studio is a flat $5,000 a month retainer covering product design, web design, brand identity, motion, and development, with no long-term contract, and custom one-off projects start at $2,000. For a startup that needs product thinking, a website that converts, and a team that can also build what it designs, Artone is the stronger fit.

What each studio is

Artone Studio is an AI-native design and build partner for technology companies. Every engagement is led by our founder, who works through the product with you, what to build, why it matters, and how it should work, and then our team designs it, builds it, and ships it. We bring 9+ years of experience and 80+ projects across AI, B2B SaaS, and fintech, and our clients have reached a combined valuation of over $1B.

Superside describes itself as "your creative team's creative team." It positions as an extension of in-house creative departments, combining a global pool of designers, motion artists, copywriters, and strategists with its own AI workflows and a platform called Superspace. It says it supports 400+ brands, and the logos and testimonials on its site lean toward large companies such as Amazon, Colgate-Palmolive, Novartis, and Pernod Ricard.

Pricing and value

This is where the two models split the most.

Superside's pricing page states that subscriptions start at a $15,000 monthly minimum on an annual term, and that all subscriptions run on an annual commitment. On top of the monthly budget there is a $1,000 per month software fee for platform access. A Dedicated team starts at $30,000 a month on a 12-month term. Larger one-off pushes are handled through Project Boosters starting at $15,000 on top of the subscription, and an optional Quick Start onboarding package costs $20,000. Unused Flex budget rolls over for up to three months. In practice, the entry point is roughly $192,000 a year before any add-ons.

Artone is a flat $5,000 a month. That covers product design, web design, brand identity, motion design, and development, and you can point the retainer at whatever matters most that month. There is no annual contract, you can cancel anytime, and if the partnership is not a fit in the first week, we refund 75%.

If you need one defined deliverable instead of ongoing work, we also take on custom projects from a $2,000 minimum, paid 50% upfront, 25% at the midpoint, and 25% before final files ship. Superside offers paid exploratory projects, but describes them as a pathway toward a subscription rather than a standalone option.

For a startup, the question is less about which is cheaper and more about commitment. A year-long contract assumes your creative needs are predictable. At the early stage, they rarely are.

Want to see how this would work for your product? Book a call with us.

Delivery and speed

Superside says new accounts get onboarding at no extra cost, with the first project landing within the first few weeks, and that a Dedicated team goes live in about three weeks. Work is briefed and reviewed through its platform, and each project is staffed from its creative bench, with a dedicated project manager keeping things moving.

At Artone, we deliver updates every other business day. Because the same small team stays on your account, there is no re-briefing a new designer each time, and the person who understood the product decision last week is the one shaping the next screen.

Services and capabilities

Superside's Flex budget covers creative production across design, video, and photo, specialist work such as UI/UX, illustration, motion, 3D, AR, and audio, plus creative and brand strategy and AI consulting. Its featured use cases are performance marketing creative, video and motion production, localization, and B2B sales collateral. Its center of gravity is marketing output at scale. Product development is not listed among the services its Flex plan covers.

Artone covers five areas under one retainer: product design (web apps, mobile apps, design systems, prototyping, UI/UX audits), web design (landing pages, multi-page websites, copywriting), brand identity (logos, guidelines, pitch decks), motion design, and development. We build websites in Framer and also develop web and mobile apps, so the same team that designs your product can ship it. You can read more about how that works in our FAQ.

Collaboration

Superside runs work through Superspace, its own platform for briefs, reviews, and brand knowledge, and integrates with tools such as Jira, Asana, Monday.com, and Slack.

We work in a shared Slack channel, with optional weekly calls when a conversation is faster than a thread. You own every file we produce. Our founder joins product discussions directly, so there is no account manager sitting between you and the person doing the thinking.

Clients, credibility, and recognition

Superside reports 400+ brands supported and 200K+ projects delivered, and its testimonials come mostly from enterprise marketing and creative leaders.

Artone has delivered 80+ projects, our clients have a combined valuation of over $1B, and 2 of 3 clients come back for more work. You can learn more about how we work on our about page.

Side-by-side comparison

	Artone Studio	Superside
Best for	Early-stage and growing tech companies	Enterprise and mid-market brand teams
Starting price	$5,000/month retainer, or custom projects from $2,000	$15,000/month plus $1,000/month software fee
Commitment	Cancel anytime, 75% refund in the first week	Annual commitment on all subscriptions
One-off projects	Yes, from $2,000 (50/25/25)	Exploratory projects as a path to a subscription
Core services	Product, web, brand, motion, development	Marketing creative, video, design, localization, presentations
Development	Yes, including Framer sites and web and mobile apps	Not listed in Flex plan services
Team model	Founder-led, same team on your account	Global creative bench staffed per project
Collaboration	Slack plus optional weekly calls	Superspace platform with integrations
File ownership	Full ownership of all files	Not publicly listed

When Artone is the better fit

• You are an early-stage company and cannot justify a $15,000 monthly minimum or a 12-month contract.
• You need product design, not only marketing assets, and want someone who helps decide what to build.
• You want design and development from the same team, so screens turn into a working product without a handoff.
• Your priorities change month to month, and you want to move the retainer between product, web, and brand freely.
• You need one defined project, such as a pitch deck, a landing page, or an app redesign, without signing up for a subscription.
• You prefer working directly with a founder-led team over a platform and a rotating bench.

When Superside is a good fit

• You run a large in-house creative or marketing team with steady, high-volume demand.
• Your budget comfortably supports an annual contract starting at $15,000 a month.
• You need lots of ad variants, localized assets, or video across many markets at once.
• You want a single vendor for marketing creative at enterprise scale, with its own briefing platform and AI tooling.

Final take

Superside is built for big brands with big, predictable creative budgets, and for that buyer its scale and platform make sense. For early-stage founders, the annual commitment and five-figure minimum are hard to justify, and its focus on marketing production leaves product design and development largely outside the core offer. Artone gives you senior product, web, and brand design plus development for $5,000 a month, or a single project from $2,000, with no long-term contract.

If you are weighing the two, let's talk about what you are building.